This presidential contest has generated an intense debate within the Arab American community. If it were a normal election year, I’d be out in the field urging my community to vote for Democrats. I’d be warning Arab Americans that we needed to do everything we could to stop Donald Trump from re-entering the White House. I’d remind them of his racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric. I’d point to the danger he poses to women’s rights, civil rights and civil liberties, the environment, health and safety protections in the workplace, health care, academic freedom, civil discourse, and the Constitution. It would be, as we say, “A slam dunk.” But this isn’t a normal election.
My community has been deeply traumatized by the genocide in Gaza and now the devastating war on Lebanon. They are justifiably furious at the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce U.S. laws that could rein in Israel’s unconscionable and illegal actions, and accuse them of enabling Israel’s impunity.
Given this, there’s been a significant decline in Arab American support for Democrats, an uptick in support for the GOP, and many saying that they want to punish Democrats by voting for a third-party candidate. I, too, feel this pain and am torn as to how to move forward. I wish it were different, but it just isn’t.
However, I have some questions for those who rightly hold this Democratic administration responsible for genocide and want to punish the Democratic nominee for president. When they say they are voting their conscience by supporting a third party, I ask them to explain how punishing Vice-President Harris and enabling Donald Trump to become president will end the genocide—especially as we have allies in the progressive side of the Democratic Party who support and have been working with us to advance our foreign and domestic policy concerns and will be with us to pressure a Harris White House? Meanwhile, the party of Trump is dominated by hardline hawks who have little or no concern for Palestinians or our civil rights. Or how voting for parties that have been around for decades and struggle to gain even 1% of the vote will advance anything other than helping elect Donald Trump? Or how turning our backs on all of the groups who have been our allies in the struggles for our civil and political rights and for a just foreign policy adds up to “voting one’s conscience”?
It reminds me of a lesson I learned from the late Julian Bond in the aftermath of the 1968 election. A decade ago, I wrote a reflection on that lesson. I ask you to consider it again:
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It was 1968 and the US was reeling from the Vietnam War, urban unrest, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy.
In the wake of voter opposition to the war, President Lyndon Johnson had been forced to end his reelection bid in favor of his Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
All of this was in the air when Democrats met for their convention to formally nominate Humphrey. On the first night of the convention, there was a fight over whether to recognize the all-white Georgia delegation or the mixed black and white delegation led by a young Georgia civil rights leader Julian Bond. The mixed delegation won a partial victory. On the second night, the convention wrestled with an effort to amend the platform to oppose the continuation of the war. Bond was a leader in this fight too. The amendment lost.
On the third night, when the convention met to nominate Humphrey’s vice-presidential running mate, the anti-war delegates proposed Bond to run against the party leaders’ hand-picked choice, Senator Ed Muskie. When the party leaders couldn’t silence the anti-war opposition, they brought in the police who were televised beating delegates who were chanting Bond’s name.
On the final day of the convention, after Humphrey and Muskie gave their acceptance speeches, Julian Bond came on stage and in a show of unity held up Humphrey’s and Muskie’s hands. Many young activists, like myself, were devastated.
A few years later, I got to know Julian Bond, and asked him why he did that and told him how let down I had felt. In response, he told me that there were two types of people. Those who looked down at the evils of the world and said, “I’m going to stand on my principles because it’s got to get a lot worse before it gets better.” Then there are those who say, “I’ve got to get to work to see if I can make it at least a little bit better.”
He told me “I’m with the second group because if I took the first view, I’d be allowing too many people to continue to suffer while I maintained my purity and refused to do anything to help. At the convention, it wasn’t Julian Bond versus Ed Muskie. It was Hubert Humphrey versus Richard Nixon, and I had to make a choice as to who would help make life at least a little bit better.”
I never forgot that lesson and am challenged daily to apply it. It is the reason why I have so little patience for ideologues from the right or the left.
They often miss the muck of the reality in which most of us live and the tough, and often less-than-perfect, choices with which we are confronted in the never-ending challenge to make life a little bit better—whether in the struggle for human rights, improvements in the quality of life, or the provision of security for those who are most vulnerable
[Dr. James J. Zogby is President of the Arab American Institute.]
James J. Zogby
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