[ryandrake]

This has never made sense to me. If you are worried about the treatment of people in Gaza, and your choice is between a party who supports the current mistreatment and a party who supports even worse treatment, why would you protest-vote for the party who supports even worse treatment?

[BeetleB]

> why would you protest-vote for the party who supports even worse treatment?

It's all anecdotes - how many protest voted for Trump vs a 3rd party candidate or simply not vote at all (which I think was the ultimate factor)?

For the latter category: The same reason Arab Israelis often boycott their local elections. Playing a long game. Playing the short game means almost no real gains for Gaza (it hasn't, after all, in all these years).

They likely don't believe Republicans will ever see it their way, but have more influence with the Democrats. Had they voted for Harris, they felt it was a vote for the status quo. If Harris won, it would mean the Gaza policy would continue as the Democrats feel they'll get their votes anyway. If they voted Harris and Trump won anyway, then that's worse - they "sold out" to Harris, and they still ended up with Trump. Either way, they'd feel the genocide would continue.

If they voted 3rd party or no one else, and Trump won, the thought process would be:

"Yes, the bad treatment for Gaza will continue for another 4 years. Maybe it'll be worse, but it was intolerable with the Democrats anyway. Now the message has been sent to the Democrats and they may be willing to come to the table in the future".

Also, keep in mind that the impact to the voters is miniscule either way. It's not as if their livelihood is at stake with Trump.

I was not very sympathetic to them in the beginning, but as the election proceeded and when the pro-Gaza crowd actually made a lot of moves to appease the Democrats (lowering their demands, etc), and get pretty much nothing in return, it made total sense. For all practical purposes, the Party leaders were not willing to even come to the table, let alone negotiate. On the whole, exposing the Democratic Party for who they are was a notable achievement.

The whole flaw in all of this is: It's really not clear if Gaza impacted the election at all. I haven't seen a good study that indicated this factor would have been enough to bridge the gap between Harris and Trump.

[throwaway243123]

This is pretty accurate and matches my understanding and what I've seen arab friends explain as their reasoning.

[BeetleB]

Yeah, I probably should summarize my whole comment with:

It's not really about the current crisis in Gaza. What they want is a seat at the table to influence future policy.

They believe they won't get it with Republicans. If they voted for Harris, they know they won't get it with the Democrats either. Their only hope for a seat at the table in the future is by hurting the Democrats now.

But as I said - they probably didn't hurt the Democrats much, so all of it won't matter in the near future.

[throwaway243123]

> But as I said - they probably didn't hurt the Democrats much, so all of it won't matter in the near future.

This is probably what we disagree on. The raw Muslim vote was probably not enough to matter anywhere besides maybe MI (and Harris needed way more states to win). But the "allies" and depressed turnout caused by lowered enthusiasm esp in Gen-Z and below IMO could've swung more states than just MI. She might've still lost, but it would have been a lot closer.

Regardless, it's still the only lever the Gaza people had to pull, so they pulled it. It was that or pulling nothing at all, which they thought was a worse option.

[BeetleB]

> But the "allies" and depressed turnout caused by lowered enthusiasm esp in Gen-Z and below IMO could've swung more states than just MI. She might've still lost, but it would have been a lot closer.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I haven't seen any good polls/studies to indicate this is true. At the moment it sounds more like wishful thinking.