We Must Reckon with the Fact That Many Will Feel Betrayed on Election Day
There will be no right answers on November 5th.
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As Election Day approaches, it’s time to be real with ourselves.
We have four choices this election:
Vote for Kamala Harris
Vote for Trump
Don’t Vote at All
Vote third party or write someone in
That’s it.
None of those options include holding our ballot in front of Kamala Harris until she changes her mind to not to send weapons to Israel—or at least condition military assistance. If that happened, it would essentially be the first time in US history since RONALD REAGAN picked up the phone and demanded Israel stop bombing the shit out of Lebanon.
I have written several other pieces as to why this is a necessary, moral course of action. I will likely write many more—as yelling to myself everyday like a lunatic re: what I see justified by our country and Israel, has become a pastime. But to recap—just within a week: Israel killed an American citizen— as it has in the past with impunity—to no sanction or condemnation. Also, Israel killed at least 20 Palestinians in a designated safe zone because they “believed Hamas militants were there.” And then, the IDF went about their day continuing to receive our weapons and support and making silly, whimsical hate reels.
An American citizen being targeted and killed by the IDF—or a “ricocheting bullet from the ground”—because physics has fan fiction now; paging Neil Degrasse Tyson for the Love of God to explain this—and Israel facing no repercussions should be the glaring neon signs, the wrap it up button; there is nothing that will change Harris’ course in the US’ support soon, and maybe never at all, even when she becomes the President of the United States. She just said this at the debate. If nothing could have held her accountable now, nothing will in less than eight weeks. Any accountability will be held after President Harris or aspiring Dictator Trump takes office—not before.
Don’t get me wrong, I once thought it, too—despite my better instincts. But then came her interviews, the DNC’s heartless decision to not let a Palestinian speak, and the ongoing human rights violations in Gaza since she announced her candidacy—moments when she could have distanced herself from past policies.
Holding her accountable on Israel and Palestine, is a hope, a thought, and certainly can become a worthy action that I support.
But there is no “hold her accountable” bubble to fill in.
No matter what we do, communities, populations of Americans, neighbors, family, and friends will feel betrayed on Election Day.
You could say, a lot of it breaks down to foreign and domestic policy. But truly, the stakes are dire, and politics and policy becomes most closely about, my family, and my survival—and that of my people. Whether domestically or abroad. And of course, these are connected, too. There are a myriad of reasons why. But with survival, it isn’t always about connections. It’s about clear and present danger.
When a candidate ranges from status quo to incremental to policy-changing depending on the issue—who gets the short straw? This is the game America plays with the rights of marginalized communities.
To many within the Arab and Muslim community, as polling alone shows, voting for Harris is a vote for funding and continuing an ongoing genocide, Israel is committing against an Arab and predominantly Muslim population—Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
And to many within the Jewish community, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump, who saw antisemitism rise during his tenor and has a history of promoting it. Of course, many modern Zionists, and those who take queues from the ADL, see any criticism of Israel as a betrayal and antisemitic in itself.
To many within the Black community, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump. The man who took out a page in the New York Times to demand the Central Park 5, as teenagers, be killed, and never bothered to apologize when they were exonerated. The man who wants police to operate with impunity in the nation that incarcerations more people, let alone Black people, than any other. The man who believes in “Black Jobs” and believes he is qualified to determine who is black. And Kamala Harris, being a black woman, would represent a special place in history for a community that was initially seen as 3/5ths of a white, land-owning man.
To many immigrants, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump - the man who wants to deport nonviolent immigrants seeking asylum and used family separation as an intentional deterrent tactic. The man who spent the past nine years publicly villainizing immigrants—only those from “shithole” countries, of course—as the core of this nation’s crime and economic problems. Rhetoric that influenced real violence. Kamala may not change much from Biden’s immigration policy, but she wasn’t in office visibly doing all that.
To many within the East Asian community, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump - the man who villainized Chinese people as bringing Covid to the US, which led to a spike in anti-Asian violence against the AAPI community as a whole.
To many women, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump - the man who has raped and assaulted dozens of women and brags about it. The man who put the justices on the court that overturned the national right to abortion and wants to restrict access even further.
To many within the trans community, voting third party or not voting at all is a vote for Donald Trump. The man who, along with his running mate, makes trans existence the butt of a joke and uses it their existence to fear monger indoctrination of children.
Once choosing a candidate—or not choosing any—becomes seen as choosing your prioritization of someone’s humanity —there is no right answer in that equation.
Malcolm X would extol the power of the non-voter—or at least it being an option in his ‘Ballot or Bullet’ speech. Dr. King, SNCC, the late John Lewis’s ‘Good Trouble,’ the Freedom Riders, literally put their lives on the line, and lost some, so black people could vote. Really fighting for all people to not face voter intimidation—in their day, to the tune of violence—a tactic which certainly never left completely.
My late, great friend, Jordan Taylor, whose voice and spirit I miss everyday would tell me emphatically: “I aint gonna vote, but I organize people to vote. I aint gonna support most of Obama’s policies, but Obama is the reason I’m here.”
Jordan represented an ESSENTIAL position in our ‘politics,’ our collective moral compass: someone who sees where not voting is a legitimate advocacy tactic for policy change, while holding empathy and understanding for those who view voting differently. Someone who carried both Dr. King and Malcolm in his pocket like Do the Right Thing.
We have multiple populations who feel vulnerable for different reasons that basically connect to the same principles—even if they don’t see it yet, including, as
wrote, the Black and Palestinian struggle. And we can’t only have space for those who do see the “enlightenment” by the time they choose an option on Election Day.Voters and nonvoters matter. Voters for Harris and those who vote third party will still be among us. In our circles, neighborhoods, and communities. Community matters. We gotta love both to truly be about community. As I previously wrote, that’s collective empathy, and liberation only happens through it.
Acknowledging each other’s scars from history and from our own nation that has beaten us— domestically and abroad—will force us to heal the wounds we inflict on each other this November.
Thank you for your vital and empathic writing. I’m sorry you lost your great friend. The SAMO style crown above X and King in Do the Right Thing, I love it. A hard topic here, one you expressed with sensitivity, care, and nuance. Let’s take a cue from Spike Lee and do the right thing, even though there are no right answers.
I would say there are no easy answers., not no right answers. Who ever votes for a 3rd party candidate, or opts not to vote, is casting a vote for Donald Trump. It's true that when it comes to the tragic Israeli Palestinian tragic conflict, the Biden administration has given lip service for the need to end the war for the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians, and the right of the Palestinians to have a state alongside the State of Israel, but they have not done enough to make that happen. With Kamala Harris, there's a chance that her administration will do more to make that happen. Yes, the DNC should have allowed Palestinian-American Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman speak at the convention. That was a major mistake. But Representative Romman, in conversation with Peter Beinart last week said that she believes that Harris and the Democrats are more open to listening to people who are representing the Palestinian cause, and she plans to vote for Kamala Harris, and that Trump would be a disaster for Palestinians and for Americans in general. She also appreciated the fact that a session on the Palestinian question did take place at the DNC. So voting for Harris-Waltz may not be the ideal choice, but it's still the preferable choice, which opens up possibilities for the future, many of which you described in your blog post. Of course Bernie Sanders, with his positions on so many questions, would be as ideal a candidate as could be. But Harris still has potential to go beyond the Biden-Blinken approach. on Israel-Palestine. My guess is that Spike Lee would also agree with that.