Arab and Muslim Individuals in Michigan, particularly within the metropolis of Dearborn, shifted away from the Democratic Social gathering and towards President-elect Donald Trump in 2024. The Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering army help to Israel—and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s willingness to proceed this coverage—drove Arab American voters in Michigan away from a celebration that the neighborhood had constantly supported because the early 2000s. Trump received the state by greater than 80,000 votes after dropping it to outgoing President Joe Biden by greater than 150,000 votes in 2020.
Trump received Dearborn, the place greater than half the inhabitants is of Center Jap or North African descent, by capturing 42 % of votes to Harris’s 36 %; the Inexperienced Social gathering’s Jill Stein additionally took a considerable 18 % of the vote within the metropolis. In neighborhoods inside the metropolis the place Arab Individuals are the bulk, comparable to jap Dearborn, Harris carried out even worse.
For instance, in 2020, Biden beat Trump in jap Dearborn by almost 10,000 votes. On Election Day this 12 months, the Detroit Free Press experiences that Trump defeated Harris in jap Dearborn by almost 3,700 votes, accumulating 45 % of the vote in 2024 after receiving solely 18 % in 2020 leading to a 27 % swing towards Trump that demonstrates how the Democrats’ refusal to restrain Israel because it destroyed Gaza possible pushed Arab Individuals to the proper.
Election leads to the state got here all the way down to many components—however a vital one was who might make the largest inroads with the Arab American neighborhood. The Democrats’ failure is clearest in Michigan’s twelfth Congressional District, which incorporates Dearborn and Detroit and is represented by Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Preliminary outcomes point out that she received her reelection bid by almost 161,000 votes towards Republican challenger James Hooper—greater than double Trump’s whole statewide margin.
One can’t assist however assume that had the Harris marketing campaign labored tougher for Arab American votes, then perhaps these from Tlaib’s district who backed her would have been extra inclined to additionally assist Harris, somewhat than splitting their tickets.
It’s a query that will hang-out Democratic strategists for years.
Differing views on easy methods to specific dissent towards the Democratic Social gathering for its position in enabling actions that many worldwide observers have deemed warfare crimes in Gaza and south Lebanon break up members of Michigan’s Arab American neighborhood. Many citizens supported Trump regardless of him being the architect of the 2016 govt motion broadly generally known as the “Muslim ban,” which prevented individuals from six Muslim-majority nations from getting into the US, and ceaselessly invoking anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Some, who had been repulsed by Trump, determined as a substitute to vote for Stein, the Inexperienced Social gathering candidate. Others instructed International Coverage that they selected to not vote in any respect.
For 19-year-old Yemeni American Ali Aljahmi, a member of the household which owns Sheeba, a preferred Yemeni restaurant in Dearborn, Trump’s victory might mark a brand new period within the Center East: “I met Mr. Trump briefly alongside together with his group. … They promised to cease the genocide [in] Gaza and what’s taking place in Lebanon. Trump needs peace,” Aljahmi mentioned.
Richard Grenell, the previous U.S. performing director for nationwide intelligence—working alongside Lebanese American Massad Boulos, whose son Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany—performed a significant position in spearheading Trump’s engagement with Arab and Muslim voters in Dearborn.
Aljahmi instructed International Coverage that Trump and his group’s willingness to interact with Dearborn’s Arab-Muslim neighborhood, coupled with the Harris marketing campaign actively avoiding Dearborn, contributed to him supporting Trump: “It was a stab within the again by the Democrats and Harris to not even discuss to us,” Aljahmi mentioned. “What number of years have Arabs right here been loyal to Democrats? Trump no less than got here right here and spoke with us. I do know he’s flawed, however higher the satan you recognize than the satan you don’t. I’ve religion he’ll cease the wars. But when he doesn’t, we’ll maintain him accountable.”
Harris’s refusal to go to Dearborn’s Arab Individuals—in addition to the Democratic Social gathering’s resolution to not enable the Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman, or any Palestinian speaker, to talk on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in August—was a slap within the face to the neighborhood. Harris primarily despatched a message to the Arab American neighborhood that they weren’t welcome within the alleged massive tent of the Democratic Social gathering. This left a gap for Trump to make headway in Michigan.
Aljahmi’s religion in Trump isn’t distinctive within the space. Dearborn Heights’ impartial mayor, Invoice Bazzi—a Muslim immigrant from Lebanon who served in the US Marines—additionally supported Trump. In an interview with Politico, Bazzi expressed his anger towards Harris’s marketing campaign: “My principal goal is about peace and financial prosperity for our nation. However what actually pushed me over the sting is when Kamala Harris introduced Liz Cheney to our yard.”
Disdain for the Cheney household was a widespread theme amongst Michigan’s Arab Individuals. On-line chatter, information protection, and casual interviews carried out by International Coverage verify that many of those voters had been turned off by Harris’s public flaunting of an endorsement from the Cheneys.
“I simply had a flashback to when her dad [former Vice President Dick Cheney] began the warfare in Iraq. … So now you convey a Cheney to our yard, whose household began a warfare, and now we’re in a warfare,” Bazzi instructed Politico, including, That’s once I was like, sufficient of this! I made a decision to go ahead with a public endorsement after I chatted with President Trump to search out out his platform. He’s a person of peace.”
For a lot of locally, Harris’s embrace of the Cheneys was seen as an embrace of neoconservatism, an ideology that a lot of Michigan’s Arab Individuals see because the trigger for his or her marginalization in the US and the destruction of the Center East. Furthermore, Harris’s option to marketing campaign with the Cheneys was broadly perceived as interesting to a pro-Iraq Conflict constituency that not exists—including to the sense that Harris was a candidate out of her depth politically.
