After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to former president Donald Trump, her supporters and staunch members of the Democratic Party were quick to place the blame on a myriad of groups. Criticizing third-party voters, disillusioned minorities, leftists, and the Uncommitted Movement, Democrats condemned anyone but the Party itself.
The truth is, to have been able to vote for Harris in this election required a level of privilege. To have been able to ignore her unwavering support for a genocidal state and turn around to shame Arab and Muslim voters for not wanting to vote for a candidate partly responsible for killing their loved ones is a stance that not every American or U.S. resident can afford to take.
Democrats and liberals claim a vote for a third party is a vote wasted, which only serves to exclude marginalized voices in the community. It sends a message that the morals and beliefs of Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are less important, that they should concede to the two-party system in the name of the “greater good,” even if that greater good doesn’t extend to their family members overseas. If there is only one “option” to vote for, then maybe this isn’t a democracy. Perhaps that’s fascism. (But that’s neither here nor there).
For the Democratic Party to lose the popular vote for the first time since 2004 is concerning, to say the least. Instead of reflecting on their shortfalls, Democrats are spiraling on social media– calling for the 4B movement and abandoning consumer boycotts for Palestine. However, these responses will ultimately be unproductive in preventing the inevitable rise of extremism at the onset of a second Trump administration.
But it’s not like the signs weren’t there. It should come as little surprise how Trump won this election. For one, Harris and the Democrats ran their entire campaign on being “not Trump,” – appealing more to center-right and moderate voters instead of focusing on progressive policies typically characteristic of the Democratic Party.
For instance, Harris vowed to raise the minimum wage but did not provide many specifics after the $15 threshold. On more controversial issues such as immigration, Harris voiced support for a border security bill that would have increased Border Patrol personnel, shortened the process of immigration decisions, and made it harder to claim asylum in the U.S. She also notably said that she was against banning fracking–the method used to extract natural gas that has been found to have a significant impact on climate change.
Arguably one of the most detrimental moments in her campaign was when Harris called out pro-Palestinian protestors at a Michigan rally instead of using it as a moment to clarify her stance on the ongoing genocide and the U.S.’s complicity in it.
A remark made by her at the rally: “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” reinforces the sentiments of many white liberals– anyone critical of Harris meant that they were automatically pro-Trump and were seen as a threat to their movement.
As Democrats and liberals try to wrap their heads around how someone could vote for Trump’s extremism, consider just how many of them were able to overlook a genocide and cast their vote for Harris out of personal fear for their own rights. Unfortunately, while Harris was busy defending the status quo of the party, millions of people became attracted to Trump’s various promises for change, in many cases setting aside their own positionality in society and prioritizing issues such as the economy or immigration.
In Michigan, where there is a significant Arab and Muslim population, Harris failed to turn the swing state blue after the Biden-Harris administration ignored a year-long call for the U.S. to stop aiding Israel in its war crimes. In the same state, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was reelected to the U.S. House of Representatives as one of the first two Muslim women and the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress.
Her reelection followed a refusal to endorse Harris and consistent criticism of U.S. military support to Israel. As a proponent for Palestinian liberation and champion of working-class interests, Tlaib proved that taking a stance is fundamental in securing votes.
The ambiguity and lack of ideological consistency from the Democratic Party contributed to its eventual demise in this election, but it has been falling apart for a while now. Electing Joe Biden back in 2020 as the “lesser of two evils” did not save the country. And this is not to say that voting for Jill Stein or Claudia De la Cruz was going to solve all of our problems. But this election was never going to save us all, even if Harris did get elected.
Senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticized the Democrats in a statement following the election results, “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
If Democrats spent more time and effort trying to earn third-party voters instead of demonizing them, the results of this election would have been starkly different.
In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents to a YouGov/IMEU Policy Project poll from August said that they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withhold weapons from Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely.
This statistic rang true for voters in pivotal swing states Georgia and Arizona as well, both of which Harris lost. To put it simply, Democrats dropped the ball by not taking a stance against Israel’s war on Gaza, because it would have been these policies that could have pushed voters from undecided, third-party, or not voting to check that Harris-Walz box on the ballot.
Additionally, the Arab American Institute released results from a poll conducted in the days leading up to the presidential election which found that a majority of both Harris (77%) and Trump (51%) voters say that it is very or somewhat important that the U.S. demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.
And the fact of the matter is that even if you added up all the third-party and alternative voters, Harris would not have won. She lost across the board– the popular vote, the electoral college, and in all seven battleground states– and it wasn’t even close.
Over a year since October 7th, a call for a ceasefire is not an unpopular sentiment amongst most Americans. What is not a popular movement is love, as civil rights activist James Baldwin once said: “The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be.”
For many of these third-party voters, politics is every day. They are the street organizers. They are the community activists. They are the ones developing mutual aid networks. Voting on election day was just one exercise of democracy for them. They are the ones who will continue to be on the frontlines advocating for change long after Trump is in office.
Though it may seem like it now, the world will not end when Trump is inaugurated in January. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we take care of each other. Use this anger and frustration as momentum to keep moving forward. Exist out of spite and rage, if nothing else. Keep practicing empathy, and recognize that politics exist in your home, your neighborhood, your classroom, and the spaces you already live in. The system wants us to believe that we don’t owe each other anything, but I think we owe each other everything. It’s always been up to us.
Aspiring haunted house owner, ex-barista, and NYT mini crossword player.
