Until now, the story of Michigan’s role in the election has centered on Arab Americans’ profound discontent with the Democratic Party over Israel’s relentless devastation of Gaza. The war has left deep emotional wounds.
Israel’s recent military incursion into Lebanon feels like another twist of the knife, intensifying the sense of betrayal and alienation of one of the most critical voting constituencies in the country.
Kamala Harris’s chances of winning the presidency will plummet if she loses Michigan, and current polling shows she and Donald Trump are neck and neck there.
In addition to about 9,000 Palestinian Americans, Michigan is home to roughly 82,000 Lebanese Americans — more than any other state. Considering that Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by fewer than 11,000 voters in 2016, Lebanese Michiganders could very well decide the 2024 election.
Come November 5, I think we may look back on the weeks after Israel invaded Lebanon as the moment Harris lost significant ground in the race.
As I sat down to write this, I got a text from a family member back in Michigan, Reema Ghareeb: “I just found out there was a strike three minutes from my cousin’s house.”
She was going to vote for Harris, but now she doesn’t think she can. “I’d never vote for Trump, he’d be worse,” she said, “but in light of what’s happening in Lebanon I have no idea how I can vote for Harris.”
The election is why Netanyahu is doing it… He wants to secure a future of endless apologia that will help him extent his own term. I’m sorry, but why is it such a hard decision when one side ignores you but the other side wants you dead?
Progressives have been ignored by the establishment since LBJ, and then the attention from the other party turned to stomp them. This is not new. Changes between liberal establishment losers and progressive firebrands come from primaries. The choice of purple/blue vs fascist is the general. Always will be until ranked choice voting. Bad realities don’t resolve by ignoring them.
Its a smart way for Netenyahu to keep his hands clean, by tying his actions to powerful groups who will find a way to santise their own complicity so thoroughly that he’ll end up clean too.
This post is being downvoted to hell already. Its started. The impending loss to Trump will be whitewashed too, so no mentiopn of gaza is mentioned in the analysis afterwards. Its be attributed to sexism by white males or something like that.