Michigan Democrats have a message for Arab and Muslim Americans frustrated with the Biden-Harris policies in Gaza, and it has more to do with former President Donald Trump than any real change.
Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, was confronted by Forbes on Sunday about the bitter opposition from voters concerned about Hamas’ war against Israel and the party’s reluctance to meet demands to call for a permanent ceasefire and halt all military aid to the nation’s closest ally.
Forbes’ Brittany Lewis asked Barnes: “When you’re talking to those voters, what do you say to that constituency?”
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Barnes made it clear Democrats have no actual solution, and rely instead on painting Trump as a racist in a misleading comparative analysis.
“We talk a lot about the truth of who Donald Trump is. We use his own words a lot of the time to remind folks about the things he’s said about immigrants, the things he said specifically about Muslims, the things he said about he would encourage Netanyahu to double and triple down on the work, the hateful work, that he’s already doing in the region,” Barnes said.
The focus, she said, is “just to let them know that while you may not be happy with where the Biden administration is and you may not yet be comfortable with where a Harris administration would be, either of those are much better for this community and for the world than Donald Trump.”
The Kamala is bad, but Trump is worse approach didn’t register well with scores of protestors who attended a Harris rally the next day in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan and a hub for anti-Israel protests.
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The protestors chanted over Harris at the event, forcing the VP to address their concerns, though she didn’t make any promises.
“Listen, hey, on the subject of Gaza, hey guys, I hear you,” Harris said. “On the subject of Gaza, we all want this war to end as soon as possible and get the hostages out. And I will do everything in my power to make it so.”
It was a similar deal in Philadelphia on Monday, when Harris leveraged protests to talk about Trump and her campaign, instead of offering any solutions.
“Hold on, I want to talk about Gaza for a minute,” Harris said to her hecklers. “We can and we must seize this opportunity to end this war and bring the hostages home, and I will do everything in my power to meet that end.
“And we are here because we are fighting for our democracy, and we respect the voices of all people, and we’ve got a job to do in the next nine days to fight for this democracy we love,” she said. “And we understand we have an opportunity before us to turn the page on the fear and the divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump. We have the ability to turn the page on that same old tired playbook because we are exhausted with it.”
Harris’ claim to “respect the voices of all people” followed less than a week after her campaign ejected prominent Michigan Muslim Democrat Ahmed Ghanim from an event in Royal Oak, sparking immediate backlash from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“They kicked me out without any reason, even after I received confirmation to attend and passed a security clearance at the gate,” Ghanim posted to X. “After I was seated, they called me and asked me to leave without any explanation.”
The Harris campaign has also removed anti-Israel protestors from events in Nevada in January, and in Detroit in August, and shut Muslims out from voicing their concerns at the Democratic National Convention.
“We have seen this repeated pattern of disregard and disrespect towards Muslim and Arab Americans unfold before,” Rex Nazarko, with the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network, said at a press conference following Ghanim’s removal.
“I guess that’s how the Democratic Party deals with Muslims,” Ghanim told The Detroit News. “They’re not important to them.… Maybe the Democratic Party doesn’t want people like me and my kind in the party.”
The situation has prompted prominent groups including the Arab American Political Action Committee and leaders of an Uncommitted Movement urging them not to support either of the two major party candidates in 2024.
An Abandon Harris campaign that worked in concert with the Uncommitted Movement to reject President Joe Biden during Michigan’s presidential primary has endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, while Amer Ghalib, mayor of America’s only Muslim-majority city – Hamtramck, has endorsed former President Donald Trump.
More than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted in Michigan’s presidential primary in February to pressure the Biden-Harris administration into calling for a permanent ceasefire and halting all military aid to Israel.
The Uncommitted Movement and aligned Abandon Harris campaign has since garnered support from 700,000 voters nationwide. Both groups are now campaigning against Harris across the country, with Abandon Harris expanding to Wisconsin and Georgia, and the Uncommitted Movement focused on Minnesota, Hawaii, Washington, Missouri and Wisconsin.