Shadi does not have moral clarity on this, tries to stick to the line taken by Muslim Democratic party apparatchiks, but repeatedly acknowledges the gaping holes in Kamala's position. Haroon was more assertive and convincing, especially given the non-monolithic nature of American Muslims and the need to punish the party funding a genocide while occasionally shedding fake tears. Damir was really impressive in his pointed questioning and matter-of-fact reasoning.
If it's Trump vs Pol Pot, I'm voting Trump. If it's Harris vs Trump, I'm voting Harris. It's that simple.
The Gaza war, on the other hand, is not very simple. One cannot deny that Israel had just cause to counterattack after 10/7. I don't think it was wise to do so, but they had the right.
There is such a thing as too much blood shed for a just cause, and personally I believe the Gaza war passed that point months ago and needs to end. But many people come at this with the same mindset that says the atomic bombings against Japan were justified. Those were OK, the thought goes, and so surely this lesser massacre in a good cause must be as well. I take that perspective seriously, although I do not share it.
But the calculus about the whole issue has further complications. As much as Israel is analogous to an apartheid state, and it is... the fact is that a "free" Palestine would just be another impoverished illiberal autocracy in the Middle East. People really ought to realize that that is not something worth fighting very hard for. The Palestinians would be better off "free" than they were in Gaza before 10/7, but not that much better off, by my reckoning.
All that is to say, making this one fraught issue a litmus test when the fate of the broader world rests on this election is to take an overly narrow view.
As you eloquently say, this is not a simple "Israel committing genocide, therefore US / Harris must come out unequivocally against Israel." While we Americans may not agree with Israel's war goals, strategy and execution, we do understand they have to respond to Hamas' attack on October 7. Biden has taken the approach of trying to influence Israel on the margins, but he (and his administration) probably wonders why the US must sever its alliance with Israel over the misguided actions of Hamas.
I really appreciate the dialogue here. I’m on the run and wish I had more time to dive in. But I’m curious to know your perspectives on the Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan endorsing Trump. Is this a turn of a new page? Is it redemptive for trump? Curiosity to know your thoughts here.
As far as I've read, nobody really knows who these Muslim leaders are who endorsed Trump? Many Muslim scholars have signed a petition supporting a third party vote (nobody in particular). I've also heard of pro-Harris Muslim coalitions, but this incident was the first I've heard of vocal Muslim support for Trump.
My main response to this conversation is to say that 2024 is not a good year to be an incumbent! I have friends who are lifelong Democrats who will be abstaining from voting for exactly the opposite reason from HM -- they feel that Harris is insufficiently supportive of Israel.
I really loved this episode and I think this demonstrates why WOC is so special as a platform in my eyes. I can't think of another podcast in the UK that would have this kind of discussion in relation to the US election and politics more broadly. So thank you for producing such a great product :)
I think where I struggle with the analogy Shadi makes about Kamala becoming Catholic and not supporting abortion is that Gaza seems to be a special case of outrage where it is geographically and historically important rather than a value in of itself for a lot of people. I don't remember this level of outrage from the muslim community over Assad gassing children and bombing hospitals left and right and Obama refused to really do anything about it. I still don't see people even today demanding the US bomb the Assad regime to stop the atrocities he is still committing.
If the same level of outrage was shown consistently over bombing and this aggression I'd accept that it's a value problem and that's why people can't vote for Harris. But it doesn't appear to be quite that simple from where I'm sitting. So to me there is a double standard not only from the US administration but also from some parts of the communities who demand an end to the violence in Gaza but who don't show this level of anger for almost any other conflict or human rights violation in the region or across the world.
Don't get me wrong communities and groups are great at hypocrisy so I'm not saying this is unique or anything. But I always find this difficult when groups become really visibly angry over one event but have been relatively quiet on other similar goings on in a slightly different context. I've literally had conversations with individuals where they've defended Gaddafi and then become extremely angry about war crimes in Gaza and that level of cognitive dissonance is difficult to untangle.
I'd also question just how much leverage the US really has. As far as I understand Israel is far less dependent upon US arms than other countries in the region and could shift towards a closer relationship with India and China. I'm not as clued in about this but maybe people think the US has more space to pressure Israel than maybe in reality they do.
