Loading ...Did Arab Americans Make a Difference in the Election?
By: William Lafi Youmans / Arab America Contributing Writer
Everyone expected a close race. In the end, it was not. The ex-president, real estate tycoon and TV star Donald Trump emerged victorious over his opponent, the sitting Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris took over for President Joe Biden, whose age and cognitive coherence became a clear issue, without a primary or actually contested convention, and only months before the election.
Harris for her part still ran an impressive campaign, logistically speaking. She raised large amounts of money and put together a powerful ground game, mobilizing thousands of volunteers to make calls and hit the streets to turn out the vote. But it was clear her campaign communication strategy was to play it safe, offering a vague policy platform that rested more on her not being Trump than having a clear, new vision for a post-Biden America. She seemed to base her campaign at the end on the absurd idea of having a Republican on her cabinet. When she fully welcomed the Cheney family as a supporter, underscoring their endorsement, it was another tone-deaf moment given their co-authorship of the disastrous Bush wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. It is no wonder she failed to inspire progressive voters.
It will take some time to fully measure the impact of the Arab American community vote, along with others who voted against the Biden administration’s complicity in Israel’s assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. As Trump’s victory is all but official, it is possible it was one factor in Harris’s loss, but it is too early to say and the size of Trump’s win makes it less likely to have been a primary reason. When there is an electoral blowout, there are usually a few causes.
Traditionally, Arab American participation in the electoral process has been motivated by a range of factors, including immigration policies, foreign policy stances, and domestic issues, especially economics. In recent years, the Arab American community has grown in both numbers and political influence, yet it has not gained full recognition or embrace by candidates and parties. At most there is superficial lip service, but they are for the most part ignored, In American politics, money is king. Until Arab Americans are major donors to political campaigns or build a stronger network of groups that seek to influence elections, they will only be considered when needed, where they are a significant population in a close swing state.
It was only towards the end of the campaign cycle that the candidates made plays for the Arab American vote in Michigan, one of the closer races. Trump issued a statement about the need for peace Lebanon and Harris emphasized Palestinian rights in a speech. For Harris though, this was too little, too late. She set the bar so low that when Trump visited Dearborn, he won the city just by appearing. This came after the Democrats mysteriously deployed former president Bill Clinton to Michigan, where he bizarrely justified Israel’s claims, and implicitly, it’s use of mass violence against Arabs, based on biblical history. It was such an epic own-goal that some speculated Clinton intended to sink Harris’s chances with the community. Even Trump’s cursory lip service claiming he wanted to see peace in the region came off as more genuine than Harris’s, who was too much of a part of the administration arming, abetting and funding the genocide to simply continue with the old rhetoric. But she did, and it hurt her chances. The final vote tally will be tens of thousands less than the uncommitted movement’s votes 100,000 votes during the primary. She failed to distinguish herself on the issue.
More recently, Arab Americans have had a tendency to support Democratic candidates slightly more than Republicans. According to an AAI poll, this has been the case since 2000, but last year their predominant party identification swung to the Republican party. This shift can be attributed to several factors, including Trump’s businessman aura, which resonated with many Arab American business owners and entrepreneurs. But the shift took place as the Biden administration became the main sponsor of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
That is why in this election nearly half of major Dearborn precincts went to Trump, while Harris and anti-Green Party candidate Jill Stein split the rest. This was in a city that overwhelmingly went for Biden in 2020. The extent of resentment over Biden’s full-throated backing of Israel was such that many were willing to forget Trump’s sordid record of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric, not to mention his legal troubles. Trump, after all, was remembered for his first act as president, instituting a Muslim ban keeping out visitors from various countries, including Yemen. That is not to say Trump will be better on the issue. He was even on record saying that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should go all the way to finish the job. But for Arab Americans who voted on this issue, it was more important to send Democrats a message that their support will not be taken for granted.
While the impact of Arab American voters was probably not decisive given the gap of Trump’s victory over Harris, it was so wide that Democrats will not be able to credibly blame anyone else as tempted as they will be to avoid blame. This shock should send them to look in the mirror, to revisit the Republican Lite approach they’ve taken in election-after-election. I doubt it will. The Democrats have become just the sock puppet of a basket of special and corporate interests, only dressed up in shallow, neoliberal multiculturalism that Republicans eschew. They need fundamental change, but given the structural role of money, deep reform is unlikely.
For Arab Americans to really matter politically, they have to do more than just vote. They have to become one of the organized interests that political parties cannot afford to ignore. Though some Arab American voters will cheer this election’s outcome, either for Trump’s resurgence or for the Biden-Harris demise, they cannot presume this outcome will elevate their political standing as a community. That takes much more work and resources.
William Lafi Youmans is a visiting associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar and serves on the board of the Arab America Foundation. His research explores transnationalism, power, and communication issues, focusing on global news, media industries, technology, law, and politics. He also specializes in media law, Middle East politics, and Arab American studies.
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