Michigan just gave us the rhetorical weapon that could push Biden and the DNC to turn their backs on Israel.
Okay so this is amazing news. Michigan was going to be a key state in the push to get Biden, and the DNC as a whole, to start pressuring Israel, and they have just proven that they have that power.
Background: Michigan is a swing state, and it has 16 votes in the electoral college. Winning Michigan was a major factor in Biden's win back in 2020, and much of that rested on the Arab-American vote. It was also a major factor in Hillary Clinton's loss to Donald Trump in 2016. She lost the state by ten thousand, seven hundred votes.
Praxis: For obvious reasons, Arab-Americans are incredibly upset with Biden's support for Israel, and support in that demographic has gone from 59% in the 2020 election to less than 17% now. As a form of protest, Arab-Americans in Michigan started a campaign to get voters to check "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary. This is an actual box that can be checked, though some less-organized pushes also suggested writing in 'ceasefire' like New Hampshire primary voters did.
The goal was to get at least 10,000 'uncommitted' votes, as that is how many Hillary lost by.
As Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the first Arab mayor of this majority-Arab city, said:
"We're not sizable enough to make a candidate win, but we're sizable enough to make a candidate lose."
(Source: NPR, 2/25/24)
Result:
As of 10:49 PM EST, 2/27, there are thirty-nine thousand uncommitted votes, according to CNN, which is doing live coverage.
NPR was reporting 30k at 10:14.
As a caveat, New York Times is saying that each of the last three Michigan Dem Primaries had about 20k uncommitted votes, so the 35k isn't all the push for pro-Palestine stances in Congress, but that's still a jump of almost 20k, which is way, way more than the goal.
And they aren't done counting the votes yet. Barely 30% of votes are in. The goal has been blown out of the water.
Other states are reaching out for advice on how to replicate the results.
This is big news.
So can we relax?
Fuck no.
Do what Michigan did. Vote in the Dem primary, and vote uncommitted or write in "ceasefire."
But on a more daily basis, if you have a Democratic candidate, lean on this.
Tell them it will be repeated elsewhere.
This could very well lose the election for Biden and more. The Democrats can't afford another four years of Trump, and they know it. The loss of Michigan can and will tank this election for them, especially since other states that helped Biden win, like Georgia, were also won on demographics that are growing increasingly upset by the situation in Gaza.
Go to the Michigan section of this post and use that in your calls and emails.
But remember. Call your reps. Call your senators. Call your governor, if you'd like. And if they're a Democrat, you bring this up. Be polite, the staffer isn't making these decisions. They might just be an intern. But bring it up and tell them that we are going to lose the presidency if we do not sanction Israel and actually pressure them into not only pulling out of Gaza and the West Bank, but paying reparations.
