Unfortunately, this immigrant
mentality that hard work equates to
success is wildly inapplicable to real
life. Not everyone who puts their all
into succeeding is actually afforded
the opportunity to make it — it is the
explicit responsibility of all Ameri-
cans, but particularly immigrants
and people of color, to dedicate them-
selves to uplifting those who, for
whatever reason, couldn’t even grab
a chair, let alone join you at the table.
Voting is the first step to exercising
that responsibility.
From casual conversations with
community members both in Michi-
gan and in Florida, we have gleaned
that Arabs who support Trump tend
to do so for two main reasons — they
don’t want to pay more taxes, or
they agree with his more conserva-
tive social views. These Arabs also
might distrust both candidates and
the political process, or just believe
Trump’s
discriminatory
policies
won’t impact them in any way. How-
ever, no matter what your religion
or how white-passing you are, being
Middle
Eastern/Arab
inherently
paints a target on your back. If you
are lucky enough to vote based on
taxes or socially conservative values,
we would like to remind you that
your success, while definitely hard
earned, comes with an element of
privilege. For these issues to be your
deal breaker, you are neglecting all
of the harmful effects of another
Trump presidency on those less
lucky than you.
With the election nearing, we
Arabs must recognize what is at stake
for our communities. As people who
are historically neglected and left out
of census data, showing up to vote —
and voting in our best interest — is
crucial. Many Arab Americans voted
for Trump in 2016, and it appears
many could be voting for him in the
upcoming election as well. To better
understand why this is occurring, we
have compiled a list of the most com-
mon reasons we’ve heard as reasons
why Arabs are supporting Trump or
not voting at all, along with rebuttals
we can use to encourage our fellow
Arabs to vote for Joe Biden.
Debunking Reason 1. I support
him fiscally, at least he’s not rais-
ing my taxes!
Arabs are very entrepreneurial
people. We’ve all heard the narrative
of “coming to America with nothing
but $5 and the clothes on our backs,”
building ourselves from the ground
up. Donald Trump is a businessman
who promotes the individualism
and independence championed by so
many Arab Americans. So it comes
as no surprise that wealthy Arabs
support his narrative, not wanting to
fork over their hard-earned cash.
What they don’t seem to realize
is that under Biden’s plan, only the
wealthiest of Americans, those mak-
ing more than $400,000 annually,
will experience hikes in their taxes —
and analyses of Biden’s tax plan find
that the percentage of earners who
would experience these tax increas-
es is less than 2%. Even then, those
between the 95th and 99th percen-
tile in the income bracket will only
experience a tax increase of about
1%, which is too insignificant a dif-
ference to influence your vote.
The truth is, if your taxes increase
marginally, you’ll survive. Not only
that, but coming from a culture that
highly prioritizes charity and giving
back, you can rest assured that any
extra taxes you may pay will be going
towards noble causes, like public
infrastructure, child care, education,
housing and healthcare accessibil-
ity. While you will survive either
way, the same can’t be said for our
Arab and POC brothers and sisters
who are more directly targeted by
Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhet-
oric and legislation. The detriment to
your bank account should not influ-
ence your vote more than the lives
of those most vulnerable to Trump’s
ideologies.
Debunking Reason 2. But I
agree with his social policies and
his values.
Another major reason Arabs sup-
port Trump is for his more conser-
vative social views, particularly the
way he adamantly opposes LGBTQ+
rights and abortion. Regardless of
our own views on these issues (which
are not the purpose of this piece), to
champion Donald Trump as a savior
of good values is, in our opinion, a
very illegitimate rationality.
Let us be clear — Donald J. Trump
is a sexist, bigoted, racist, Islamopho-
bic, xenophobic and genuinely awful
human being. Must we remind you
of his various sexual assault charges
and derogatory comments towards
women? How about his mocking
of disabled folks? Even if you don’t
believe the women who alleged sex-
ual assault against him, there is video
evidence that he’s encouraged sexual
assault, saying “grab them by the
p****.” Though you may share some
similarities with Trump’s baseline
conservative views, we hope your
values don’t align with his, because
he represents the complete oppo-
site of good Christian (or Muslim or
ANY) values. No religion or belief
system has the foundation of hate
that Trump has spread throughout
the nation and the world.
Debunking Reason 3. Okay, but
this just doesn’t affect me.
The next point we will address
is the misconception that Trump’s
hateful rhetoric just doesn’t apply to
these voters. Put simply, it does. No
matter how well off or white-passing
you are, the wellbeing of your com-
munity, your people, is at stake. A
misconception we have seen from
Arab and Middle Eastern Christians
is that Trump is their savior, target-
ing the same Muslims who may have
targeted them back in their home
countries. Without needing to get
into Middle Eastern politics, all we
ask is that you recognize that, as
minorities, none of us are safe. And
if that doesn’t work, here are ways
Trump’s policies actually do affect
you.