On Harris, I'm really struggling to connect the charge sheet Haroon lays at the feet of Harris with any actual violation of democratic norms at home in the US. You can say she's either a bad actor with morals we don't like about limits of conflict or that she's got bad views on Israel and Palestine but none of that makes her anti-democratic in any sense. As far as I can tell, Harris hasn't threatened to end democracy in the US or displayed any signs of attempting to do so (unlike her opponent who has actively pressured officials to change electoral results). So, I think if Haroon wants to disqualify Harris because he dislikes her views and actions on Gaza that's fair enough (although I think Haroon does overplay how much power the VP really has) but to try to thread this inside the conversation that she's a threat to democracy seems to be a reach.
Pivoting is not the same as silencing your voice. She's not shutting you down she's not choosing to answer a question which is incredibly volatile in an election which will likely come down to 10's of thousands of votes in a few states. I think stripping Harris away from this incredibly delicate context is a little unfair. But then again the only people who really know what Harris thinks at this point are likely to be Harris and a couple of her close advisers tbh.
On moving away from politics I agree with Haroon that it's not an option. I do think engaging with the democratic party is necessary and abandoning it would be a serious mistake tbh.
Thanks so much for the kind words and thoughtful comments.
A few quick responses, which are shorter than your insights deserve, but hey it's a Monday morning on my side of the pond and I apologize in advance for the hurried nature of my comments
When it comes to outrage, I think a particular reason for the intensity of the outrage among American Muslims is the hypocrisy of elite America right now--nobody was sitting around pretending Assad was fighting a war for principle, let alone getting doxxed, politically targeted, or professionally threatened for expressing solidarity with the victims. A lot of pushed back hard against the outrageous hypocrisies involved, which actually tempered some of the worst excesses, but last fall was pretty ugly
Even to express concern for Palestinian lives invited accusations of supporting Hamas... among far more people than one would expect; students gathering late last spring in huge numbers was very much also the outcome of months of being spurned, mocked, censured, mistreated and subjected to consistent double standards. Does this happen when we call out China for the Uyghur genocide? (For obvious reasons, of course, it doesn't, but that's part of the larger arc of this moment--American politicians are voting to help Israel drop bombs on the family members of some Americans, which is... hard... to process)
Then, when we call attention to this, we're lucky if we can get a hearing
That said, you're right there can be deep double standards and I'm *not* okay with those. One of the main reasons I fast soured on the Stein campaign was her performance in an interview with Mehdi Hasan; Stein struggled to call Putin a war criminal, which left me bewildered.
But, again, there is the question of leverage, and here I'm skeptical of the idea Israel can shift to India or China. Josh Paul, a conscientious objector who left the State Department over Israel's war very early last fall, has unpacked this far better than me--suffice it to say, Israel is almost wholly dependent on US and Western weaponry, so deeply that if we were to cut supplies, Israel's war would come to a halt in weeks if not days. While in theory Israel could pivot to India or China, realistically it would take *years* to move an army from one set of equipment to another. During an active combat situation, that's nearly impossible
From a broader perspective, I'll say this: We as Americans can't stop every war in the world, nor should we be so hubristic as to imagine we are assigned to do this. But it doesn't follow from there that we have to be implicated in a war just because it's an ally's war. To me, that's fundamentally anti-democratic. Since we don't get to choose how Israel chooses to spend our military aid, that aid is fundamentally anti-democratic, and must be conditioned. Unless we're talking about a very close ally that truly shares our values (Canada, UK, Australia, etc), I'm really never okay with that level of uncritical endorsement
Isn't the bottom line that Muslim Americans are demanding that the US make Israel submit to Hamas (Hamas stays in Gaza, thousands of terrorists for the remaining hostages) ? That would lead to a massive loss of votes in the Jewish in Christian communities that can't be made up by Muslim voters. Even if you believed that they wouldn't vote for the GOP based on social issues ?
