(RNS) — Determined after the horrors of the first Trump presidency not to see another, in 2020 I gathered a diverse team of Muslim Americans from around New Jersey to form NJ Muslims for Biden. In the 2020 midterm election cycle, we made more than 136,000 calls in partnership with the Muslim political organizing group Emgage Action, helping to turn out more than 50,000 Muslim voters in Pennsylvania. We were part of a broad coalition that was the margin of victory in that election.
I never imagined then that four years later our Muslim American community would be confronted with such a difficult choice. Many Muslims view Harris as simply an extension of Biden, a president who has seemingly heartlessly funded a war and with American bombs enabled catastrophic harm to our Palestinian and Lebanese siblings and children.
A longtime progressive Muslim American Democrat, I understand this anti-Biden sentiment. Like my community, I feel abandoned and betrayed by a party that has stood silently by as civilian men, women and children have been targeted en masse in Palestine and Lebanon. Its administration has supported the quashing of free speech rights. Until recently, our elected leaders in their rhetoric, including Biden, have dehumanized Palestinians and Muslims as terrorists.
As a result, many in our community are voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, in an attempt to register their protest and to break the two-party system in American politics that reduces political debate and ignores nuanced views. Yet the data is clear that a vote for Stein or any third party is a vote for Trump.
Faced with this difficult choice at the polls, I find myself unable to empower Trump and all he stands for.
I believe we are more likely to achieve more for our Palestinian and Lebanese loved ones, including an end to the war on Palestine, with Harris, who has called for a cease-fire. Trump is on record stating that he will finish the job in Palestine, and so I can’t empower Trump with my vote.
Read the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trump Memos, a document that details how our Muslim and advocacy institutions may not survive a second Trump presidency, and what the organization is planning to do to defuse Trump’s bias. Consider that Trump is on track to cause irreparable harm to our democracy. As an American citizen who cares deeply about our democracy, I can’t trust him with my vote.
In solidarity with our Black Muslim siblings, who are raising the alarm about the harm Trump’s racist rhetoric and policies will do to their community, I can’t empower him with my vote.
Let’s also not forget the horrors Trump unleashed on immigrant families and children at our borders and see that Trump can’t be trusted with anyone’s vote.
On a whole host of domestic issues — the economy, education, health care, student loan forgiveness and more — Harris will center diversity, inclusion and equity in her policymaking. (Trump wants to get rid of DEI programs across the country.) Harris’ diverse administration has shown that it will include Muslim Americans.
While a protest vote may feel good, electing Trump means shutting Muslims out for four years. Let us not forget that the diverse people in an administration inform policy decisions that are made. Even when Trump sends senior officials to meet with Muslim leaders, they are very open about refusing to make any policy commitments to our community. Why should we empower Trump with our vote?
Wiser people than I have said that when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Trump is sharing his plans, and I believe him.
Several years ago, after visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, I found stories there of Muslims who had helped Jewish community members in Germany avoid the Holocaust. I wondered, if I were in Germany at that time, would I have been able to help the Jewish community or because as a single parent of a child with disabilities who is completely dependent on me would I have felt I could not take this risk? As I left the museum, I asked myself what I would have done if I had been in that situation. It’s easy for all of us to believe we would have done the right thing.
I have since then prayed to God that the right thing to do always be clearly visible and also the easy thing to do because I don’t want to be confronted with such choices and I hope I never am.
As someone who tries to be guided by what is just and right, it is not easy to vote for Harris, which may not secure us the justice that we seek. Securing a just solution to this conflict over land could take generations, given the power differential in our political reality that we face as advocates of vulnerable Palestinians and Lebanese.
But as a Muslim woman whose faith runs deep, I’m sure that empowering Trump is certain to mean continued war and harm, to our Palestinian and Lebanese siblings and children, and to our nation’s own most vulnerable and marginalized communities. Empowering Trump’s bigoted rhetoric and policies runs counter to everything Islam teaches us about justice, compassion and care for community.
This is why I plan to vote for Harris on Election Day. I hope you will join me with your vote in preventing greater injustices here at home and abroad.
(Afsheen A. Shamsi is a national board member for Emgage Action, a national Muslim-American advocacy group that supports policies that strengthen pluralistic democracy and protect human rights. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
