The Kamala Harris campaign kicked out a prominent Muslim Democrat from the vice president’s rally in Royal Oak on Monday, further driving a wedge between the Democratic Party and Arab and Muslim Americans.
Ahmed Ghanim, a Democrat, says he accepted an invitation to the event and was seated in the Royal Oak Music Theatre when a campaign organizer ordered him to leave.
“She took me to the door, and she closed it, and I found two police officers waiting there, and she said, ‘You have to leave right now,’” Ghanim tells Metro Times. “I asked why she was kicking me out. She wouldn’t answer. I was very calmly asking why I was being kicked out.”
Because it’s comically obvious that the attacks against Harris are bad-faith at best. Harris will be infinitely better on Palestine than Trump will be. She won’t ban immigration from Muslim countries. She won’t endorse Israel annexing the West Bank. She doesn’t revile the very existence of brown-skinned people.
I get it, she’s not perfect. She’s certainly not. But she also is a politician trying to walk a very narrow line. Coming out and saying that Israel should be completely cut off and that we should institute a full trade embargo against them would be quite popular among the left, and it may even be the morally right thing to do, but it would also cost her the election. She’s also running with the endorsement of a president that is himself an admitted Zionist, and she can’t publicly stray too far from his positions, at least until she is elected. Once she is elected, she’ll have some more room to strike her own path, but right now she needs to tow the line.
America does not elect the president by popular vote. Becoming president requires winning majorities in battleground states, many of them quite moderate and filled with religious and more conservative voters. Calling for an embargo of Israel will win her points on the left, but it will also cause her to lose Pennsylvania.
But the reason people downvote these anti-Kamala posts is that they are clearly in bad faith. You only see posts deriding Kamala on Palestine; you never see such posts about Trump. Trump is given a free pass to be overtly racist against Muslims, while Kamala is expected to be an explicit anti-Zionist. It’s a clear bad faith double-standard that is obviously meant to help Trump get elected. People aren’t stupid, they can see through this bad faith bullshit.
This article does not seem a bad faith argument though. This person is a registered Democrat, ran for a Democratic seat, canvassed for Democrats, was invited to a Democratic event. He didn’t say, do, or even wear anything. Nonetheless he was singled out and threatened to leave with no explanation.
You seem to have a bit of an optimistic view on Harris position on Israel IMO. I won’t begrudge you of that, you’re free to think that way. But actions like the one this article reported doesn’t do this opinion any favors.
This is why I only listen to Tulsi Gabbard! /s
Where does it say Harris or her campaign was responsible, though? Yeah it was her event. It seems likely that someone from her campaign did it. But who actually made the call? Why was he invited just to be kicked out? Like that’s obviously not the whole story because the only possible outcome would be bad PR.
We’ve heard his side of things, but you know damn well one side of any story isn’t the whole truth. The Harris campaign should work to get to the bottom of this and explain what happened and why and what they will do differently in the future, but to blame her unilaterally without hearing their side of things is just presuming guilt.
These things don’t just happen and get decided from anyone in a political party and rhey singled him out so they knew his face. This definitely came from someone with a senior position in the party. There’s no doubt about that. On top of that there seems to be a consistent trend of Harris and the Democratic party silencing Arab-Americans from speaking up, I wouldn’t just naturally assume this was some kind of accident.
Would you agree that inviting a prominent Muslim and then kicking them out has only downsides for the campaign? Like you think they are going to self sabotage because fuck that one guy in particular? That would be the stupidest campaign team ever.
I mean, yes? That’s kind of why we’re having this conversation.
And Harris and her team did respond this incident. It’s in the article. They did acknowledge that it was wrong and he was welcome back. But like I said above, her team has a habit of silencing Arab-Americans, and actions speak louder than words.
It doesn’t add up. I know they said he was welcome back but everyone is just spiderman pointing at one another about what actually happened. Why he was removed. Who made that call and why are they still with the campaign after sabotaging it would be my question.
These are questions only the Democratic party can answer, and the fact that they didn’t answer them in their statement is very telling. It’s very clear they do not want any Arab party members to speak up and are actively silencing them.
I mean… I think it’s more nuanced than that, but let’s say I’m on board with that. That doesn’t explain why they would make an unforced error here. It’s not logical. Whoever invited him when they didn’t want him there or kicked him out when they did, that person has royally fucked up. Feasibly cost her the election, perhaps.
So why protect them? Until someone can provide a narrative that makes some kind of sense, it looks to me like jumping to conclusions without enough facts to paint a coherent picture. And I’m not going to accept any “clear” conclusions until the pieces add up.
Which isn’t to say you’re wrong but I don’t have facts to support that you’re right. It doesn’t add up and when it doesn’t it always seems fishy to me that folks claim to draw clear narrative in murky water.
But I’ll also cop to a certain amount of distrust of any anti-Harris message these days. I don’t think she’s perfect, but I do think an awful lot of the people making hay over her imperfections are not being honest about their reasons for doing so.