Just how much could MENA/Muslim Americans affect the 2024 election? Likely more than you realize--and not just in Michigan.
Mass abstention/third-party voting among these communities ALONE would erase the 2020 margins of victory in AZ & GA.
Details here:
Churchill on the Palestinians (1937):
“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America…” (1/2)
(2/2) “…or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a STRONGER RACE, a HIGHER-GRADE RACE, a more worldly wise race…has come in and taken their place.”
(Emphasis mine, genocidal white supremacy his)
Some are confusing the Palestinian flag 🇵🇸 and the Sudanese flag 🇸🇩 (especially, regrettably as both peoples endure tremendous suffering).
Ever wonder why MENA flags share similar colors? If you guessed European chicanery, you're correct!
Oh, but that's not the half of it...
Well, I guess this means that I will be avoiding any show/film that features Selma Blair and Michael Rapaport in addition to those with Debra Messing and Mayim Bialik.
Which means…*check notes*….
I can continue to watch *LITERALLY ANYTHING* I’ve ever actually wanted to watch.
Heartless. All of them. All of those who had the power to stop this. All of them. All of those who enabled this with their callous words and cowardly silence.
Morally corrupt. Utterly heartless.
We will not forget.
The colors originate from the flag of the Arab Revolt during WWI.
The designer? None other than MARK SYKES of Sykes-Picot infamy.
The horizontal colors represent the Abbasid (black), Umayyad (white), and Rashidun (green) Caliphates; the red triangle reps the Hashemite dynasty.
I wore my keffiyeh on campus today and happened to come upon my Palestinian student. His gaze spoke volumes--pain, yes, but also the realization that he wasn't alone.
Whatever else I do in my career, it pales in importance to the small solace I was able to offer this young man.
This is LITERALLY what these cowards did after 9/11. They’re just running plays from the neo-con handbook and hoping we won’t notice.
These clowns specialize in punching down and, worse yet, paint themselves as “brave” while doing so.
What an immoral system we’ve constructed.
My office has launched an investigation into the nonprofit American Muslims for Palestine for fundraising without proper registration and for potentially violating Virginia's charitable solicitation laws, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations.
My mother-in-law (pictured here with my wife, her eldest child), returned to her Lord today.
She was a loving mama and even more doting teta. Her final year was filled with wonderful memories Alhamdulilah.
May Allah have mercy on her and raise her rank among the righteous 🤲🏼
Here are two Muslims on a major news network debating the complexities of liberal-democratic citizenship in the United States and honestly I just think that's kinda cool.
I asked
@mehdirhasan
whether he would accept the election results if Trump or someone like him wins fair and square in 2024. A spirited back-and-forth ensued.
Watch the exchange on
@Morning_Joe
:
Since so many Muslims/MENAs are loudly proclaiming they will NOT vote for Biden in 2024, I thought I'd do some back-of-the-envelope math on how this could affect the race in MICHIGAN.
🚨For every 10% of his 2020 voters that stay home, Biden can expect to lose a net of ~11K votes
Netanyahu declaring invasion: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible"
1 Samuel 15:3
"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass"
@rafaelshimunov
I know you’re going to be catching a lot of flack for this post. Just know that there are so many that appreciate the hard work that you and so many other Jewish brothers and sisters are doing. Solidarity ✊🏽
This past week has changed the way I think about mental health.
What we typically code as "illness" may simply be the normal (perhaps even the ethical) response when the world itself is unwell.
Anyway, if I owe you any work, don't expect it. I'm barely holding it together.
The protest vote in the MI primary was 2/3 of Biden's 2020 margin of victory. In MN, it was equal to the 2020 MoV.
Yesterday, in WI, it was more than DOUBLE the MoV.
It gets worse.
2020: polls had him up in each state by 8%+
2024: he trails in all three
Can you hear us now?
The hospitals in Gaza just collapsed.
Now ask me again why American Muslims, Middle Easterners, and allies of conscience are unwilling to vote in the next presidential election.
Many Medicare beneficiaries will continue to save hundreds of dollars on their health care costs because Democrats capped the price of insulin at $35 per month and made recommended vaccines free.
In a forthcoming
@BJPolS
article, Steven Brooke, Mike Hoffman, and I leverage day-of-the-week variation in survey enumeration to isolate the effect of attending Jumua prayer on Muslims' propensity to express exclusionary attitudes.
Short🧵on the findings
So grateful to my dept chair for snagging a physical copy of the
@BJPolS
issue with my co-authored article while he was at APSA.