Thanks Haroon for the really detailed reply :) I would slightly contest your claim about doxxing and political targeting. Certainly from the far left and right I know of numerous cases of journalists and activists being targeted for their support for the revolution against Assad. I also do wonder if there are other reasons as I see this amongst my professional colleagues as well (political academics) who express a particular and almost unifocal concern over the Palestinian conflict as opposed to all kinds of conflict not only in the region but across the world.
Thanks for the update on Israel's weapons situation! I could easily have gotten that wrong as I really don't know a ton about it but have just started reading around the edges :)
On the conditioning of aid I think someone can reasonably say we want to condition our aid on the basis that it may be misused and put to bad uses. That's totally fair and legitimate. I'm still not sure how this is inherently anti-democratic? Sure, you can argue as you did in the podcast the majority of Democrats in America don't want to give military aid to Israel but representative democracy is more than just a show of hands. You can think the representatives are wrong and then vote them out for it if you so wish. I'm still struggling to see the link between aid given unconditionally and non-democratic politics.
I agree directionally with what you're saying but a couple of quibbles.
The US does have a lot of leverage in principle because the IDF is organized around US proprietary equipment and could not change this in the middle of a war. So if the ammo sales to them stopped the war would have to end.
And the Syria comparison is different insofar as the US is not supporting Assad.
That's a fair point on Israel and totally acknowledge I am likely wrong about that :)
I think although the US was not supporting Assad if people are for atrocity prevention as a principle that should be applied consistently regardless of if the US is aiding and abetting it or not. I'm not sure that should affect the levels of anger.
This was quite the conversation. Thank you, Damir for navigating some very passionate takes on how to respond to democratic warmongering.
A couple observations:
Haroon's case to not vote for Kamila, at each point seemed like a better argument to vote for Trump than his campaign ever made! It did not make a case for not voting... unless Trump winning was a sure thing. Honestly the best case for Palestinians is a Trump victory. There's no third outcome that allays our moral reservations AND provides a path forward towards peace. We know where Kamila will land... might as well draw a wild card.
The moral ambiguity around violence was ever-present in this conversation. I'm curious why non-violence was not brought into the mix. I couldn't really differentiate why the status quo was tolerable, but now that there's a war on, we have to close ranks for Palestine. Shadi has been all about leveraging our foreign influence to create better outcomes, but it seems too little too late for the situation in Palestine. In any case, the only consistently idealistic approach to this nightmare is to be non-violent in all circumstances. It means you have to be anti-war, and that changes your relationship as a citizen to the state, which is quite freeing.
One side note on your collegiate allies that are protesting: If they want to wear masks and protest incognito, they still might be true believers, but they are cowards. And the occupy campus approach was flawed from the beginning. You don't win hearts and minds that way. It's just more of the us vs them. Which is the whole undemocratic flaw in oppressor/oppressed systems.
I'm still very confused why all Muslims aren't more interested in conservatism... aside from the stereotype of republicans being racists, there seems to be so many more synergies for religious folks on the right than on the left.
Which leads me to my final question: Shadi please tell me you knew how ridiculous it was to use Abortion as your example of a bridge too far. Can you please explain to me how terminating the outcome for a life isn't the same a terminating a life lived in your faith tradition? It doesn't compute for me, a Christain. I literally guffawed each time you brought up the hypothetical Kamala Catholic conversion. We could only hope!
I applaud you all for voting your conscience. It's the best we can do.
As a Muslim American voting for the first time (sigh), I was curious to hear how/whether Shadi and Haroon weighed two factors: (1) whether we live in a swing state, and (2) I didn't know this, but if a third party does gain some percentage of the vote (I've heard 2-5% depending on the state), they do get some federal funding. On the one hand, maybe this is an issue of principles and where you are doesn't really matter (and funding to a third party doesn't change anything in the near future), but perhaps in such a dire situation these details can make a difference.
Absolutely I think these are important considerations. I'd add some more:
Given how much local and state elections matter, and how little attention we pay to them, it's worthwhile to consider how investing locally might produce more impactful outcomes than putting an inordinate amount of energy into national calculations (especially, as Damir pointed out, American Muslims aren't that big of a constituency overall)
I'm very focused, for example, on voting on Ohio's Issue 1. There are also some key local and state races I'm invested in and have contributed to.