First, while commonly known as
the Muslim ban, Executive Order
13769 targeted all migrants com-
ing from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Yemen, Sudan and Somalia regard-
less of religious background. Also,
white nationalist hate groups have
increased by 55% since Trump took
office. These terrorists will not ask
about your beliefs before perpetuat-
ing hate crimes — they will see your
skin color or hear your accent and
that will be enough. Another Trump
term also brings about a question of
safety, for yourself and also for your
children. Trump has consistently
sided with the NRA and gun lobby-
ists despite his term seeing the dead-
liest mass shooting in U.S. history
and 263 shootings at schools. To fur-
ther elucidate the dangerous impact
of Trump’s ideologies, the murderer
in the Christchurch Mosque shoot-
ing in New Zealand quoted Trump
as justification for his violence, cast-
ing him as “a symbol of renewed
white identity and common pur-
pose.” This is not the only example.
Trump serves as a beacon of hope
and empowerment for violent white
supremacists everywhere.
In addition, the Trump admin-
istration’s current response (or lack
thereof) to COVID-19 affects us all.
Trump knowingly downplayed the
seriousness of the virus instead of
acting in the early stages, admitting
to slowing down testing to reduce
COVID numbers. He rushed to
reopen the economy without ensur-
ing safety measures or a solid plan to
control the disease. He eliminated a
White House office set up by the pre-
vious administration to combat pan-
demics and made cuts across other
areas of the federal government. As a
result, the U.S. has about seven times
more COVID deaths than any other
developed country, and hundreds of
thousands of lives have been need-
lessly lost. Voting for Trump means
no end in sight for the pandemic, no
return to our normal lives any time
soon, and continued suffering and
death of Americans. Don’t let the
(singular) stimulus check fool you.
As long as there is no COVID plan,
the economy remains in a state of
disarray.
Debunking
Reason
4:
The
Obama
Administration
had
record deportation numbers and
was notorious for war crimes —
we don’t want another Democrat
in office.
In reality, the president has very
little influence on domestic policy.
Where he does have a tremendous
amount of influence, however, is
foreign policy. And Trump’s foreign
policy thus far has been disastrous.
Let’s take the “Middle East peace
plan” for example — led by Trump’s
son-in-law, a fervent Israel supporter,
this plan has an explicit goal of fur-
ther meddling in our countries and
depleting the Palestinian state even
more than it already is. Or the fact
that he encourages American com-
panies to sell bombs to Saudi Arabia
so they can further destroy Yemen.
Trump has also passively accom-
modated Turkey’s extension of
influence into Syria, Iraq, Qatar and
Libya. He callously strengthened an
embargo against Iran, so that Per-
sians — regardless of religion — could
not access medicine for COVID-19
patients, even threatening to go to
war with Iran when his poll numbers
were low. The list goes on and on.
While Joe Biden’s work and atti-
tude towards the Middle East are
nothing to applaud, especially dur-
ing the Obama administration which
saw disastrous effects on Iraq and
Afghanistan, at this point, there
is no good option for Arab foreign
policy. We must assess both of our
(albeit threatening) options and
choose the lesser of two evils. Biden
has called for an end to U.S. support
for Saudi war in Yemen. While his
policy towards Israel still errs on the
side of Zionism, he has been vocal
in his opposition to annexation of
the West Bank and his support for a
two-state solution. The Democratic
caucus has also discussed condition-
ing the billions of dollars in aid to
Israel depending on their actions and
human rights violations. At the end
of the day, Biden is not particularly a
friend to Arabs either. But his policies
leave way more room for growth and
political pressure, meaning we could
get more out of his presidency than
we ever could with Trump.
Our countries should not be a
game for American politicians to toy
with. We deserve agency — the abil-
ity to make our own decisions free
of foreign interference that does not
have our best interests at heart. Out
of both options, Trump certainly
does not have our best interests at
heart.
In conclusion…
No one’s asking you to pull up a
seat for everyone yourself. All we’re
asking is that you scoot over and
make some space for others. A vote
for Trump not only prevents your
POC brothers and sisters from join-
ing you at the table, but it also makes
your privileged seat all the more pre-
carious.