It just hits different when you see it in print 😍
File this away for the next time someone tries to convince you that fighting against anti-Black racism has nothing to do with supporting Palestinian freedom.
My father-in-law, Osama Ali Refai, was one of the most kind-hearted and selfless individuals you could ever wish to meet.
Today, he returned to his Lord. We ask Allah to forgive him and raise him in the ranks of the righteous.
إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
So excited to be part of this year's cohort of
#PRRIPublicFellows
! Looking forward to connecting with new colleagues and collaborating on timely, informative projects.
Stay tuned!
We are thrilled to announce the new
#PRRIPublicFellows
cohort! These scholars will work alongside PRRI researchers and staff to generate impactful public scholarship at the intersection of religion, culture, and politics
More:
There are some scholars—big names at top institutions—on this platform that are uncritically posting the same absurd talking points in defense of genocide that the IDF puts out.
I’ve lost all respect for those individuals and we should seriously not cite their work ever again.
A friend called and told me “that’s it, I’m done.”
His stmt had nothing to do w/ voting. He was saying he’s done with America—as in his family is leaving the country.
That’s where the debate is now.
Whether we’re for Biden isn’t even up for discussion. He’s lost us for good.
Taught
@ndrewwhitehead
and
@profsamperry
's work the other day, which gave me occasion to share this staggering public opinion shift:
Can an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life still...fulfill their duties?
WEs in 2011: 30% YES
WEs in 2016: 72% YES
"STOCHASTIC TERRORISM refers to **political** or **media** figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech."
We are shocked and disturbed to learn that a landlord in Chicago expressing anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian views broke into a Muslim family's apartment and attacked them with a knife, injuring the mother and killing her 6-year-old son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.
@cairchicago
will hold a
You may have seen this poll floating around.
Among the numerous incendiary takeaways is the headline "finding": MUSLIM-AMERICANS SAY HAMAS WAS JUSTIFIED IN ATTACKING ISRAEL
Let me tell you why you should be VERY skeptical of these survey results...
In my first op-ed for
@ConversationUS
, I discuss how Arab and Muslim Americans are defecting from the Biden coalition, the difficulties in quantifying this shift, and my efforts at capturing these communities' (under-appreciated) voting power.
I don’t know why we ever thought that a country so indifferent to **its own** children being routinely gunned down in schools would care about children getting bombed halfway across the world.
@UjuAnya
Can I suggest one tweak: “your parents didn’t attend or finish college (in the US)”
A lot of immigrant kids had to apply to and navigate thru college on their own (even if their parents had BAs from abroad), which I think is a core part of the “first gen” experience.
Shaun King and his wife accepted Islam this evening with
@omarsuleiman504
guiding them through the testament of faith.
What a beautiful moment for them. I pray that this month—and all their remaining months—are filled with blessings and peace 🤲🏼
Activists unfurled “Free Gaza” “解放巴勒斯坦” (Free Palestine) banners from an iconic Chinatown fire escape right above electeds moving them to quickly leave the parade and avoid further accountability that awaited them, including this Palestine Dragon
A student come into my office yesterday. She wasn't Arab. Within two minutes, she couldn't hold back any longer and began crying.
There's something different about the response to this latest, ongoing massacre. I dare not call it a "silver lining"--but it's a shift worth noting.
I began class today by asking students. How are you? One of my students told me 27 members of his family were k1lled today when their building was destr0yed by Isr
@eli
air str1ke. Then everyone broke into tears.
Since the topic of Whiteness is dominating The Discourse™, let me take the opportunity to remind folks that things are complicated for Middle Easterners, as well.
P.S.: Really?? Anne Frank and Frida Kahlo?!? Ya’ll pick some weird hills to die on.
Arabs and Muslims do not constitute a large proportion of the American electorate, but they have outsized influence in several battleground states in the 2024 election.
This spreadsheet provides rare empirical insight into these communities' voting power.
So what's the upshot?
Let's say 50% of MENA/Muslim voters in 2020 abstain/vote third-party in 2024.
This may seem high, but it's actually a reasonable estimate given how much Biden's support has cratered--from 59% to 17% among Arabs (AAI) and 80% to 5% among Muslims (Emgage).
As I told
@shadihamid
for his recent piece, quantitative analysis on these communities is "so tough"--I wasn't kidding.
This spreadsheet represents my best effort to extrapolate from multiple data sources (e.g.,
@EmgageUSA
,
@AAIUSA
, and
@uscensusbureau
).
🚨NEW PUB🚨
Using
@PewReligion
data, I find little evidence for tension between Muslims’ religious and American identities. Additionally, American Muslims feel “at home” in America, broadly speaking, but not necessarily “welcomed” by society at large.