Finally, I'll also add some folks have emphasized to me the value of a divided government for creating useful compromise and a tempering gridlock (I know folks, for example, in swing states voting R at the top, and D down ballot, in order to effect a more balanced outcome.)
Now, of course, at the end of the day, there are our red lines as voters, for which reason I can't vote for Harris or Trump. But Shadi helped me to understand that, if we are to create a meaningful constituency and long-term impact, investing with principle and strategically in the Dems is probably better (my fear on the third-party front is that we institutionalize our marginalization; whereas, as one bloc among many in one party, might we have more long-term impact?)
It's a hard one, to be sure, which is why I was so grateful for this conversation
“Given how much local and state elections matter, and how little attention we pay to them”
Trump pays attention to them, as not even those government officials are safe from his attempts to coerce and intimidate them into illegal activity, as in the Georgia aftermath of the 2020 election. He does not hesitate to use the power of the presidency in this fashion, so I don’t feel safe assuming that local politicians will be a bulwark against his agenda when he has no qualms trying to intimidate them.
So many people fought and died to give you the right to vote. You are unworthy of their sacrifice and don't deserve to live in a democracy. Perhaps you would feel more at home in a Kalifat.
I’m planning on voting Stein based primarily on her Israel/Palestine policy. Helping a good third party candidate get a decent turnout is a more effective statement than not voting IMO.
I never miss a vote. Both parties are just fine with people not voting. They only have to answer to the people who DO vote.
Voting for a third party candidate and writing in a candidate are more effective than people realize. Party bosses closely study election results. They pay more attention to the people who vote third party than the people who vote for the 'other' party. Both parties attempt to channel people into being loyal supporters. When you vote, but don't vote for them, you are a threat to their 'system'.
Shadi does not have moral clarity on this, tries to stick to the line taken by Muslim Democratic party apparatchiks, but repeatedly acknowledges the gaping holes in Kamala's position. Haroon was more assertive and convincing, especially given the non-monolithic nature of American Muslims and the need to punish the party funding a genocide while occasionally shedding fake tears. Damir was really impressive in his pointed questioning and matter-of-fact reasoning.
If it's Trump vs Pol Pot, I'm voting Trump. If it's Harris vs Trump, I'm voting Harris. It's that simple.
The Gaza war, on the other hand, is not very simple. One cannot deny that Israel had just cause to counterattack after 10/7. I don't think it was wise to do so, but they had the right.
There is such a thing as too much blood shed for a just cause, and personally I believe the Gaza war passed that point months ago and needs to end. But many people come at this with the same mindset that says the atomic bombings against Japan were justified. Those were OK, the thought goes, and so surely this lesser massacre in a good cause must be as well. I take that perspective seriously, although I do not share it.
But the calculus about the whole issue has further complications. As much as Israel is analogous to an apartheid state, and it is... the fact is that a "free" Palestine would just be another impoverished illiberal autocracy in the Middle East. People really ought to realize that that is not something worth fighting very hard for. The Palestinians would be better off "free" than they were in Gaza before 10/7, but not that much better off, by my reckoning.
All that is to say, making this one fraught issue a litmus test when the fate of the broader world rests on this election is to take an overly narrow view.
As you eloquently say, this is not a simple "Israel committing genocide, therefore US / Harris must come out unequivocally against Israel." While we Americans may not agree with Israel's war goals, strategy and execution, we do understand they have to respond to Hamas' attack on October 7. Biden has taken the approach of trying to influence Israel on the margins, but he (and his administration) probably wonders why the US must sever its alliance with Israel over the misguided actions of Hamas.
I really appreciate the dialogue here. I’m on the run and wish I had more time to dive in. But I’m curious to know your perspectives on the Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan endorsing Trump. Is this a turn of a new page? Is it redemptive for trump? Curiosity to know your thoughts here.
As far as I've read, nobody really knows who these Muslim leaders are who endorsed Trump? Many Muslim scholars have signed a petition supporting a third party vote (nobody in particular). I've also heard of pro-Harris Muslim coalitions, but this incident was the first I've heard of vocal Muslim support for Trump.
