The old adage suggests that foreign policy does not decide elections.
“It's the economy, you idiot,” Clinton campaign strategist James Carville famously declared in the run-up to the 1992 election.
But this year's tough presidential election could come down in part to the wars in the Middle East and whether Vice President Kamala Harris can win back support from the historically democratic Arab American community. There is sex.
Activists in battleground states say the Trump campaign is capitalizing on Arab-American sentiment against the Biden-Harris administration.
“For the Democratic Party, grassroots support is completely ineffective,” Dearborn-based Arab-American activist Samra Luqman told Fox News Digital.
“The activity from the Republican Party was unlike anything I've ever seen before,” said Lukman, who wrote for Bernie Sanders in 2020 and is now voting for former President Donald Trump.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Univision Town Hall on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, in Doral, Florida. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“The people surrounding the president have been communicating with grassroots organizers and local leaders and people like me,” she continued. “I'm not really someone who stands on the national stage. . . . But I have access here,” said Richard Grenell, Trump's former acting director of national intelligence, and Trump's daughter. He now has access to people like his father-in-law, Massad Boulos. , Tiffany.
Grenell, who is likely to take a Cabinet-level job if Trump wins, and Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman, are leading efforts to reach Arab-American communities in battleground states, saying, “They are Progressives like me are also on board.'' Considering the alternatives, this is the right person for the job at this point. ”
For Lukman, who supports Medicare for All and student loan forgiveness, her vote is more a vote of protest than enthusiasm for Trump. “The real issue is genocide and how to hold governments accountable, because you can't punish regimes that commit genocide.”
To Mr. Luqman and his Palestinian supporters in the United States, President Joe Biden's criticism of Israeli offensive operations in Gaza and Lebanon rings hollow as the United States continues to provide unconditional aid to the war effort.
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Lukman said Biden is “absolutely Bibi's dog,” referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump “is not like that,” she said.
“Trump is a wild card, but we saw him grow grumpy towards Bibi toward the end of his presidency.”
“He will probably say that his America First policy means keeping billions of our people at home,” she continued. “Maybe he'll say 'peace through strength'…If I tell you to do something and you don't do it, then the next step is to withhold military aid. Maybe.”
A Palestinian woman with her child in her arms cries in front of a collapsed building as the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israel's attack on the Buraij refugee camp are taken to Al-Awda Hospital for burial in Gaza City, Gaza. September 24th in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. 19th, 2024. (Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
As for what Trump could do better, he said, “At the end of the day, it comes down to personality.”
Michigan, which Biden narrowly won in 2020, is a key battleground state in this election. It is home to more than 300,000 Arab Americans, making it the region with the second largest population.
Trump won the state in 2016 by just 11,000 votes over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but lost the state to Biden four years later by nearly 154,000 votes.
Arab Americans have also historically supported Democrats, but new polling suggests that may be changing. Among voters in their communities, Arab Americans support Trump over Harris, 46% to 42%, according to the latest poll from the Arab American Association.
“This is a change that started a few years ago, around 2022. At that time, books in public school libraries had sexually explicit content, and the community felt like: [they wanted] To claim parental rights. They didn't want their children, regardless of their age, to be exposed to these things,” Lukman said.
“I'm not one of those people who falls into that bucket. I'm very liberal. But when October 7th happens, it's a sign of support for the Republican Party among some people within this community. I have solidified it.”
Last month, Amer Gharib, the Democratic mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, which is 60% Muslim-American, announced his support for Trump.
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Biden won 60% of the Arab American vote in 2020, but support from that community has plummeted since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack.
The National Abandon Biden Campaign launched a campaign asking voters to vote uncommitted in battleground state primaries to send a message to Democrats, and more than 1 million people did so.
President Trump said Jewish Americans' failure to vote for him “shows either a total lack of knowledge or great dishonesty.” His campaign frequently suggests that Harris supports the Palestinian cause more than the Israelis.
But in April, Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that “Israel is completely losing the PR war,” criticizing leaked footage of the ruins of Gaza.
“We have to end this, we have to get back to normal, and I don't know if I like the way they're doing it, because we have to win,” Trump said. He did not directly answer whether he was 100 percent on Israel's side.
A man uses a cell phone as flames and smoke rise at the scene of an Israeli airstrike hitting a building in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) (AP Photo/Bilal Hussain)
President Trump recently said postwar Gaza could be “better than Monaco.”
“It might be better than Monaco. The best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best of everything,” he told Hewitt earlier this month.
“They never took advantage of it. As a developer, you know it could be the most beautiful place,” he said.
Trump has blamed Harris and Biden for easing sanctions against Iran for the current turmoil in the Middle East, and emboldened his proxies to carry out last year's attacks.
However, his growing support among Arab Americans is a major change since 9/11, and his first presidential administration included anti-Islamic rhetoric and protests from Muslim-majority countries. This comes despite a history of travel bans on people.
And it reflects how harmful Harris' refusal to let the light of day shine between her and Biden can be.
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“I think I could have considered voting for the Democratic Party,” she said, after Lukman encouraged the party to abandon Biden.
“But after she clarified her policy stance and declared that there would be no change in policy, they were 100 percent exactly the same,” Lukman continued. “It was clear she had to lose too.”
