“Uncommitted | Casimiro PT / Shutterstock
I have never subscribed to the idea that citizens who refuse to vote for a Democratic candidate in a tight race are somehow morally responsible for the election of a Republican, however bad that Republican might be.
If we are serious about liberal democracy, then we must recognize that every citizen has the legal, moral, and civic right to cast their vote as they choose, and that every single vote for every candidate must be earned. I may regret that many people voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 or Jill Stein in 2016. But it is wrong to presume that I can think or choose for others. The bottom line is that, given the arcane US Electoral College system, the Gore campaign failed to win enough votes in 2000, and the Clinton campaign failed in 2016. It is not the fault of those progressives who refused to support them.
It is in this spirit that I write now to suggest that even as Uncommitted protestors may honor many different sorts of moral and political commitments by being electorally “uncommitted” to the Democratic Party, those same commitments might also lead some to commit the singular act of casting a vote for Kamala Harris.
In a way, what I am saying is very similar to what leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement have themselves said, by publicly refusing to “endorse Harris” but declaring that their movement “opposes a Donald Trump presidency,” and urging supporters “to vote against him and avoid third-party candidates that can inadvertently boost his changes.” Indeed, Ilhan Omar, one of the strongest pro-Palestinian advocates in the US government, has even endorsed Harris, even as she continues to support Uncommitted demands. Those Uncommitted voters who are Palestinian American or Arab American and who have relatives or friends or friends of friends living in Gaza, or the West Bank, or Lebanon, or Israel proper, have every reason to be sickened by the war crimes daily committed by Israel’s Netanyahu government, by this government’s racist policies towards Palestinians, and by the Biden administration’s continued support of this government and its awful policies. If I were such a person, I would be outraged, and I would find it incredibly hard to justify doing anything to support the Harris-Walz ticket right now. I imagine I would feel a deep sense of frustration and anger towards anyone associated with current US policy in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, or the greater Middle East. It shouldn’t need to be said that Arab Americans, like any other citizens, have a right to feel outraged and ignored and to act accordingly at the ballot box.
At the same time, some Uncommitted citizens might feel outraged and ignored and at the same time, upon consideration, rethink their refusal to vote Harris-Walz.
One reason is that sense of fellow citizenship: to vote in this election because they are Americans, people who live and work and raise families in the US and share a common fate with all fellow citizens and care about what happens here because here is where they live. Even if, on balance, there is no difference between Trump and Harris on the Middle East—and I think there is a difference—there are other differences, and these might matter to many Arab Americans because they are Arab but also American.
And in fact the other differences between Trump and Harris are huge, in domestic and in foreign policy. The former is obvious. For those who care about civil rights broadly, or women’s rights or worker rights, or climate change, or democracy, or are revolted by fascistic rhetoric and outright racist targeting of immigrants, Black people, and Muslims, there is a world of difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. This difference will impact the lives of all fellow Americans, including Arab Americans. There is no reason to imagine that a Trump administration will show any respect at all for the rights of minorities—and Arab Americans are an especially vulnerable minority.
Indeed, the differences are significant even in the realm of foreign policy. This is admittedly knotty, and Joe Biden has been so obstinately “pro-Israel,” and so feckless in his occasional efforts to rein in Netanyahu, that it is easy to think that “it can’t get any worse.”
But it can get worse, and it will, if Trump is returned to the White House.
Because although Biden has been deplorably supportive of the IDF, and fecklessly supportive of Netanyahu, he has been sometimes critical, and he has tried, weakly, to exercise a modicum of restraint, in words and deeds, just as he has given at least lip service to the idea of Palestinian self-determination and even a Palestinian state. Netanyahu is playing a despicable long game, and part of his game is to make Biden look weak, because Netanyahu and Trump are ideological soulmates and political allies. And Trump has made very clear that if he is elected president, he will simply green light Netanyahu’s war efforts—efforts that involve not just the destruction and subjection of Gaza but the further repression and dispossession of Palestinians living on the West Bank. Netanyahu seeks to Make Greater Israel Great Again. He is the Israeli Trump, and he knows it, and Trump knows it.
Biden has been bad for Palestinians and all who care about their plight. But Trump would be much worse, and emphatically so. How can this be a good consequence for those who have been Uncommitted?
Further, Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden. It is perfectly understandable that Uncommitted voters would be deeply disappointed by Harris’s refusal to do more to emphasize differences with Biden. It is equally understandable that they would be outraged that the Harris-controlled DNC would not even reserve time to a single Palestinian American this past July. That was wrong and stupid, and Harris deserves to pay a political price. But if Trump wins, the biggest price on this score will be paid by Palestinians.
