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Mayor Amer Ghalib, a Democrat who has endorsed the former president
“Why Trump?” I asked.
“Well… it’s a combination of two things. Disappointment and hope. Disappointment that the current administration and how they are handling things locally or internationally, and hope that the new administration, led by Trump, will do something different.”
Our conversation was revealing in many ways. I’d come to this city expecting to hear anger about American policy in the Middle East. After all, the people here have deep existing ties to the region.
But only now was it obvious that the Arab-American shift right is also a consequence of the gradual leftward drift by the Democrats.
It’s about the real war in the Middle East, but it’s about culture wars too.
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Last year an attempt to fly a pride flag on city property was blocked by the mayor and his team.
“There is so much aggression and attempts to enforce certain values on the majority of this community,” Mayor Ghalib said, “…on schools, on public properties, city hall and the Democratic Party is not doing anything to prevent that shift in dynamics.”
I asked if anyone from Kamala Harris’s team had been in touch about his concerns before or since his endorsement of Trump.”No. No,” he said.
“Does that surprise you?”
“They think I’m a fake Democrat. All my life here I voted Democrat.”
Trump’s visit to the city is the culmination of groundwork by members of Team Trump for months, an indication of how important they see this state and this demographic.
3:06
Who is winning the swing states?
So what about Trump’s pro-Israel stance? As he arrived in Detroit last week he praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything worse than what’s happening now,” the mayor said.
It’s a sentiment echoed here. The idea that no one can be worse than the Democrats on Israel-Gaza, and that domestically – on social issues and the economy – Trump would be better for this community.
Drive west out of Hamtramck through the Detroit suburbs and you reach Dearborn.
About half the population here is Arab-American, most from Lebanon. Over coffee with local environmental activist Samraa Luqman, a conversation that should alarm the Harris campaign.
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Samraa Luqman, who voted for Clinton in 2016 and wrote in Sanders’s name in 2020
She tells me that she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, she wrote Bernie Sanders’s name onto the ballot in 2020. And this year?
“I’m voting for Trump,” Samraa says. “Why?” I ask.
“The genocide. Policy-wise, I don’t like any of the Republican policies, to be frank, at all… I will still vote for him because one thing I hate more than all those other policies is genocide… And that’s the sentiment of an entire community.”
I asked what made her think Trump would be any better for the Arab cause.
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“Trump is a wild card… will he do exactly what Kamala does or worse or better? But I know for sure what the Democrats are doing and they’re intending to continue it.”
This journey through communities that feel now forgotten and unheard ends for me where it started for them – at Detroit’s old Ford factory which drew so many Middle Eastern immigrants here generations ago.
There I met the local Yemeni-American Democratic Party caucus leader with a startling conclusion.
“I think the damage is great. I assure you that it’s not just about Michigan. This is a nationwide phenomena,” he said.
“I am very worried,” Abdulhakim Alsadeh said.
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Abdulhakim Alsadeh
I ask him if he thinks the Democratic Party has messed up this campaign.
“Yes, I believe so. I really do,” he said. “The Republican nominee, former president Donald Trump, reached out to the Yemeni-American community. They sat with him. They talked with him.”
“Everybody is concerned,” he said.
It won’t take many to swing this state and streamline the path to the White House.
Here, through all the contradictions, many are swinging to Trump.
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Publish date : 2024-10-21 19:28:00
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