Michigan’s electorate has a huge effect on who wins the White House and which party wins the House and Senate in 2024. In this series, Great Stakes: The Fight to Be Hailed as the Winner in Michigan, the Washington Examiner will delve into the thorny politics and unique issues that will tip the critical state of the battlefield. The third part, below, examines how the war between Israel and Hamas is creating political fallout for President Joe Biden with key voting blocs. DEARBORN, Mich. — President Joe Biden is not only facing political consequences for his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas with Arab and Arab countries. Muslim electorate, but also black and young voters, many of whom were already skeptical about his administration’s record and his relationship with the community.
The shared interests and considerations of Arabs, Muslims, blacks and other young people are about to be underscored during Tuesday’s No. 1 Democratic presidential election in Michigan, a rural state where Democrats are encouraged not to vote for Biden, at least this week, and where margins will count in the November general election.
Sameh Elhady, vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party’s Arab American Caucus, described how his network has uncovered “connections” to others from other backgrounds, from young liberal Democrats to Black and Latino people, to the war, in relation to his sadness with Biden as he and his management try to appeal to the historically Democratic demographic ahead of November.
“They also express a certain pain for humanity,” Elhady said. “We’re not the same. We have all been replaced since October 7th.
People “recognize that there’s a double with the Biden administration,” according to Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan bankruptcy Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“He was quick to condemn Putin’s regime for targeting civilians, but when it comes to Palestinian civilians being targeted through Israel or Yemeni civilians being targeted by bombs delivered to [the UAE] and Saudi Arabia, then all of that is justified,” Walid said. a black Muslim. ” The explanation for why Black Lives Matter was introduced as a slogan is because other blacks had the idea that black lives didn’t matter as much in America as white lives. Well, it turns out that the lives of white Europeans matter more than the lives of white people. lives of Arabs and Muslims to the Biden administration.
The defense of some blacks by the Palestinians dates back to the 1960s, adds Malcolm X, who spent two days in Gaza in 1964. But for Ronald Brown, a political science professor at Wayne University, Biden’s disagreements with Arabs, Muslims and blacks in Michigan are “combined,” “linked in combination in terms of the age cohort phenomenon,” a historically Democratic demographic that Biden has struggled with and is now making proposals with climate replacement and student loans.
“Young African-Americans say they see themselves tied to the Palestinian cause, and that goes back to George Floyd,” Brown said from Wayne County, which includes Detroit and Dearborn. “I think George Floyd’s COVID homicide has reinvigorated or reinforced this concept among Black activists about color, race, and oppression. “
Nura Sediqe, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University, pointed to the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown.
“Among young Democrats, progressive Jews, Arab Americans, and American Muslims, this is a story that goes beyond Arab Americans, as the fear of Gaza extends especially to young Americans,” Sediqe said. “Young Americans, we call them the TikTok generation shares data with each other on those social networks, and they are much more susceptible and supportive of a ceasefire, unlike other generations.
It remains to be seen what will affect Tuesday’s primary, in which Democrats who oppose Biden’s strategy in the war are implored to define themselves as “uncommitted” or otherwise express their disapproval, which will manifest itself over spring break. have in elections. The Listen to Michigan campaign, subsidized through Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and even 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, is targeting 10,000 “uncommitted” votes on Tuesday. Biden won Michigan in the 2020 election with 154,000 votes. Hillary Clinton lost Michigan to former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election with fewer than 11,000 votes.
Ronald Stockton, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Center for Middle East and North African Studies, argued that the war could “cost” Biden the 2024 election, agreeing with Brown and Sediqe that it has had “largely generational” political ramifications.
“I think in the fall, what’s going to happen is a lot of other people are just going to vote, and that’s why it’s very likely that Biden will lose,” Stockton said. “They’re just going to say, ‘I don’t care,’ or they’re going to vote against . . . These other people who are against Biden aren’t going to vote for Trump, but what they can do is just stay home, and that’s going to “be fatal because that’s why Clinton lost Michigan in [2016]. “
“If they don’t show up in 24, Biden is doomed,” Stockton added, acknowledging that Trump has the support of more conservative Arab and Muslim voters.
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Brown also drew comparisons to Vietnam, which arguably lost among Democrats in the 1968 election, adding that black leaders are also under pressure to “make public statements” about the war.
“The young Black, Latino and Arab American electorate in this state, if they stay home because it’s so close to Wayne County, I mean, Wayne County is critical because if you lose that area, they can lose as well . . . Michigan,” Brown said. If Israel makes the decision to remain in Gaza (apparently it does) in November, it will possibly still be something completely new in people’s minds. . . Only 1 or 2% of the young electorate needs to stay at home. That’s all you want. You don’t want much. It’s very close.