To the Dem supporters asking if we're happy now...
A thought experiment
A confession
I try to stay positive in these virtual conversations. Even when I’m talking about genocide. Even when I’m talking about militaries targeting civilians. I try to focus on beautiful people filled with nur. People like Khaled Nabhan, or Palestinian journalist Motaz Azaiza.
Lately though, I’ve been moving through the world in a state of frustration, and I feel like hiding it from you is being dishonest.
I don’t want to be your mythical Muslim friend. I want the basic courtesy of being allowed to be a real person who gets hurt when someone hurts me, who gets defensive when I’m attacked unfairly. One of the goals of Letters from a Muslim Woman is to humanize Muslims, but humanizing means acknowledging our humanity. It means letting us get mad when there’s something worth getting mad about. And right now, there’s something getting me mad.
Here goes…
As Donald Trump continues to set fire to America and then the world, I’ve seen about 50 variations on the “Are you happy now?” social media post, decrying the losers who dared cast protest votes or mark their ballots for third party candidates when the Democrats ignored their most important issues.
These posts are popular, often showered with hundreds of likes, comments, and reposts. Everyone is blowing off steam, patting themselves on the back for pointing out the stupidity of these non-Democrat left-leaning voters.
For the writers and likers and commenters of these posts, I’d like to engage in a little thought experiment
Imagine, if you will, that the US government is killing your family by sending billions of dollars of bombs to another country to be dropped on them. Imagine they are sending 500 pound bombs and 1000 pound bombs and 2000 pound bombs that are dropped on houses, apartment buildings, sometimes whole city blocks.
If it’s too hard to imagine that this is happening to your family, imagine it is happening to your friends. Or—I don’t know—just human beings. Non-combatants. Babies. Children. The bombs your government is sending are being dropped with an intensity greater than even that of the second world war.
Imagine that you exercise your democratic right to demand that the government stop killing people. That you march. That you sign petitions. That you even tell the government: Hey! I don’t like it that you’re using the money I pay in taxes to kill people! If you don’t stop that, I won’t be voting for you. I’m telling you now.
What would you hope the government would do in response to your very clear communication that you don’t like all this killing?
Maybe—and I’m just going out on a limb here—you would want them to stop killing. Maybe in a democracy, you would expect your elected officials to pay attention to your concerns, to try to earn your vote by putting an end to the killing of your family.
Maybe you would expect them to stop supplying the bombs and the munitions. Maybe you would expect them to exert diplomatic pressure to end the killing.
You know what I’m guessing you wouldn’t want them to do?
Look at you smarmily and say, Ok, but seriously. What other choice do you have? I mean, maybe we are killing lots of people, but that other guy? If he wins, he’s gonna kill lots of people and he’s gonna give his billionaire friend access to your social security numbers and private data. So ummmmmm, obviously we’re better.
Because that’s what the Democrats did.
A Caveat
If I sound like I’m shouting at everyone who voted Democrat–I’m not.
Plenty of people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Dems because of their military and diplomatic support for Israel’s attack on Gaza and opted to vote for independents who spoke out about genocide–I have no issue with these people.
Plenty of others held their noses and voted Dem because they didn’t see another way to stave off the alt-rightification of America with a second Trump term–I have no issue with them either.
Nor do I blame those who voted Democrat because they truly believed the Dems were a good option.
The only people I’m shouting at are the ones who shouted first.
The people who’ve decided that instead of holding the Democratic Party accountable for ignoring issues that mattered to its base, they are going to blame “the protest vote” for Trump’s win. Screaming at protest voters is not the flex that you think it is.
none of this is new but it is wildly frustrating to me seeing people smugly mock the so-called “protest vote” (by which they really mean, between barely-disguised lines, the arab-american vote and more generally, the non-white vote) and blaming that sector of the electorate for trump’s election, all the while ignoring the fact that the dems ran a historically bad campaign that made no effort to win over that very population that is now being blamed for our current government. make it make sense! -
The Golden Rule
It feels like a good time to remind everyone of the golden rule. We all learned it at school or mosque or church or temple. Do unto others as you would like done unto you.
Today’s application of the golden rule is asking you to do this thought experiment and see if you’d be able to stomach it and vote for politicians who’d signed off on the killing of your family members.
If you’d be able to look at those politicians when they lied to your face about “working tirelessly for a ceasefire”—which the Democrats claimed at every opportunity—even as they literally bypassed congress to send more weapons to the foreign military that’s bombing your relatives to smithereens.
If the documented sniping of small children would be your red line.
And if not, why not?
Consider who you ask to suck it up and take one for the team. Who is allowed to demand rights. Who is allowed to be angry.
And to answer your question of whether we are happy now…
No, we are not happy now. We are not happy that Donald Trump is ripping apart the remnants of the US government. We are not happy that he’s mused about “taking over Gaza” and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, which is a call for ethnic cleansing.
We’re not happy that he did this while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grinned in the chair next to him, as if he wasn’t the one responsible for the fact that “it’s hell” in Gaza right now.
We’re not happy that Trump’s starting trade wars and threatening to annex Canada and Greenland and ignoring every check and balance in the system.
But you know what else?
We weren’t happy before either.
We weren’t happy when the Biden administration ignored international law to keep giving military and diplomatic cover to Israel.
We weren’t happy when they vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions, delaying the eventual ceasefire by 7 more months and leading to the killing of tens of thousands more Palestinians.
We weren’t happy when the Democrats looked at us, pleading with them to listen, and said tough, we’re your only option.
We weren’t happy when they ignored the will of the two-thirds of American voters who wanted a ceasefire.
The people who didn’t vote for Kamala didn’t spoil their ballots or vote for a third party candidate because they wanted Trump. They did it because they are sick of being held hostage to a system that gives you the choice between dark blue and navy and calls it every colour of the rainbow.
They did it because they cannot stomach complicity in a genocide.
They did it knowing that some Dem supporters would ignore the deaths of tens of thousands and the displacement of millions under the Democrats’ watch, and then blame the protest voters if Trump won, instead of blaming the Democrats for running a campaign on “but we’re not the other guy.”
If you’re angry now that your rights are on the line, it means you’re not willing to sacrifice them in order for someone else to get what they want. And if you’re not willing to be the sacrificial lamb, why can’t you recognize the absurdity of asking Palestinians to sacrifice their lives to protect the US from fascism?
And what kind of democracy do you have if civilians have to keep dying in order to save it?
Those of you attacking protest voters, you’re doing exactly what they knew you would do. You’re blaming them instead of considering the validity of their concerns. And it’s heartbreaking and enraging because we are not your enemies.
We could all fight together, if only you were willing to fight for everyone.
Every week I publish pieces from my lived experience as an Arab, Muslim child of immigrants. If you want to hear more unvarnished thoughts from an under-represented person, consider upgrading today.
If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee below. It helps me more than you realize.
@Noha thank you for so eloquently putting into words what I have been feeling. This is such a spot on take, and I would just like to add one thing. Voters didn't cost Democrats the election, DEMOCRATS Cost DEMOCRATS the election. You don't blame voters for your inability to move them to action, you look at yourself and ask what went wrong. In this case, we all know what went wrong.
But now the U.S. has a President who doesn't see Palestinians as human beings and wants to turn the Gaza strip into a luxury resort. At least with Harris, there would have been an opening for dialogue and discussion. This man is evil. He wants to eradicate the Black and Latino/a community, the disabled, Muslims -- basically anyone who is not a WASP and aN oligarch. It sucks down here now, and it will only get worse for not only the U.S. but the Gazans, Palestine and the world.
Don't forget the 90 million Americans who chose not to vote at all. I blame them more than those who protest voted.