My main response to this conversation is to say that 2024 is not a good year to be an incumbent! I have friends who are lifelong Democrats who will be abstaining from voting for exactly the opposite reason from HM -- they feel that Harris is insufficiently supportive of Israel.
I really loved this episode and I think this demonstrates why WOC is so special as a platform in my eyes. I can't think of another podcast in the UK that would have this kind of discussion in relation to the US election and politics more broadly. So thank you for producing such a great product :)
I think where I struggle with the analogy Shadi makes about Kamala becoming Catholic and not supporting abortion is that Gaza seems to be a special case of outrage where it is geographically and historically important rather than a value in of itself for a lot of people. I don't remember this level of outrage from the muslim community over Assad gassing children and bombing hospitals left and right and Obama refused to really do anything about it. I still don't see people even today demanding the US bomb the Assad regime to stop the atrocities he is still committing.
If the same level of outrage was shown consistently over bombing and this aggression I'd accept that it's a value problem and that's why people can't vote for Harris. But it doesn't appear to be quite that simple from where I'm sitting. So to me there is a double standard not only from the US administration but also from some parts of the communities who demand an end to the violence in Gaza but who don't show this level of anger for almost any other conflict or human rights violation in the region or across the world.
Don't get me wrong communities and groups are great at hypocrisy so I'm not saying this is unique or anything. But I always find this difficult when groups become really visibly angry over one event but have been relatively quiet on other similar goings on in a slightly different context. I've literally had conversations with individuals where they've defended Gaddafi and then become extremely angry about war crimes in Gaza and that level of cognitive dissonance is difficult to untangle.
I'd also question just how much leverage the US really has. As far as I understand Israel is far less dependent upon US arms than other countries in the region and could shift towards a closer relationship with India and China. I'm not as clued in about this but maybe people think the US has more space to pressure Israel than maybe in reality they do.
On Harris, I'm really struggling to connect the charge sheet Haroon lays at the feet of Harris with any actual violation of democratic norms at home in the US. You can say she's either a bad actor with morals we don't like about limits of conflict or that she's got bad views on Israel and Palestine but none of that makes her anti-democratic in any sense. As far as I can tell, Harris hasn't threatened to end democracy in the US or displayed any signs of attempting to do so (unlike her opponent who has actively pressured officials to change electoral results). So, I think if Haroon wants to disqualify Harris because he dislikes her views and actions on Gaza that's fair enough (although I think Haroon does overplay how much power the VP really has) but to try to thread this inside the conversation that she's a threat to democracy seems to be a reach.
Pivoting is not the same as silencing your voice. She's not shutting you down she's not choosing to answer a question which is incredibly volatile in an election which will likely come down to 10's of thousands of votes in a few states. I think stripping Harris away from this incredibly delicate context is a little unfair. But then again the only people who really know what Harris thinks at this point are likely to be Harris and a couple of her close advisers tbh.
On moving away from politics I agree with Haroon that it's not an option. I do think engaging with the democratic party is necessary and abandoning it would be a serious mistake tbh.
Hey Sam,
Thanks so much for the kind words and thoughtful comments.
A few quick responses, which are shorter than your insights deserve, but hey it's a Monday morning on my side of the pond and I apologize in advance for the hurried nature of my comments
When it comes to outrage, I think a particular reason for the intensity of the outrage among American Muslims is the hypocrisy of elite America right now--nobody was sitting around pretending Assad was fighting a war for principle, let alone getting doxxed, politically targeted, or professionally threatened for expressing solidarity with the victims. A lot of pushed back hard against the outrageous hypocrisies involved, which actually tempered some of the worst excesses, but last fall was pretty ugly
Even to express concern for Palestinian lives invited accusations of supporting Hamas... among far more people than one would expect; students gathering late last spring in huge numbers was very much also the outcome of months of being spurned, mocked, censured, mistreated and subjected to consistent double standards. Does this happen when we call out China for the Uyghur genocide? (For obvious reasons, of course, it doesn't, but that's part of the larger arc of this moment--American politicians are voting to help Israel drop bombs on the family members of some Americans, which is... hard... to process)
Then, when we call attention to this, we're lucky if we can get a hearing
That said, you're right there can be deep double standards and I'm *not* okay with those. One of the main reasons I fast soured on the Stein campaign was her performance in an interview with Mehdi Hasan; Stein struggled to call Putin a war criminal, which left me bewildered.
