The world, we are told, is on the eve of witnessing the most consequential US presidential election since witnessing the last most consequential US presidential election.
The hyperbole has a familiar ring because the so-called “stakes” have a familiar ring.
Anyone with even a passing understanding of American history knows that presidential elections have always been cast as a binary choice between the past and future, prosperity and decay, peace and war, and, lately, democracy and authoritarianism.
The myth that girds these “choices” is that American voters have a choice at all; that the two dominant political parties are, save the glib edges, ideological adversaries when, on, say, urgent matters of war and peace, they remain steadfast soulmates to the core.
The billionaire oligarchs who run the whole decrepit show in America know that “democracy” is a sweet illusion meant to convince the gullible that party 1 is different from party 1a.
That is the stubborn conundrum confronting Arab and Muslim American voters: The leaders of party 1 and party 1a have, on the defining issue of these awful times, promoted and defended a blatant genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
So, who to choose or whether to choose at all?
Remember, there is no “daylight” on this cowardly, abominable score between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Both have played willing and enthusiastic handmaidens to their indicted darling in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Both have backed every sickening measure of the state-engineered atrocities that have killed more than 43,000 (and counting) mostly Palestinian children and women – the carpet bombing, the deliberate starvation, the denial of medical care, the spread of disease, the forced marches, and on and on and on.
Both refuse, of course, to use the short, sharp word “genocide” to describe – not as a rhetorical cudgel, but as a matter of international law – the crimes being committed by an apartheid state in Gaza and the West Bank.
Both believe unquestionably that Israel has the absolute “right to defend itself” despite the ongoing “extermination” of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
And when their fellow citizens took to the streets and university campuses to demand a stop to the wholesale killing and apocalyptic destruction, Democrats and Republicans dismissed these enlightened Americans as “terrorist” sympathisers and applauded the draconian efforts by powerful, entrenched interests to silence the “protesters” through force, threats, and intimidation.
But, as election day approaches, fretting Democrats and their compliant allies – among the “progressive” cognoscenti in the mainstream media ecosystem – have grown ever more nervous.
Their palpable anxiety has been on puffing display on forgettable cable TV programmes and in forgettable online columns meant to reassure one another that everything will turn out all right.
Alas, for the forlorn, a spate of national and state polls – if they are accurate – reveal a deadlocked race for the White House. In some “swing” states with could-possibly-tip-the-scales-sized Arab and Muslim populations, Trump appears to be edging ahead.
The prospect that America may soon elect a fascist as commander-in-chief is registering with Kamala Harris and obedient company in the Democratic Party establishment and beyond.
Oh heavens, what shall we do?
“Outreach.” Yes, “outreach”.
“Outreach” is a euphemism for pretending to “listen to” Arab and Muslim voters when, all along, Harris et al have ignored a grieving community that the Democratic nominee for president suddenly thinks she can mollify with meaningless bromides.
“We are working night and day to arrange a ceasefire in Gaza,” Harris keeps repeating like a wind-up metronome.
Sure, you are. The obscene “facts on the ground” confirm that your peace-making pleas are a hollow, cynical pantomime.
When “outreach” doesn’t work, Harris and the “progressive” wailing heads have resorted, in effect, to blackmail.
Arab and Muslim Americans will be responsible, they say, for electing a Muslim-banning autocrat if they cast a “protest vote” against the top of the Democratic ticket.
Apart from being an outrageous affront, blackmail is rarely a convincing strategy.
This is my advice to the Arab and Muslim American voters in crucial bellwether states like Michigan: Do not listen to craven politicians and journalists who, in lockstep with the leaders of party 1 and party 1a, have granted Israel the uncontested licence to kill as many Palestinians as it wants to, for as long it wants to, for whatever reason it wants to.
To the uncommitted movement, I urge you to remain uncommitted in guise and spirit.
Do not be dissuaded from remaining faithful to your conscience by the appeals of charlatans who believe that Palestinian lives are cheap and disposable.
Do not reward the charlatans who believe that Palestinian lives are cheap and disposable by heeding their specious advice and choosing between disingenuous leader 1 and disingenuous leader 1a.
Do not be swayed by the predictable stable of apologists who claim that electing Trump would only make matters “worse” for Arab and Muslim Americans.
Muslim and Arab Americans have, for generations, been viewed as fifth columnists who pose an existential threat to America. You cannot be trusted. You remain “outsiders”.
Accordingly, you have been treated with disdain. You have been jailed or blacklisted for speaking out. Your loyalty has been questioned. You have been routinely taken for granted.
You are expected to behave. You are supposed to remain invisible and mute.
Do not oblige the charlatans. I implore you, instead, to exercise your agency by depriving leader 1 and leader 1a of what they value most – position and power.
Again, to the uncommitted movement, I urge you to remain uncommitted. Decency and history demand that, together, you shout: “Enough.”
It is the right and just thing to do. Opting for leader 1 or leader 1a is a vote – whether you are prepared to admit it or not – for the co-architects of the genocide that has turned Gaza into dust and memory.
You will not be to blame if Trump prevails.
That will be the exclusive fault of millions of intolerant Americans who, in the long, sordid American tradition, consider cruelty and ignorance to be guiding governing principles.
However hard, you survived four years of Donald Trump before. If need be, you will survive him once more.
If this odious election campaign has proven anything, it is this: America is not a shining “city upon a hill”. It is a decomposing fiction in the gutter.
Take the long view. If Arab and Muslim Americans are finally to be seen and heard by leaders 1 and 1a, you must make an honourable stand now as a tangible expression of self-respect and fidelity to the horrendous plight of your Palestinian brothers and sisters.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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