Leaders of 'Uncommitted' and 'Abandon Harris' movements reflect on Trump's victory and early moves
A combination of worry and cautious optimism about Trump — and deep anger at the Democratic Party — pervade the groups.
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I don't really see how the Uncommitted movement could have done anything differently. They had pretty simple demands: let a Palestinian speak at the DNC, meet with families of Palestinians, meet with our leadership. The Harris campaign ignored all of those requests, so in the end, they declined to endorse her, but still urged their supporters not to vote Trump or third-party.
Endorsing her just wasn't an option, given that she did nothing to meet them halfway. If your spouse is abusive, and you say, "If you ever treat me like that again, I will leave you," then you have to leave them if their behavior doesn't change. Otherwise, you are just inviting more abuse. If you tell a politician, "These are the minimum actions you must take to earn our endorsement," and they ignore you, you can't endorse them anyway. Otherwise, you're announcing your demands carry no weight.
The Abandon Harris (previously Abandon Biden) movement was more hard-line, and the Democrats were clearly too centrist and hawkish to meet their demands for an immediate arms embargo But the Uncommitted movement offered reasonable steps that the Harris campaign could have taken to win over Arab Americans, and she flat out ignored them. She is clearly to blame for not taking that offramp.
No. And fuck you for taking that position. That Uncommitted position doesn't 'punish' Harris, it simply ensures that a demagogue would be elected. AND just coincidentally, the early actions of that demagogue signals that Palestine simply won't exist in any significant fashion in a few years.
The direct result of your holier-than-thou' position is that Palestine gets fucked 10 times harder. Good job asshole.
Well, A) I'm describing the position Uncommitted was in, not giving my own. B) Who the hell are you quoting when you say, "punish?" That word doesn't appear in my comment, and I definitely didn't say that the Uncommitted leaders were trying to punish anyone, so what the fuck are you talking about? Are you actually arguing with me, or someone you made up in your head? C) Your entitled, sneering attitude is indicative of why Harris lost; telling Palestinian that Harris won't oppose the genocide, but vote for her anyway or else; telling teamsters she didn't need them to win; it turns out that was a losing strategy, huh?
By the way, I actually voted for Harris, despite her floundering, directionless campaign, but since I'm not a complete idiot, I want to understand people who didn't. Blaming other people for Harris's loss might feel nice, but internet temper tantrums don't win elections.
Anyway, I could also call you an asshole and tell you to get fucked, but honestly, I'd rather you work on your reading comprehension. You don't seem to have understood (or at least engaged with) anything I said besides, "Uncommitted didn't endorse Harris." Honestly, based on your comment, I'm not even sure you understand what the Uncommitted movement was.
I will apologise for my aggressive response. I conflated your position with direct support for the underlying. That was a mistake and I apologize.
Re the 'punish' comment, I remain completely disgusted with Uncommitted due to their stated goals ' a protest campaign aimed mainly to pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to achieve a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war and impose an arms embargo on Israel'
No such political pressure towards the Trump campaign? I recognize that he isn't the sitting president but even a casual observer can see that his presidency would likely be significantly worse for Palestine.
However, re third party or 'none of the above' voters, including any teamsters that did not vote for Harris because she didn't beg, fuck em. I believe their fence sitting (at least partially) enabled this right wing smorgasbord.
Well, I get what you're saying, but I think Harris' failure to negotiate with these groups is entirely on her. The Uncommitted movement's goals were very lofty, but their demands were small. They wanted State Rep. Ruwa Romman to give a speech at the DNC, and a leaked draft showed it was a very mild speech that didn't even condemn Israel. It just called for an end to the war. After the DNC declined, they asked her to meet with families who'd lost loved ones in Gaza, and she ignored the request. Finally, they gave her until September 15th to hold a meeting with them, and she again ignored them, so they decided not to endorse her.
The Uncommitted movement didn't create the problems Harris had with the Muslim community; Biden's handling of Gaza did that. The Uncommitted movement just took that anger, organized it, and put it towards productive action. That's what activist leaders are supposed to do. The Uncommitted leadership was clearly looking for any gesture towards the Palestinian community that they could take to their supporters, and Harris just wouldn't do it. You have to do something to win an activist groups' support. Endorsing her after she snubbed them wouldn't have convinced the Uncommitted members to vote for Harris, if would have convinced them their leaders were pushovers.