Harris is navigating a very fine line. Uncommitted voters have every reason to refuse to vote for Harris unless she does something to earn their support. But it is obvious that the race is incredibly tight, and Harris is afraid to make statements that will offend the millions of “pro-Israel voters” who are also strategically important in swing states. Many of these voters are linked to AIPAC and other Jewish groups. Many are Christian Zionists. Many are simply centrists who have long taken for granted the core foreign policy commitments of the US, one of which is the twisted idea that Israel is the preeminent US ally in the Middle East. And however mistaken is this idea, it has a hold on many Americans.
Using the uncommitted label to win primary delegates and place pressure on the DNC was a brilliant effort, and it is a shame that it did not bring better results. Loudly demanding more from Harris in the months following the DNC, and continually keeping the pressure on, has been a sensible strategy for effecting a change. And promising to continue such efforts until real results are achieved is praiseworthy.
But the primary season is over, the campaign is in its home stretch and the election is a dead heat. And in the coming weeks the symbolic value of votes will be overshadowed by their practical impact. And one thing above all will be decided by votes: whether the next president is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
I would think that many Uncommitted Arab Americans sickened by the Biden-Harris administration can still appreciate that this choice is hugely consequential for the very things they care about. And while some will feel conscience-bound to abstain or cast a protest vote, others might reconsider, and think of their vote less as a moral statement than as a simple instrument that can at least help to prevent a very bad thing from coming to pass.
Many Uncommitted voters, of course, are not Arab Americans motivated by a direct “stake” in the Middle East. They are fellow citizens motivated by a strong sense of justice, outrage at the terrible violence and destruction being exacted on Palestinian civilians by the IDF, and indignation at the hypocrisy of US policy. Such a politics of solidarity is to be admired, and of course every citizen has the right to vote their conscience, whatever the basis of their commitment to a cause.
At the same time, solidarity involves real judgments.
Should one uncompromising version of “pro-Palestinian” solidarity automatically trump other forms of solidarity? Abiding outrage at the suffering of Palestinians is laudable. And disappointment, and even outrage, at the Biden administration’s Middle East policy, and Harris’s support for it, is fully warranted. Full stop. It is also obvious that Trump would be no friendlier, no kinder, and no more interested in bringing an end to Palestinian suffering. His hostility to human rights defenders and progressive voices is well documented.
And, however lame the Democratic party establishment has been in pushing back against threats to civil liberties—and however much some leading Democrats have even supported awful crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests last year—there is no comparison between Harris and Trump when it comes to the Constitution and to constitutional democracy itself. Trump has targeted Haitian immigrants; promised to deport over 10 million immigrants through an elaborate regime of detention and forced expulsion; and called for periodic “rough days” in which police brutality would be encouraged. He has indeed called liberal and left opponents “vermin” and “enemies from within,” and expressed an openness to using the National Guard or the United States Army to shut down critics—a group that obviously includes everyone active in the Uncommitted movement.
Trump is indeed so dangerous that General Mark Milley—who served as Trump’s appointed Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—and General John Kelly—who served as Trump’s first Secretary of Homeland Security and then his Chief of Staff—have both recently stated that he is a “fascist.”
To be sure, Pro-Palestinian solidarity politics—and the politics of social justice and solidarity more generally—faces a huge uphill climb should the federal government be controlled by the Democrats. Many Democrats are no allies of such a politics. But the Trump-led, MAGA Republican party is the enemy of such a politics and all who practice it. Indeed, Trumpism is above all fueled by being against what the Left is for, and by using the power of the state to actively support what the Left is against—racism, xenophobia, militarism, and authoritarianism. I doubt that anyone who has admirably defined themselves as “uncommitted” is truly undecided when it comes to everything that the toxic politics of Trumpism represents, or uncommitted when it comes to opposing these things.
It is with these things in mind that Uncommitted voters might protest the Democratic Party’s failures and nonetheless vote for Harris-Walz.
The commitments of the Uncommitted are morally praiseworthy, deep, and involve sustained efforts that far exceed this year’s election. At the same time, in the coming weeks, how one chooses to vote will have major consequences on the very possibility of future activism. Uncommitted voters in some swing states, especially Michigan and Arizona, can turn the election for Trump or against him, and thus for racist authoritarianism or against it. Such voters can have an outsized influence on the future of American politics and thus the future of the world. There is an enormous political responsibility in this, a point recognized in an open letter circulated this week by Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders, which emphasizes that “voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear.”
I hope that many Uncommitted voters will think hard about this, and then decide to cast their individual votes for Harris-Walz, while continuing to do all the other things they do collectively to advance the causes of Palestinian rights and justice more broadly. As Waleed Shaheed has recently said on X: “Voting isn’t about a declaration of faith—it’s about finding the coalition that can carry your struggle forward. It’s about leveraging what you have to make the change you seek, even when the choices feel flawed.”
Casting a vote for Harris-Walz might feel bad. But the election of Donald Trump as president would be bad. Very, very bad.
And it would be a pretty good thing if everyone who cares about justice, human rights, and simple human decency did what they could to prevent that from happening. And right now, there is only one way to do this: by voting for the Harris-Walz ticket.
