Trump's Victory Impact on Arab and Muslim Americans and the Middle East

All politics are local and retail-oriented, akin to selling a product, which makes Trump the quintessential candidate and salesman on the campaign trail. No matter one’s view of the candidate and his policies, Trump's comeback victory is an epic performance for the history books. The early data shows that Trump won all the decisive swing states, kept the majority White Republican voter base, and increased support from young college students, had gains among Latino and Black men while also winning 45% of Arab and Muslim votes in Dearborn, Michigan.?

For the first time in a US presidential acceptance speech, Trump specifically mentioned Arabs and Muslims, an important signal of the arrival of the community on the national political landscape. How Trump and the Republicans won, and Harris’ Democratic Party’s loss of the 2024 elections, will be a case study in American politics for generations.? Furthermore, what will be the impact of Trump's victory on Arab and Muslim Americans and the Middle East is an important question to contemplate after the dust has settled.

For Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities, the election outcome is a tale of two cities. ?One tale showed that for the first time in the US national elections, the communities were at the center of outreach efforts by a major political party.? Never before has a political Party and its presidential candidate spent extensive time engaging in sustained campaigning at the local and grassroots levels.? Say whatever you want, and I did not vote for him, but Trump jumped into Arab and Muslim community spaces with his team, shook hands, ate at community-run restaurants and cafes, and met and listened to Imams and community leaders while taking as many pictures and videos as possible for a robust social media campaign.? On the last rally in Michigan, he invited to the stage Hamtramck Mayor Dr. Amer Ghalib, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, who has been a vocal supporter, stating: "I endorse President Trump, and I broke the wall of fear among the Arab American and Muslim Americans,"… "I destroyed that wall of silence and wall of hesitance among Arab Americans. We are on a mission to end that disconnect between the minorities and the Republicans and to make it the party of inclusion." ?The Arab and Muslim voters arrived at the center of US political discourses, and time will only tell if this is the new normal that any presidential candidate seeking high office must court their vote and listen to their concerns.

The other tale shows that the election of Trump will have far-reaching consequences on Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians in the US and abroad if the 2025 agenda is put into policy and the commitments made to Miriam Adelson, Israel’s supporter who committed $100 million for his campaign. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/us/politics/miriam-adelson-trump-israel.html In the US, the Arab, Muslim, Palestinian and immigrant communities will have a massive assault, including the targeting of community organizations, fomented and racist Congressional hearings targeting pro-Palestine activism and a return to normalized Islamophobic discourses.? Time will tell if the endorsement of Trump by community leaders in Michigan will have any impacts and lead to reconsideration from the new administration. I am not confident that this will be the case, considering all those in the inner circle.

Coming back to the main story of the general election itself.? This election is historic on many fronts and Trump won all the swing states and collapsed the blue wall, while some Democrats attempted to play the blame game instead of their failed "strategy" to abandon and dehumanize Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians and their allies. ?Believe it or not, the Democrat's strategy would rather look toward appealing to white Republican women and touting endorsements from war criminal Dick Cheney in Michigan (https://apnews.com/article/cheney-gonzales-harris-endorsement-trump-mainstream-republicans-224d7be9ee7ebb6dc699bca5339a4458); rather than meet or say anything on the genocide on Gaza.? The majority of Democrats rank and file supported calling for a ceasefire and imposing an arms embargo on Israel but not Harris and her Zionism, no matter what team.

Trump and Republicans masterfully exploited this opening and reached out aggressively in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other swing states by positioning themselves as pro-peace, anti-interventionist and the Party to bring an end to war.? At a rally a few days before the elections, Trump campaign put on the rally stage Imam Belal Alzuhiry to express to large audience with the national media in attendance that "We as Muslims stand with Trump because he promises peace ... not war,… We are supporting Donald Trump because he promises to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine. The bloodshed has to stop all over the world and I think this man can make that happen." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyORqhoGvAY)? Even to the last minutes of the campaign, Kamala and the Democratic Party elite refused to make any meaningful changes to both messaging and outreach to Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan.? The level of anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, and institutional Islamophobic in the Democratic Party leadership is the primary cause behind losing their votes or large segments opting to stay away from the polls altogether.?

Even when the national media was debating Arab and Muslim voters in swing states, the Democratic Party and Harris doubled down on expressing support for Israel’s right to defend itself and centering October 7thwhile dismissing the community demands and deeply felt pain from the genocide. Agreed that Trump is a skillful liar and all his outreach is self-serving with no policy attached to it but at least he understands the moment, the needed language and is ready to jump head first in all the places that the Democratic Party had the advantage going in and refused to move one inch toward the community.? They refused to move an inch, and the community moved away from them altogether by voting for Trump, third-party candidates, or staying out of this election cycle.