And that sentiment, writ across the country, handed the election on a platter to the Republican party. Who will be arguably worse for Palestine that the Democrats.
Ultimately none of the Uncommitted arguments are wrong - I would go so far to say they are reasonable - but they presume that the alternative is better than the incumbent. Which I believe is manifestly misplaced in the 2024 election. All well and good to withhold support because you've been ignored, but this is a prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Anyway. I respect that you're clarifying and I appreciate that.
No, they presumed Harris would be reasonable and make concessions to the will of the people. The fact that she didnt isnt on the people, its on her. She did nothing but try to appeal to the center-right which clearly didnt work, but she didn't learn andbthe Democratic party still isnt gonna learn. Nobody assumes Trump is better either, they just refused to cave to the Democrat's clear manipulation of the situation and disdain for the average person.
There was also pressure on the Trump campaign too. And what did he do? Went to Dearborn and met with Arab-American leaders and lied about how he wants peace. Biden/Harris couldn’t even do that minimum. Biden detoured his campaign to avoid the area completely. Harris got a lot of the community back on board but then couldn’t bring herself to say that she would have done a single thing differently than Biden. She couldn't even walk back Biden’s anti-Palestinian comments.
And you seem to miss the reason that the Arab and Muslim-American communities struggled this year; it’s the Trolley problem. You’re asking me to vote for someone who is actively helping murder people in your community, when asked about it he has no remorse and said he would do it all again and not even claim he will do better next time, and I’d better fall in line because the other person is worse. You’re asking me to actively vote to kill people in my community and threatening me with more deaths if I don’t. Can you see why this is such an unappealing choice? Obama killed innocent people in drone strikes but he at least tried to claim it was an accident and was doing better and supported us against the active bigots in the other party trying to ban our existence. Biden stubbornly ignored a solid YEAR of pressure, falsely promised he heard us after the primaries and then refused to hear anyone out. Well he lost by an even greater margin than our community and he has only himself to blame. He’s not even wallowing, he’s reportedly complaining that he could have beaten Trump if that awful Pelosi didn’t real his internal polling and make him stand aside.
People like you seem to think protesting against genocide is a bigger problem than sending billions in support of genocide. I can't tell if it's a matter of diehard party support above all else or simple delusion.
Just acknowledge that we were always getting one of two options. This isn’t confusing in the slightest.
To extend the analogy used in the comment starting this thread, it’s like leaving your abusive partner to live with a more abusive partner.
Why the ever loving fuck would you choose the worse option?
The choices were genocide or genocide. Apparently some privileged people here haven't noticed that the genocide has already been getting worse and worse for over a year now.
Maybe electing someone unlikely to restrain them at all while simultaneously making shit worse in the US and Ukraine, doing a 180 on what little climate progress we’ve made, making abortion illegal nationwide, and reducing/ending social security will help.
There’s people in my community who lost relatives in Gaza. I’ve been to their funerals. Their families will tell you, “Trump didn’t kill my family, Biden did.” Please tell me how I could convince them to put that aside and vote for Biden anyway. We tried, despite Biden’s speeches on the topic making it harder and harder since he decided to twist that knife in deeper and deeper by giving such helpful speeches saying that he doesn’t trust Palestinians or that Israel has not committed any war crimes.
In the end, Harris got far more votes in my community than Trump did, but it didn’t make any difference since Trump won by a margin bigger than all the voters in my community.
Trump ultimately ended up carrying Dearborn, a majority Arab American city in Michigan, by more than 6 percentage points — a massive swing from Biden’s nearly 40 point win there in 2020. But most Dearborn voters also voted against Trump, who got about 43% support in a deeply split field.
Guess you're not in Dearborn.
I wonder if these people just don't think Trump is that great a threat or still haven't figured out how FPTP voting works yet.
Dearborn is one town among many in the area, it doesn’t completely represent the Arab-American community in the state or the Muslim-American community.