But, again, there is the question of leverage, and here I'm skeptical of the idea Israel can shift to India or China. Josh Paul, a conscientious objector who left the State Department over Israel's war very early last fall, has unpacked this far better than me--suffice it to say, Israel is almost wholly dependent on US and Western weaponry, so deeply that if we were to cut supplies, Israel's war would come to a halt in weeks if not days. While in theory Israel could pivot to India or China, realistically it would take *years* to move an army from one set of equipment to another. During an active combat situation, that's nearly impossible
From a broader perspective, I'll say this: We as Americans can't stop every war in the world, nor should we be so hubristic as to imagine we are assigned to do this. But it doesn't follow from there that we have to be implicated in a war just because it's an ally's war. To me, that's fundamentally anti-democratic. Since we don't get to choose how Israel chooses to spend our military aid, that aid is fundamentally anti-democratic, and must be conditioned. Unless we're talking about a very close ally that truly shares our values (Canada, UK, Australia, etc), I'm really never okay with that level of uncritical endorsement
Isn't the bottom line that Muslim Americans are demanding that the US make Israel submit to Hamas (Hamas stays in Gaza, thousands of terrorists for the remaining hostages) ? That would lead to a massive loss of votes in the Jewish in Christian communities that can't be made up by Muslim voters. Even if you believed that they wouldn't vote for the GOP based on social issues ?
Thanks Haroon for the really detailed reply :) I would slightly contest your claim about doxxing and political targeting. Certainly from the far left and right I know of numerous cases of journalists and activists being targeted for their support for the revolution against Assad. I also do wonder if there are other reasons as I see this amongst my professional colleagues as well (political academics) who express a particular and almost unifocal concern over the Palestinian conflict as opposed to all kinds of conflict not only in the region but across the world.
I would also say in the UK chinese students can be particularly prone to harassing those who contest state narratives over either Taiwan or the Uighur genocide. There have been multiple incidents of harassment which are either hushed up or just completely ignored. Indeed, even at Harvard, we can see this happen https://www.thefire.org/news/baffling-decision-harvard-excuses-violence-against-student-briefly-disrupting-chinese
Thanks for the update on Israel's weapons situation! I could easily have gotten that wrong as I really don't know a ton about it but have just started reading around the edges :)
On the conditioning of aid I think someone can reasonably say we want to condition our aid on the basis that it may be misused and put to bad uses. That's totally fair and legitimate. I'm still not sure how this is inherently anti-democratic? Sure, you can argue as you did in the podcast the majority of Democrats in America don't want to give military aid to Israel but representative democracy is more than just a show of hands. You can think the representatives are wrong and then vote them out for it if you so wish. I'm still struggling to see the link between aid given unconditionally and non-democratic politics.
I agree directionally with what you're saying but a couple of quibbles.
The US does have a lot of leverage in principle because the IDF is organized around US proprietary equipment and could not change this in the middle of a war. So if the ammo sales to them stopped the war would have to end.
And the Syria comparison is different insofar as the US is not supporting Assad.
That's a fair point on Israel and totally acknowledge I am likely wrong about that :)
I think although the US was not supporting Assad if people are for atrocity prevention as a principle that should be applied consistently regardless of if the US is aiding and abetting it or not. I'm not sure that should affect the levels of anger.
This was quite the conversation. Thank you, Damir for navigating some very passionate takes on how to respond to democratic warmongering.
A couple observations:
Haroon's case to not vote for Kamila, at each point seemed like a better argument to vote for Trump than his campaign ever made! It did not make a case for not voting... unless Trump winning was a sure thing. Honestly the best case for Palestinians is a Trump victory. There's no third outcome that allays our moral reservations AND provides a path forward towards peace. We know where Kamila will land... might as well draw a wild card.