Weeks before the Democratic National Convention, the Harris campaign attempted to play on existing internal American-Muslim differences by closely coordinating the endorsement of the Black Muslim Leadership Council (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/black-muslim-leadership-council-fund-endorse-kamala-harris ) and funding of the Uncommitted National Movement to guarantee an endorsement of Harris and prevent a vote for a third party candidate. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-elections-2024-uncommitted-splits-after-money-pac-supporting-harris ??Let’s get this straight: the Democratic Party leadership would rather continue to support and fund Israeli genocide than listen to their party membership, which was increasingly supportive of an arms embargo and a call for an immediate ceasefire. ?Gaza and the genocide in Gaza might not been the top issue for voters across the board and Harris and the Democrats did not act on the data that showed voters would be more open to supporting her if she committed to changing Biden’s policy on Israel.? ??

Clearly, the election outcome shows the Democratic Party’s strategy centering on reaching out to White women in the suburbs and moderate Republicans was a total failure.? Not only did Trump secure and increase the turnout of his White voting base, but he also cut into traditional Democratic urban areas in ways never seen in the past 50 years of election results. Trump has won the popular vote, an outcome that no Republican president could secure in the past thirty years. This means a far more complex election outcome and a total repudiation of the Democratic Party strategy and leadership.? The fact that the Democrats could not win against a convicted felon, leader of the assault on the capital with multiple sexual and rape cases against him, is an indication of an identity and strategy crisis for the Party.

Here, we must go back to the early 1990s to understand what occurred in the 2024 elections.? Democratic Party shift to the right on economic issues over a long period, beginning with Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council (https://www.politico.com/story/2009/06/bill-clinton-defends-dlc-role-legacy-023833) that sought to go after Reagan’s Democrat and take the Party away from the left base into the center.? The economic bread and butter issues for the middle class and poor Democratic voters got pushed away. At the same time, cultural and identity discourses took center stage as a foil to create a perception of a progressive agenda.? Trump and the Republicans were able to brand themselves as a Party that is looking after the working people, primarily white working and voting base, while demolishing the cultural content and strategy of the Democratic Party and, in the process, taking away voters from their base.

The Democratic Party has lost its traditional electoral base, and the attempts to be Republican light caused this fundamental shift further to the right, including among the unions. The Latino vote shifted in more significant numbers toward Republicans, black men numbers shifted, and young voters shifted. The idea that taking Liz Chaney on the road to appeal to Republicans in the suburbs is one of the worst types of strategies to be undertaken while Trump went to work at a McDonald's food line.

The Democrats lost Latinos, Blacks, Arabs, Muslims, and union members, shows the strategy, messaging, and candidates are totally out of touch and no longer able to connect with the traditional democratic voter base.? Indeed, the Democratic elite is out of touch with a vast swath of the population.? You can use figures and facts but the Party no longer the voice and standard bearer of the regular person.? Witnessing Trump and Elon Musk able to speak to regular people and get their vote is an introductory lesson of a party that lost its way over a long period of time. Trump is a master communicator and very much able to connect emotionally with his audience or market, which he knows very well.? On the other hand, Harris campaigned as if she were in a courtroom, stating facts and expecting to be in the White House with the inability to connect emotionally to the people or include their economic pain narrative in her speeches.? Having every Hollywood figure or a large number of them come out to campaign for the Democratic Party increased the disconnect and affirmed the elite nature of those at the helm.

Young college-age voters under 30, who came out in large numbers for Biden and Obama before, did not come out in this election.? The young voter base was not inspired by a candidate who refused to speak on Gaza, the environment, and student debt and stayed silent on the repression of free speech and the protest movement on college campuses.? The consequence is that the Democrats lost the elections, and the Republicans swept the three pillars of power in the US, the presidency, the Senate, and most likely the House of Representatives, a political earthquake in America that will reverberate worldwide. Trump's victory and his party's victory in the Senate allow him to form his administration as he sees fit with no opposition. He will not suffer what Biden suffered in the Senate.

When it comes to Palestine, Gaza, and the Middle East policy, the stage is possibly set for Trump to announce support for Israel’s annexation of most of Area B and C in the West Bank. Trump promised on the campaign trail to end the war in the Middle East, however, what this means in real policy terms was not expressed, and more so as it relates to Gaza and the Genocide.? The team around Trump is mostly committed to Israel’s expansionist policies and allowing Netanyahu to complete the military campaign in the Strip.