Starbucks is shooting an ad featuring “someone who wears a hijab or head covering” 😒
I don’t know to what extent the boycott is “working,” but clearly someone over at corporate is paying attention.
🇵🇸🇵🇸
This is something I’ve been thinking about—though, obviously, it’s far from the most pressing issue of the moment.
I can easily see American Muslims becoming apathetic toward, or even outright renouncing political participation in the wake of Democrats’ utter callousness.
Just an anecdote but I’ve spoken to too many people this week who are loyal Dem voters but now plan to abstain in 2024 because of Biden’s unqualified support for Israel’s genocidal actions. Can’t blame ‘em.
With everything going on, I’ve had to take my youngest to campus a couple of times—and have her sit through my research methods class.
She initially tried taking notes (first couple are on the central limit theorem), but her drawings soon betrayed a mounting frustration…
The “uncommitted” vote coming out of Michigan is impressive.
But the centering of unapologetic Arabs & Muslims—their stories, their demands, their STRENGTH—is the real accomplishment tonight.
For those of us who came of age in the fearful aftermath of 9/11, this means SO much.
On the one hand, the ICJ’s ruling means that the Biden administration is aiding and abetting a plausible genocide.
On the other hand, a few folks got their student loans forgiven.
Gosh, I don’t know, gonna be a really tough call come November.
Not to mention that NC gets taken out of contention and PA and WI become a lot tighter.
Again, this is the estimated effect from MENA/Muslim voters ALONE.
Factor in young voters & others concerned with social justice and Biden's re-election prospects start looking pretty bleak.
Friends, my colleague has an amazing student who got accepted to an Ivy League MA program in int'l affairs:
A Palestinian, first-gen, Muslim woman.
The cost of the program is prohibitive. Can anyone point me to funding sources that can help cover her tuition?
#AcademicTwitter
Assuming that these defectors would be overwhelmingly Democrats (say, 3:1 or 4:1 Dem:Rep), that would mean the following net vote loss for Biden in 2024:
Michigan: 55-77K (> 5X the margin of victory in 2016)
Arizona: 12.5-15K (> MoV in 2020)
Georgia: 15-16K (> MoV in 2020)
It would've been hard for me, as a little immigrant Arab boy, to imagine this moment in pop culture. Amazing to see Muslims being both ordinary and extraordinary all at once on such a grand stage.
Browbeating a traumatized population into voting for your callous candidate by threatening them with more trauma is one hell of an electoral strategy.
I really hope someone in DNC is realizing that Arabs and Muslims are not making an empty threats. This isn’t cheap talk.
Yup. Summary of my mentions:
“Enjoy the Muslim ban” translation: you’ll take what we give & you’ll shut up bc you have nowhere to go.
“We didn’t want you anyway/you’re not real liberals because you’re all homophobes and misogynists.”
Great election strategy 👏🏽
Professors sometimes help with “real world” problems and, at times, offer solace.
But for the life of me, I never imagined having a student count off EIGHTEEN family members from a list of civilians killed in the past month.
What do I even say?
What is this nightmare?
“Remember, everyone is awkward, not just you.”
Advice to my eldest daughter as she started eighth grade this morning.
But, also, looking your way,
#AcademicTwitter
👀
Just gave a 60min talk on MidEast politics with a 45min Q&A. Nearly all Qs were thoughtful attempts at understanding the current conflict & its history.
The kicker? This was a room of ~40 white, rural folks in their 60s & 70s.
Assume the best of others; you're often rewarded.
Some are downplaying the "uncommitted" vote in Michigan by noting that it was ~10% in the 2012 Dem primary. Here's why that's a poor comparison:
1) The 2012 Dem primary was ~4% of total turnout in the general elex. Yesterday's Dem primary was ~14% of total turnout in Nov 2020.
I've been fully transparent as this is far from an ironclad estimate. I welcome any feedback on potential adjustments to my methodology; just wanted to get a baseline # to better inform the discourse.
BOTTOM LINE: Biden cannot afford to take the Muslim/MENA vote for granted!
How about we should treat them like they treat us?
Assume all Democrats are anti-Muslim and care not one bit about our lives and livelihoods until they PROVE otherwise.
This disgusting policy from
@KamalaHarris
on the campaign trail is not an outlier.
#AbandonDemocrats
🧵 On Saturday, January 27th at the
@KamalaHarris
"Get The Vote Out" event in Las Vegas, two visible members of the Muslim community wearing hijabs were not let in by campaign officials.
