the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 11, 2024
With this election, the voices of Arab and Muslim Americans in Michigan were heard on a national level. In Dearborn, Michigan, where 55% of the residents are of Middle Eastern descent, Harris received just 36.3% of the vote. Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who opposes U.S. foreign policy supporting the State of Israel, received 18.4% of the vote.
In Dearborn Heights, where 39% of the residents are of Middle Eastern descent, Harris received only 38.3%, while Stein received 15.1%. Trump got the most votes in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, but he didn’t get the majority in either.
Throughout Michigan overall, the Arab American population has traditionally voted Democratic. But according to an exit poll conducted through a partnership between Molitico Consulting and the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, about 56% of the state’s Muslim residents voted for Green Party’s Jill Stein. It shows that a sizeable part of this population didn’t want to choose either of the two traditional parties.
For over a year, Arab Americans, along with others in the U.S. population who have been outraged at the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, have fought to be heard. At the Democratic National Convention, not a single Palestinian American was allowed to speak.
Before the election, the Democratic Party attacked voters who declined to vote Democratic, for focusing on the genocide in Gaza as a “single issue vote.”
If so, wouldn’t that be the best single issue: to take a stand and vote against this government’s complicity in the massacres of the civilian populations of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon? Against Israel’s violent military operations that have thus far resulted in the massacre of over 45,000 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children; against the indiscriminate bombing that has destroyed sanitation systems, with environmental impacts that have created unprecedented soil, water and air pollution throughout the region, not to mention starvation.
Obviously, the pressure exerted by the Democratic Party did not hit its mark. The protest was clear and present and echoes in the population across the nation, many of whom refused to vote for the administration’s war policy.