WASHINGTON WATCH
There’s an insidious blame game occurring on social media. Whenever President Donald Trump takes one of his outrageous actions, Arab Americans are subjected to a flood of abusive messages. The “nicer” comments simply blame us for Mr. Trump’s victory, but others are punctuated by obscenities, vulgarities, and threats. There appears to be a concerted effort to absolve the Biden White House for its failed policies and the Harris presidential campaign for iys bad political decisions and instead blame Arab Americans for Trump’s victory.
Being threatened or targeted for blame is nothing new for Arab Americans. For decades now, we’ve had to fend off abusive comments holding us responsible for everything from the 1973 Oil Embargo to terrorist attacks, whether here in the US or in the Middle East.
I have experienced this personally. In the last two decades there have been four convictions for these kinds of threats directed against me, my family, or my staff. During one two-year stretch, between 2015 and 2017, we received 772 outrageous email threats accusing me of planning, training, and funding dozens of acts of violence.
What’s happening today is different in two ways. Instead of being accused of terrorism, we are being held responsible for Trump’s victory. Some of those targeting us with abuse aren’t mentally deranged individuals who hover about on the right wing of US politics, they are from the left. And while some of those blaming us for Harris’ defeat are unbalanced hate-filled characters, other accusations come from seasoned liberal political operatives or mainstream pundits who ought to know better.
To even suggest that Arab Americans are responsible for this election’s outcome is false, foolish, and irresponsible. In the first place, the Harris campaign didn’t need any help, they lost on their own. They may continue to maintain that their campaign was “flawless,” but if that’s the case, why did Democrats lose 45 percent of the Latino vote, or a significant share of Black males, or get wiped out among the white working-class?
These failures can’t be pinned on Arab Americans. They were the result of a failed campaign strategy designed and executed by consultants who are unprincipled, out of touch with the changing electorate, risk-averse and unimaginative. Instead of understanding the changing contours and growing diversity of the Hispanic, Asian, and Black communities, they either took them for granted or approached them with decades-old “one-size-fits-all” messaging. Added to this was their failure to address the economic insecurity of the working class of all races, and the misguided attempt to replace voters they were losing by winning moderate Republican-leaning, white suburban women by campaigning with former Congressman Liz Cheney (whose policies are neither moderate nor appealing to suburban women).
When tallying the “strategists’” failures, we must add Vice-President Harris’ failure to meet with Arab American leaders, demonstrate any distance from President Biden’s disastrous blank-cheque support for Israel, and the campaign’s refusal to allow a Palestinian woman, who had lost family in Gaza, to speak at the Democratic convention. All of these failures took a toll on Arab American support for the Democratic ticket.
Don’t blame Arab Americans. Blame the Biden administration and the Harris campaign. Don’t make us scapegoats, because even if Harris had carried the Arab American vote in Michigan and won that state, she still would have lost the other six battleground states and the election. And even if every Arab American voter had turned the other cheek and cast a ballot for Harris, she still would have lost the popular vote.
Having witnessed the traumatizing genocide that unfolded in Gaza and the enabling role played by the Biden administration, Arab Americans were in a bind. Although for the past two decades they’d voted for Democrats by a two-to-one margin, many found it difficult to support campaigns that ignored them and their pain. They asked for gestures of support and got none. And so, in the end, instead of the 60-30 margin won by Biden in 2020, Trump and Harris split the Arab American vote, with a small percentage supporting a third-party candidate, and a larger than average number not voting at all.
Given the fact that Arab Americans and their concerns were given such short shrift by the Harris campaign, it is wrong to hold them responsible for the loss in November. There’s a bit of racism at work here. If the concerns of any other group (ethnic, religious, or racial) had been so ignored, would they be scorned for abandoning the party that offended them? And when Trump started mass deportations, I haven’t seen Latino voters blamed or targeted with hate because 45 percent of them didn’t vote for Harris. And of course, they should not be because instead of blaming the people they let down, the campaign needs to look in the mirror and find fault with itself. I would simply have hoped the same courtesy could be extended to my community.
Early on, I warned the Biden/Harris campaigns that they were at risk of losing Arab Americans. My concerns were shrugged off with “When it comes down to a binary choice— us versus Trump— they’ll support us.” I told them that was insensitive to my community’s pain and politically stupid. They were wrong and I was right.
Despite all of this, I was disturbed when some in my community endorsed Donald Trump, or when others began beating the drums for an unserious third-party candidate. I went to Michigan and joined several Arab American leaders for a Harris endorsement event. While I too was angry at Biden and deeply disappointed by the Harris campaign, I felt strongly that the dangers to our community, our allies, and our country’s democracy were too great to let Trump back into the White House. I understood my community’s pain and anger, but felt that it was important for us to rise above our hurt and consider how much worse it would be if Trump won— worse not only for us, but also for many other vulnerable communities here at home and abroad. As we can see from the new outrages being enacted daily, these fears were justified.
But despite this debate internal to my community, when all is said and done, I insist: Don’t blame Arab Americans. Blame the Biden administration and the Harris campaign. Don’t make us scapegoats, because even if Harris had carried the Arab American vote in Michigan and won that state, she still would have lost the other six battleground states and the election. And even if every Arab American voter had turned the other cheek and cast a ballot for Harris, she still would have lost the popular vote.