Voting is not the answer to all our
nation’s problems. But it is a place
to start. We have the power to put
someone in office who will at least
try to make things better for us and
give real activists a foot in the door to
affect real change. Right now, when
millions of lives are at stake; when
the pandemic is still ripping at full
speed through our nation with no
sign of relief from the current admin-
istration; when millions of Ameri-
cans are still unemployed or barely
making it; when our brothers and sis-
ters are being separated, incarcer-
ated and killed; it is not the time to
be apathetic. Our vote does count, so
we hope that you show up to the polls
and vote for Biden.
Zoned out in my 10 a.m.
ethics class, I was doodling
with my pen until the profes-
sor said a phrase heard all too
often: “This is your truth, and
this is my truth.” As I recali-
brated into the classroom dis-
cussion, I assumed this was
mainly about being empathet-
ic to different perspectives
we may confront and gener-
ally thought it made sense. He
repeated again, “The phrase
this is your truth and this is
my truth drives me absolutely
bonkers.”
Now I was confused — what’s
wrong with this seemingly
harmless idea of holding dif-
ferent viewpoints? He contin-
ued, “There is only one truth
— one set of facts about every
situation, crisis and historical
event. The idea that multiple
opposing truths can simul-
taneously exist brings about
the degradation of our sense
of reality in politics, media
and everyday life.” Whether
or not he had put too much
weight onto a simple phrase,
the notion stuck with me. No
one’s ever taken a minute to
step back and inquire- what
does that phrase even mean?
Doesn’t the idea of truth vary-
ing from person to person
contradict its very essence?
In today’s day and age, that
very lack of accountable ques-
tioning may be a contributor
to what’s made our political
system what it is now, and
the implementation of which
may be a partial solution to
bringing back a semblance of
honesty. Amidst the current
swarm of political rhetoric
this election season, it seems
like both parties are capital-
izing on similar grievances
to attract voters, yet voters
are more polarized than ever
before. The same accolades
are lauded from figures in
both parties — somehow they
all lowered the unemploy-
ment rate, they all brought
jobs back to the United States
and they all provided Ameri-
cans with the best healthcare,
education and infrastructure.
Donald Trump ironically still
applauds the United States’
response to the pandemic,
claiming we boast “numbers
better than almost all coun-
tries” — which, when taking
population sizes into account,
is exceedingly far from the
truth: following Chile, Amer-
ica has more cases than any
other large country as of Aug.
17. The tendency to spout false
rhetoric is so normalized and
undisputed in our politics that
it often seems as though we’re
living in a post-truth America.
Alarmingly, this assumption
is evidently becoming reality
with current news headlining
the idea that a peaceful suc-
cession of power may not hap-
pen following the election.
How did we get here as a
nation? From the same Unit-
ed States in 2000 in which
candidate Al Gore encour-
aged citizens to accept the
highly-contested Bush v. Gore
results, what brought us to
the point of suspecting absen-
tee ballots — initially enacted
through bipartisan efforts —
of being fraudulent attacks on
our democracy? The rabbit-
hole of social media seems to
have contributed largely to
our tendency to cherry-pick
sources of information on
both ends of the spectrum; we
search for whichever outlet
can most effectively satiate
our confirmation bias. Real-
istically, this can’t solely be
blamed on human psychology,
but also the innate algorithm
of many platforms that recali-
brates to present us with the
most personalized content,
mainly boiling down to topics,
politics and groups we already
know and love. As a society,
we’ve discussed the caus-
al factors of the post-truth
world that we live in, but fur-
ther tend to mull over ways
in which we can combat the
downward spiral of ‘alterna-
tive facts.’ In the end, it seems
solely rhetoric will rise above
the ashes of whatever’s left of
political accountability in the
21st century.
Currently, there are impor-
tant initiatives in place to
combat the blatant lying we
see among politicians — live
fact-checking by reporters,
fact-check captions at the
bottom of news broadcasts
and
fact-checking
articles.
You get the idea — we have
fact-checking in the armory
right now. An additional mea-
sure our media must take to
prevent the degradation of
truth focuses on the framing
of questions to political fig-
ures. Journalists must inte-
grate unquestionable truths
and
established
paradigms
into their questions, leading
already with an indisputable
foundation that respondents
can’t avoid. An example of the
exact opposite of this recently
took all news outlets by storm,
with
President
Trump’s
answer to whether or not he’ll
commit to a peaceful trans-
fer of power being “There
won’t be a transfer; frankly,
there’ll be a continuation.”
The effect of his response was
widespread enough for mem-
bers of the Republican party
(even Mitch McConnell) to
step back and assure Ameri-
cans otherwise, but the ini-
tial aspect of this exchange is
what I want to focus on. Why
is he even being given the
opportunity to amplify some-
thing so inherently uncon-
stitutional,
so
universally
disavowed, in the first place?