Nevertheless, not all of Michigan’s Arab Individuals agree with both Bazzi or Aljhami. Lebanese American Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud refused to endorse both Trump or Harris. And when Trump’s marketing campaign requested to satisfy with the Dearborn mayor, Hammoud refused.
In an interview with Democracy Now revealed the day earlier than the election, Hammoud skewered Trump: “That is the president that ushered within the Muslim ban, that wishes to be the architect of the Muslim ban 2.0. That is someone that annexed the Golan Heights. … That is someone that offered Saudi Arabia with the arms to kill over 30,000 individuals, harmless civilians, in Yemen. And so, I’m not right here to be fooled by President Donald Trump,” he mentioned.
Nevertheless, regardless of their disdain for the president-elect, some voters in Michigan consider that the circumstances in Gaza and South Lebanon can’t get any worse no matter who’s the following U.S. president.
Saba Saed, a Palestinian American who voted for Stein, echoed an identical sentiment to International Coverage, expressing her indifference towards the concept Trump will exacerbate Palestinian and Lebanese struggling any additional: “It’s laborious to care once they’re clearly simply mendacity [about Gaza and South Lebanon]. I don’t know anymore. What’s worse than what’s occurring proper now in Gaza?” Saed requested.
It’s attainable {that a} Trump presidency could possibly be worse for each Palestinians residing within the diaspora in the US and people within the illegally occupied West Financial institution. Throughout his marketing campaign, Trump dubbed pro-Palestine pupil as “Hamas supporters” and mentioned he would deport Palestinian visa-holders who participated in pro-Palestine rallies.
Then there’s the priority that Trump will as soon as once more fill his administration with the pro-Israel hawks who had been as soon as the engineers of probably the most anti-Palestinian insurance policies within the historical past of the US throughout his first time period. There are considerations from these locally that it’s attainable that Trump enable for the West Financial institution to be formally annexed, resulting in the mass expulsions of Palestinians from the West Financial institution at a stage unseen since what Palestinians name the “Nakba” in 1948.
Trump has simply nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to the submit of U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has a historical past of anti-Palestinian racism. Throughout his 2008 presidential marketing campaign, Huckabee instructed a rabbi: “There’s actually no such factor as a Palestinian.” He didn’t cease there. In 2017, Huckabee instructed CNN: “There are particular phrases I refuse to make use of. There is no such thing as a such factor as a West Financial institution. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such factor as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, cities. There is no such thing as a occupation,” mentioned Huckabee. Trump has additionally tapped pro-Israel actual property investor, Steven Witkoff as his Particular Envoy to the Center East.
Nevertheless, Saba’s viewpoint that issues can’t worsen is one which many Palestinian and Arab Individuals in Michigan share—no matter who they voted for. Whereas they acknowledge the dangers related to a Trump presidency, most of those voters who’ve spoken publicly or with International Coverage assert that the destruction of Gaza and the dehumanization of Arab Individuals at dwelling grew to become attainable resulting from Biden and Harris ignoring U.S. regulation as they supported unwavering army help to Israel.
Regardless of credible proof from worldwide observers indicating that Israel has used U.S. weapons to facilitate warfare crimes in Gaza and block support from coming into the enclave, each blatant violations of the US’s Leahy Regulation and Part 620I of the International Help Act, Biden ignored such considerations and continues to indulge Israel with unfettered arm shipments (totaling $17.9 billion of army support to Israel within the 12 months following Oct. 7, 2023).
And whereas a lot has been made from the likelihood that Trump could enable Israel to formally annex the West Financial institution and allow Israeli resettlement in Gaza, many Michigan voters discover it tough to overlook that Biden and Harris enforced Trump’s insurance policies on Israel-Palestine, together with recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and Jerusalem because the capital of Israel, and the shuttering of the Palestinian consulate in East Jerusalem.
They’ve watched for 4 years as Palestinians had been forbidden from constructing in most areas of the West Financial institution and left defenseless within the face of rampant state-backed violence from Israeli settlers whereas Israel has additionally allegedly blocked humanitarian support from getting into Gaza in what a number of human rights organizations deem a breach of the ultimatum that Biden specified by October.
All of this stuff have occurred underneath a Democratic president, leaving many citizens in Dearborn to conclude that Trump’s attainable erasure of Palestine is solely an extension of the established order established by Biden and Harris.
Given the widespread notion that Democrats aren’t any higher than Trump, there are additionally those that refused to partake within the election solely as a result of they had been disgusted by each candidates’ stances.
Nancy, a Dearborn resident who hails from south Lebanon and requested that International Coverage use a pseudonym to guard her identification, expressed anger towards the electoral system: “I didn’t vote within the election as a result of I refuse to take part in a system that’s towards individuals.” She additionally expressed a preferred viewpoint expressed by many Arab Individuals: “I’m glad Kamala Harris misplaced as a result of her and the Democrats are shamelessly finishing up genocide in Gaza,” Nancy mentioned.
For a lot of of Dearborn’s Arab Individuals, surviving Trump’s first time period meant having to witness the deportation of their family members, an expertise that deeply impacted Michigan’s Iraqi inhabitants. These draconian measures instilled inside them a way of steadfastness that has ready them as soon as once more to take a stand towards U.S. international coverage towards each the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
Whereas the neighborhood continues to be considering on whether or not to interact with Trump from an advocacy and outreach standpoint, their message is now clear.
Dearborn’s Arab Individuals and many citizens throughout the nation are sick of limitless warfare within the Center East. They now demand a international coverage rooted in restraint, the rule of regulation, and relationships with nations that serve U.S. pursuits.
Past that, Arab Individuals protesting Democrats now hope that the occasion lastly understands that being ardently anti-Palestinian, pro-Israel, and enabling what they view as genocide in Gaza has electoral penalties.
