By Ron Cheong
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Sun. November 24, 2024: Donald Trump did not win the landslide election; Well-intentioned Democrats accelerated the loss of their Party with the lowest turnout, as shown in the chart of the latest available numbers below:
Pro-Palestinian protest vote
Trump maintained his base by tapping into Latinos, other minorities — mostly black men — and roughly kept pace as the electorate grew in size by picking up younger, less-educated, and lower-income voters.
Those gains totaled 2.2 million, but the main factor that allowed his victory was that Democratic turnout, as reflected in their vote count, shrank by 7.5 million, or 9.3%, compared to 2020. Even if we ignore the increase in the size of the electorate and attribute Trump’s entire win to cannibalizing the Democratic vote, which leaves a drop of 5.3 million or 3.4% of the vote overall, which translates to a 6.5% drop from the 2020 Democratic presidential vote. This is attributed to staying away, failing to check the top box, or writing something else.
A significant portion of the slide is attributed to pro-Palestinian abstentions. The Muslim community was traumatized by the Biden administration’s support for Israel and the high death toll in Gaza.
Although Trump’s plans are well known, they might have realized they couldn’t make matters worse, and throwing caution to the wind, switched to Trump.
Other discontent with the situation in Gaza manifested itself in widespread pro-Palestinian protests across the country, in cities and on campuses. The tragedy of Gaza also mobilized the left wing of the Democratic Party. They tried and failed to get the Palestinian issue on the DNC convention agenda in exchange for not releasing the presidential ballot or writing in someone else’s name — no doubt resulting in many abstaining.
From rallying support for Trump to pity
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who ran the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, said: “Trump won because of us . . .” In the 7 swing states combined with 93 electoral votes, it is estimated that the Muslim population accounted for 470,000 of the votes.
“Trump won all 7 swing states by a margin of 764,000 votes over Harris. It is plausible that the Muslim vote plus the non-Muslim vote of the Palestinian protest pushed Trump over the top in swing states, which was key to winning the election,” he added.
An NBC analysis lends support to this, showing that Harris’ losses in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania “were driven by poor turnout in heavily Democratic cities,” such as Wayne County, Philadelphia County and Milwaukee County.
But regret seems to have come quickly, “…we are not happy with the choice of the secretary of state and others,” Chowdhury said.
Trump chose Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel, for Secretary of State. Rubio has called Hamas savages and said he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
He also chose Mike Huckabee, who has long called himself a Zionist, ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is against a 2-state solution and has said that the West Bank belongs to Israel and also that “the title deed was given by God to Abraham and his descendants.” There is no such thing as Palestinian.
And Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a “cesspool of anti-Semitism” for the agency that condemns the deaths in Gaza, was chosen as ambassador to the United Nations.
The decline of the Democratic vote
It’s not hard to see how the Palestinian protest vote might have fueled the Democratic landslide majority in 2024. The Muslim vote, traditionally overwhelmingly Democratic, is estimated at about 1.4 million. Many of them could have abstained and others have thrown their support behind Trump.
Third party candidates also received a share of the protest vote. In total, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy received 746,000 votes. Jill Stein of the Green Party received 769,000 votes. A poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that in Michigan, 40 percent of Muslim voters supported Stein, 18 percent supported Trump and 12 percent supported Harris.
Other Democrats may have stayed home, not checked the Presidential box on the ballot, or written in someone else’s name.
There were also undecided black male voters who were also upset about the situation in Gaza. Some of them went to Trump and others probably just sat back.
Biden’s unwavering support for Israel – Harris trying to thread the needle
Biden, emerging from the Cold War era, believes the US needs strong allies in the region against Russia’s influence in the Arab world, to keep oil flowing and to counter Iran’s growing potential as a nuclear nation. . In addition, Israeli lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are very influential in Washington. When Biden was privately angered by Netanyahu’s aggression, he did not withdraw his support.
Harris, on the other hand, was trying to thread the needle, staying true to Biden. She refused to meet with Netanyahu when he visited the White House while she was the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
In her acceptance speech at the DNC convention, she committed to striking a balance: “President Biden and I are working to end this war so that Israel is safe, the hostages are freed, the suffering in Gaza may end and the Palestinian people may realize their right to dignity. Security. Freedom. And self-determination.”
Even with her staunchly Jewish husband on the campaign trail, Harris announced an anti-Islamophobia strategy — amid pro-Palestinian protests and rising anti-Semitism across the country, on college campuses, on the streets of big cities and in the halls of parliament. Congress. Meanwhile, her stepmother was raising money for the Palestinian Children’s Aid Fund on her personal Instagram account.
However, some sections of the media portrayed Harris as giving misleadingly different messages to Muslim and Jewish voters.
And the non-Muslim pro-Palestinian protest voters believed that under Harris there would not be the changes to Biden’s Israel policy that they were seeking.
Unintended consequences
Although the moral outrage from traditional Democratic voters was an ethical stance, keeping their vote has ultimately not resulted in a more open administration, judging by the cabinet picks so far.
Indeed, many of them may have made the decision of conscience alone or in small groups. But each of the small decisions cumulatively eclipsed their expected impact on the election.
If there are any lessons to be learned from this situation, it may be that in an existential election like this with so much at stake and where every last vote counts, try to stand back and get a picture of the bigger picture and the consequences. possible action you will take.
Sometimes you have to stand back and weigh the consequences, you don’t want to cut off your nose to ruin your face.