Second, Trump pulled ahead in Dearborn because so many disgusted voters stayed home and voted for neither. Turnout was shockingly low compared to 2020, partly because both candidates had such an ugly unappealing stance on Gaza, and Dearborn wound up splitting their vote between Harris and Stein, giving Trump a mild plurality. It’s not all together different from Trump winning certain neighborhoods in the Bronx since so many people decided not to vote this year.
Biden wasn't restraining israel at all and Harris kept talking about how she'd be a continuation of Biden. Now you're bringing in a bunch of other issues that aren't what these voters are focused on. Turns out you have to appeal to voters to get their votes.
You seem to be under the impression that all discussions between the two countries happened in public. Do I have that right?
Ok, then what evidence do you have that Biden’s private discussions had any tangible benefit? Biden praised and hugged Netanyahu in public, but if you want me to believe he was harsh on him in private, show me what secret “behind the scenes” action made it worth it to allow Netanyahu to publicly insult Biden and make the US look complicit in war crimes. Did it prevent escalation of the war or bombing of Lebanon? No. Did it force Israel to stop bombing Gaza hospitals? Did it force Israel to publicly hold soldiers to account for war crimes? Nope. Did he force both sides into a ceasefire or get hostages with American citizenship back? NO. Literally every one of Biden’s publicly stated Israel-Palestine policies failed.
You have nothing to show for this “trust Biden, he’s working behind the scenes even if he’s looking like a fool in public for praising Netanyahu and acting blind to the atrocities in Gaza.”
As I said in the other comment you left, your interpretation of the analogy makes no sense. Your point would be valid if I were discussing Arab and Muslim voters who voted for Trump, but I'm not; I'm discussing the Uncommitted movement, who endorsed neither candidate.
Oh they only didn’t know whether they wanted to better or worse option. Still pretty goddamn stupid.
Yeah, also no, and it you'd actually read the original comment, you'd know that. As I said:
they declined to endorse her, but still urged their supporters not to vote Trump or third-party.
They knew Trump was worse, they didn't want Trump to win, but they needed Harris to make a gesture towards the Arab community before they could endorse her; she didn't, so they didn't. She didn't negotiate to get their endorsement, so she didn't get their endorsement. It's very funny that you're acting like everyone else is an idiot yet you still don't understand this.
A perfect analogy where you argue to stay with abusive partner and you are actually a horrible person if you don't want to stay with your abusive partner. The idea that your partner stops being abusive is also so absurd that it's out of the question.
Yeah, yeah. People said this leading up to the election to. The plain logic of "we're getting one of these two" didn't seem to click with many, you included.
I'm a cis white male who makes pretty damn good money so in all likelihood I'll be fine. That surely won't be the case for many. I tried. /shrug
I bet you did wonders with your "stay with your abuser" rhetoric. With clever posters like you, how a could we possibly have lost? But i am happy to read that the election did matter to you anyway.
You can lead a horse to water.
But you can't make it understand that you beat them because you actually love them so much, and that they are lucky to have you. Sad
Choosing the better of two options too difficult logic for many, I guess.
You put this so much better than I ever could have. Thank you for this.
and you say, "If you ever treat me like that again, I will leave you,"
Finish the analogy to better fit this issue. You leave your partner for a MORE abusive partner. Why?
...except they didn't do that. The Uncommitted movement didn't leave her for Trump; they didn't endorse Trump and actively warned their members not to vote third-party because it would help him. They just followed through with their threat to withhold their endorsement. If she needed their help that badly, she should have done something to win that endorsement.
If you live with an abusive spouse, but the house is literally build in an island surrounded by lava, A. Maybe your bargaining position is not that good.
B. Maybe, even if it's super shitty to live with the abusive, its still better that swim in lava, so you bite the bullet and wait the lava cool down
Yeah, except the Uncommitted leadership didn't tell their people to, "swim in lava," (if I'm following this tortured extension of the metaphor correctly). As I said, they opposed Trump, and even warned their supporters that voting third-party would help him, they just didn't endorse Harris because of her failure to make any of the very small concessions they asked for. She put them in a position where, as political leaders, there was no way they could endorse her without completely destroying their own credibility. If she needed their endorsement that badly, then it sounds like her bargaining position wasn't that good.
