Your dismissal of Arab American voters in Michigan is a mistake. If you were to check the CBC article linked by Velomont in the post a couple before yours you would see they are very important to who will win that state.
In 2020 Biden won MI by 154,000 votes. In 2020 there were 206,000 registered Muslim voters in the state. 71% or 146,260 of them cast ballots in that election with a large majority of them going to Biden. Given the closeness of this race, if most of them sit out the race, vote 3rd party or go to Trump that will spell serious trouble for the Harris campaign. They are already behind with White, Latino and Black male voters so losing this group will likely spell defeat for the Democrats.
These people are supremely pissed at Biden and feel totally betrayed by both parties. This will not end well and is exactly how Trump can win.
Nobody can be expected to thank, support, and vote for a party that just indirectly got many of their family relatives or people of their home/ethnicity killed, including many innocent civilians. Telling them “Yes, we killed some of your family, but you need to support us because our rival would kill even more” is the worst marketing slogan.
You know that this is a damned if you go one way, damned if you go another kind of issue, right? Muslim Americans are understandably pissed off by the situation in Israel. But if we had gone the other way (refusing to send weapons, provide support to Israel, etc.), then Jewish Americans would be ones who are pissed–and they are a much bigger voting block.
Biden has tried to square the circle on this issue, but both sides tend to be all-or-nothing when it comes to Israel, turning American politics into a kind of proxy war for a conflict that seemingly can never end.
If I were running for president, I would say (and I don’t even know if it’s going to be politically successful messaging, but I think it’s the right thing to do), “When I am president, I am going to sit both sides down and demand and force a solution. It will be my top priority on day one. We can’t go on like this any more.”
Because we really can’t. Since the founding of Israel in 1948, this conflict has been a cancer on global geopolitics.
I am angry at them, but I can remember doing the same myself. In 1968, I was aware that Humphrey was far more liberal than Nixon but I refused to support (I was too young to vote) HHH because he was a loyal member of LBJ’s administration and I wanted to punish them (and HHH specifically for not breaking with LBJ) for the Vietnam war. In retrospect I was a stupid kid.
As I alluded to in my comment, I do think there is a line possible that would keep both sides happy. Happy-ish. Happy adjacent. Less unhappy? Less… distraught and enraged?
Especially after the death of Sinwar, which presented a perfect opportunity to say: “good news everyone, goals achieved, no further arms needed”. Additionally, they can point to existing laws about the transfer of arms and what objectives are allowed and under what conditions. Or there is the option of making compliance with other goals actually conditional, such as ceasing the settlements (rather than it being a gentle suggestion). Loads and loads of options that, with the right message, could be palatable.
Some of them are stupid, yes. Some are bamboozled. As the old joke goes, half of all people are dumber than average. And a lot of people will naturally just blame whomever is in charge for the bad things happening now.
You may disagree with them, but it is objective fact that Harris is losing votes over this. IT’s all over the place.
Just two years ago the Post said Trump was a piece of shit. I guess they got paid off.
It is amazingly difficult for me to believe educated people actually believe this shit. I remain convinced that foreign agents and money from oligarchs, both American and foreign, explain a lot of this.
Well, that’s the squaring of the circle. Many, many states(wo)men have tried over the decades. And the problem is that many, perhaps most, of the players involved in the fighting have a vested interest in continuing the conflict to some degree.
With hostages still in captivity? Hamas is one of the players that wants to keep this going forever. If Israel were to disappear, their first task would be to find someone else to fight. Meanwhile, Israel wants to commit genocide, having been given about as good a reason as could be supplied on October 7 (that is, Hamas wanted as big and dirty a response as possible–and of course they got it).
Keep in mind their are actual military goals in addition to the desire to maximize votes in the election. E.g., the US had to help save Israel from a huge missile barrage from Iran. When everyone wants trouble, trouble they will get.
While that’s certainly also a problem, the matter at hand is what policy Harris could present to Arab/Muslim/young/Jewish American voters, that would be more palatable than that which is currently losing her votes.
My post is a vast oversimplification of suggested roads, but the general point is: it should be possible to do better. Better than Walz saying the expansion of Israel is a necessity, better than cart blanche and endless arms, better than undermining international institutions and ihl. Even working with Jewish organisations opposing arms transfers is a start that could facilitate the message towards the Jewish American community.
It is entirely impossible to convince people to vote for Harris if they feel it makes them complicit in genocide. People for whom that’s a red line will not move on that. It is difficult, but not impossible, to change policy and craft a message around that policy that upsets fewer potential voters.
It would be a mistake to dismiss them. And they can easily have the impact overestimated.
Best estimate is that Biden took the Arab vote 64 to 35. IF that instead goes down to 40 40 and 20% Stein then it is a net impact of 45K.
Not insignificant in a very tight state if it happens. Under 1% but it could be a critical number. But we don’t really have good data that that is going to happen when push comes to shove. The data we have mostly comes from The Arab Institute which may have a particular bias and message they want to send. Still it might happen. The desire to punish is a big one, but many also will I suspect hold their nose and vote for who they see as the lesser evil if they know sending a message may result in a very much worse outcome. If they think their vote critically matters.
There are also 130K Jewish voters in MI. Some of whom could be pushed to vote Trump depending on the messages sent.
It also is unclear if any messaging would win those who have decided to punish Harris back. AND you have PA with one of the nation’s highest Jewish populations, 5%. A mixed crowd of opinions but risking them in PA is a sizable offset.
Thank you, the points you make are helping me not go into full on panic. I will of course be very happy if this doesn’t sabotage the Harris campaign but in such a close race it makes me extremely anxious. I hope you are correct about people holding their noses and voting for the Ds.
FWIW here’s a recent survey that gets cited for Harris losing the Arab vote. Trump actually marginally ahead!
But note: who did you vote for in 2020? 37% Trump, 27% Biden and 32% didn’t vote. Nearly reversed of what we believe the vote actually was. And if so the current reported result is better than that.
Maybe, just maybe, their sample of 500 is a bit off. Just saying.
If a bunch of Michigan Arab voters don’t vote for Harris - and instead vote for a third party - and Harris does better amongst women then Joe Biden (who was smeared with allegations he liked to smell girls’ hair), then she can withstand the voter rebellion.