The conditional phrasing of
the question gives rise to the
following response — “will
you commit” — opening the
possibility for him not to com-
mit, as he clearly did so. Our
political system has a lot of
questionable facets, from the
electoral college to the per-
missibility of gerrymander-
ing, but the few aspects that
are unwavering in providing
legitimacy to our government
should not be suggested, but
already implied.
As a child I was a notori-
ously picky eater, disliking
random food with no rhyme
or reason, from bell peppers
to even lasagna (I now look
back in shock with the lat-
ter). However, every so often
when lasagna was on the din-
ner table, my mom wouldn’t
kindly request me to bestow
the honor of eating her lasa-
gna, but instead ask how I’d
go about eating what was
made for dinner — the already
established
bottom
line.
Today’s political journalists
may need to follow suit from
my mom’s techniques, because
at the end of the day, you could
be damn sure I sat down with
that lasagna in my plate, one
way or the other.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan In Color
6 — Wednesday, October 28, 2020
To all Arabs planning on voting for Trump — Don’t
A growing trend has caught the
attention of U.S. politicians and no,
it’s not Qanon. It’s the rise in the
number of Latinx voters, which
political pundits refer to as the
Latino Vote. The Latino Vote is an
elusive creature that many politi-
cians have tried and failed to catch,
insisting on trapping it, but failing
to realize that it’s less like a fish and
more like the Loch Ness Monster: It
isn’t real. The Latino Vote is a gross
generalization of Central and South
Americans that ignores the diver-
sity of thoughts and values within
such a varied body of people; there
is no one “Latino Vote.” The narra-
tive perpetuated by the media that
all Latinx voters vote straight ticket
blue is incorrect for several reasons
and harmful to any campaign that
believes in it.
My mother and my uncle immi-
grated from Ecuador as children.
When they moved, they both did not
know English and went through the
ESL program in their public school.
They both attended the University
of Michigan. Though they had the
same upbringing and same immi-
grant experience, they could not be
further apart in ideology. My moth-
er is a moderate, Elizabeth War-
ren type of Democrat. My uncle is a
raging Independent that responds
positively towards Trump-like poli-
ticians. After the comments Trump
made about Mexico sending rapists
and criminals, I assumed my uncle
would be offended by the situation.
He was not. This experience dis-
plays several issues with the myth
of the Latino Vote. Though there are
common experiences, such as immi-
gration, ESL and cuisine, Latinx vot-
ers do not always view themselves as
a uniform group. Rather than iden-
tifying as Latinx, some will refer
to themselves specifically as Chil-
ean or Puerto Rican. Within these
identifications, there are values
held that are not held by the rest of
the community. For instance, fifty-
eight percent of Cubans identify as
Republican in comparison to thirty-
eight percent of non-Cuban Hispan-
ics. This disparity can be attributed
to the issues each group prioritizes;
according to the Pew Research
Center, Cuban voters consider for-
eign policy, health care and violent
crimes more than non-Cuban His-
panics. Foriegn policy is a major
issue for Cubans, because a hardline
foreign policy against Cuba means
that Cubans have a harder time vis-
iting family still on the island. This is
not as much of a problem with non-
Cuban Latinx as U.S. foreign policy
with Cuba changes more frequently
in comparison to other Central and
South American countries.
Latinx voters also hold varying
positions on social issues. Religion
is an important factor that affects
voting patterns for the Latino
Vote. More Latinx Americans are
actively religious (i.e. going to ser-
vice regularly) as compared to their
non-Latinx counterparts. Typically
identifying as Christian, many con-
sider criminalization of abortion to
be a crucial aspect of the party they
are voting for; older Latinxs hold
anti-abortion views to a much larg-
er degree as compared to younger
Latinxs. This creates a separation
over this single issue alone. Across
the board, Latinxs identify as liberal
significantly more than other non-
Latin Americans and are considered
equally as accepting of the LGBTQ+
community as non-Latin Ameri-
cans. Considering the variation in
views of these different social issues,
it is hard to determine what factors
sway the Latino Vote right or left.
As we move forward into the
election cycle, it’s important that
politicians consider all the over-
sights that come from categorizing
the Latinx population into one vote.
As diverse as the community is, the
views within are even more diverse
and have the power to greatly
impact the outcome of the election.
KATHERINA ANDRADE
OZAETTA
MiC Columnist
The myth of the Latino vote
ELIYA IMTIAZ
MiC Columnist
NADA ELDAWY &
MAYA MOKH
MiC Staff Editors
An Ethics professor, a plate of lasagna
and a president walk into a bar...