The moral ambiguity around violence was ever-present in this conversation. I'm curious why non-violence was not brought into the mix. I couldn't really differentiate why the status quo was tolerable, but now that there's a war on, we have to close ranks for Palestine. Shadi has been all about leveraging our foreign influence to create better outcomes, but it seems too little too late for the situation in Palestine. In any case, the only consistently idealistic approach to this nightmare is to be non-violent in all circumstances. It means you have to be anti-war, and that changes your relationship as a citizen to the state, which is quite freeing.
One side note on your collegiate allies that are protesting: If they want to wear masks and protest incognito, they still might be true believers, but they are cowards. And the occupy campus approach was flawed from the beginning. You don't win hearts and minds that way. It's just more of the us vs them. Which is the whole undemocratic flaw in oppressor/oppressed systems.
I'm still very confused why all Muslims aren't more interested in conservatism... aside from the stereotype of republicans being racists, there seems to be so many more synergies for religious folks on the right than on the left.
Which leads me to my final question: Shadi please tell me you knew how ridiculous it was to use Abortion as your example of a bridge too far. Can you please explain to me how terminating the outcome for a life isn't the same a terminating a life lived in your faith tradition? It doesn't compute for me, a Christain. I literally guffawed each time you brought up the hypothetical Kamala Catholic conversion. We could only hope!
I applaud you all for voting your conscience. It's the best we can do.
As a Muslim American voting for the first time (sigh), I was curious to hear how/whether Shadi and Haroon weighed two factors: (1) whether we live in a swing state, and (2) I didn't know this, but if a third party does gain some percentage of the vote (I've heard 2-5% depending on the state), they do get some federal funding. On the one hand, maybe this is an issue of principles and where you are doesn't really matter (and funding to a third party doesn't change anything in the near future), but perhaps in such a dire situation these details can make a difference.
Absolutely I think these are important considerations. I'd add some more:
Given how much local and state elections matter, and how little attention we pay to them, it's worthwhile to consider how investing locally might produce more impactful outcomes than putting an inordinate amount of energy into national calculations (especially, as Damir pointed out, American Muslims aren't that big of a constituency overall)
I'm very focused, for example, on voting on Ohio's Issue 1. There are also some key local and state races I'm invested in and have contributed to.
Finally, I'll also add some folks have emphasized to me the value of a divided government for creating useful compromise and a tempering gridlock (I know folks, for example, in swing states voting R at the top, and D down ballot, in order to effect a more balanced outcome.)
Now, of course, at the end of the day, there are our red lines as voters, for which reason I can't vote for Harris or Trump. But Shadi helped me to understand that, if we are to create a meaningful constituency and long-term impact, investing with principle and strategically in the Dems is probably better (my fear on the third-party front is that we institutionalize our marginalization; whereas, as one bloc among many in one party, might we have more long-term impact?)
It's a hard one, to be sure, which is why I was so grateful for this conversation
“Given how much local and state elections matter, and how little attention we pay to them”
Trump pays attention to them, as not even those government officials are safe from his attempts to coerce and intimidate them into illegal activity, as in the Georgia aftermath of the 2020 election. He does not hesitate to use the power of the presidency in this fashion, so I don’t feel safe assuming that local politicians will be a bulwark against his agenda when he has no qualms trying to intimidate them.
So many people fought and died to give you the right to vote. You are unworthy of their sacrifice and don't deserve to live in a democracy. Perhaps you would feel more at home in a Kalifat.
He didn't say he wasn't voting, he's talking about abstaining from voting for president, timestamp 31:00.
I am with Shadi
I’m planning on voting Stein based primarily on her Israel/Palestine policy. Helping a good third party candidate get a decent turnout is a more effective statement than not voting IMO.
I never miss a vote. Both parties are just fine with people not voting. They only have to answer to the people who DO vote.
Voting for a third party candidate and writing in a candidate are more effective than people realize. Party bosses closely study election results. They pay more attention to the people who vote third party than the people who vote for the 'other' party. Both parties attempt to channel people into being loyal supporters. When you vote, but don't vote for them, you are a threat to their 'system'.