The Biden/Harris campaign is clearly fanning the flames of Islamophobia.
I just want to shout out the editorial team at
@BJPolS
. They've been an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish. Oh, and as a cherry on top, they just made our piece open access for the next 2 weeks!
Check it out! And submit to the journal!
I am sick to my stomach to hear about the stabbing death of Detroit synagogue president Samantha Woll.
She was only 40 years old.
Woll led the Isaac Agree Downtown Detroit Synagogue since 2022 and was very involved in Democrat politics.
According to the news outlet, Woll
There's been a lot of talk lately about the growing ideological gap btwn men & women.
What's the trend among American Muslims?
1) Muslim men have become steadily more conservative
2) There *WAS* a large ideological gap btwn Muslim men and women that's now virtually disappeared
Started the final unit of the semester today in my intro CP/IR class.
It’s the first of four sessions on the topic.
What’s the topic, you ask? I think you know.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in a classroom… 😞
This is my advisor, Laurie Brand, whom we celebrated this year at
@MESA_1966
.
Not only is she a stellar scholar, but Laurie BEEN supporting the Palestinians. She’s a DAY ONE for the cause.
If those in power had HALF of Dr. Brand’s character, we’d all live in a far better world.
Morale is low...staffers are preparing to formally express their opposition to Biden's approach:
“There’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels,” one State Dept official said.
There's no return to the status quo ex ante, abroad or at home.
The kids watched a livestream of a paper presentation I gave a few weeks back, and thus was born the idea for this very cute (if mildly insulting) Father’s Day gift
In my first op-ed for
@trtworld
, I write about the calls to abstain/vote third party from Arabs, Muslims, and their allies.
This segment of the electorate is well aware of the likely short-term consequences but is more concerned with long-term change.
@saramsalem
Just re-listened to Serial’s podcast on Adnan and had to go back and revisit
@rabiasquared
’s audiobook on the case. It’s a great listen and expand’s the lens beyond the case particulars to incorporate how it fits into a securitized/anti-Muslim frame. Right up your alley :-)
@joeyhuddleston
Yeah...it's a real mess. At this point, I think many in the abstain/3rd-party camp are reconciled with another Trump term if it brings about longterm change.
It's a gambit, it's risky, but many feel cornered, and it was all avoidable.
No one can speak on timeless Truths and tie them to the current moment better than Sh
@omarsuleiman504
No team can convey this much needed message more effectively than the
@yaqeeninstitute
This Ramadan series was truly a blessing
May Allah reward all those who contributed 🤲🏼
Every action we have done throughout life is accounted for, both the good and the sinful. When we look back at all of our deeds, and our entire life story, will it have been worth it?
Watch the finale of
#WhyMe
:
This conference is coming at a critical time in the history and evolution of Islam in America.
Excited to present alongside
@emanabdelhadi
,
@Skhamis
,
@nuraphd
,
@bmoham
, and many other scholars doing invaluable work.
Come check it out!
Join us on Feb. 8-9 for our 17th annual conference. The theme of this webinar conference—proposed by Prof. Nazita Lajevardi—is “Researching Muslim America.”
Open to all. Free registration:
Liberal math is “celebrating” Indigenous Peoples Day while offering unequivocal support for a state about to engage in ANOTHER indiscriminate assault against indigenous peoples.
@npl_palestine
@KamalaHarris
Two things to keep in mind:
1) The last two Emerson College polls in Nevada (fielded in Nov & Jan) found Trump beating Biden.
2) While not a large proportion of the electorate, MENA/Muslim voters ALONE (per my calculations) can easily take 2500 votes off the board for Biden.
In constructing the estimates, I was forced to make some assumptions but always erred on the conservative side (that is, my numbers likely UNDERestimate MENA/Muslim voting power).
As with my earlier thread, I was fully transparent and documented my process--feedback welcome!
BREAKING: Biden has cut off funding to
@UNRWA
, which provides life-saving aid to 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza every day.
The US is collectively punishing Palestinians, who rely on UNRWA to survive, based on Israeli allegations against 0.0004% of UNRWA's staff. Outrageous.
@Timlongman
Couple of things I do: 1) explain to them *why* I cold call (ie, not to be mean or “catch” someone not paying attention, but to make sure folks don’t get left out of the convo), and 2) I frame the Q as them helping me understand/understand their perspective to soften any anxiety.
It takes around ~33 years for today’s Gregorian date to realign with the Hijri (Islamic) date (the latter based on lunar cycles).
As you see visuals of pilgrims in Mecca this year, consider:
*** This may be the last time that Hajj can safely be held at the height of Summer ***