is Joe Biden Chasing Away The Muslim Vote?

At The American Spectator this morning I wrote a column about the “minor” challengers to Joe Biden on the Left – Robert F. Kennedy, Junior, Cornel West and Dean Phillips, the first two of whom are now running as independents.

On West, I noted that the black radical Princeton professor is staking out a pro-Hamas position, going to anti-Israel rallies in Los Angeles and making a play for the 22 percent of Americans who don’t believe Hamas is a terrorist organization…

Rasmussen released a survey Friday that found 78 percent of the American people consider Hamas a terrorist group. It would seem that the other 22 percent are almost certainly Biden voters … but, maybe, since Biden is siding with the 78 percent at least publicly (we know that behind the scenes, Team Biden is less than enthusiastic about the Israeli cause; otherwise the $100 million in “humanitarian aid” for the people of Gaza he’s promising won’t result in rockets, or IEDs would never have been spoken of), the 22 percent can be persuaded into a protest vote.

Besides, Cornel West is a luminary of long standing among left-wing lunatics. And, in particular, he has the kind of credibility in the black community that Biden rightly never had and is apparently hemorrhaging.

So if black voters, and particularly the very militant and radical crowd among their ranks, consider peeling off that doddering old racist in the White House (they gonna put y’all back in chains, dontchaknow), things could go very badly for Team Biden next year. After all, a Fox News poll from earlier this month had Biden up 74–26 on Trump among blacks; Biden needs 85 percent of that vote and to turn it out in droves, or else he’s not getting a second term.

So if Cornel West were to emerge as the protest candidate of choice among not just black voters but also the pro-Pal mob, then, well…

Yes, but this is just a fantasy, isn’t it? Cornel West won’t actually siphon any votes off Joe Biden. That’s crazy talk!

Or maybe it isn’t. Because now there is this…

The National Muslim Democratic Council, a nationwide group of Democratic leaders and activists, threatened President Joe Biden that if he does not force Israel to reach a ceasefire with Hamas, a U.S. State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, by 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, they will work to mobilize against him in the 2024 presidential election.

“It has become evident that our voices are being ignored, but our votes will not be. Simply put, as Gaza turns red, so could crucial battleground states,” the council said in a letter Monday to the White House and Democratic Party.

“Your administration’s unconditional support, encompassing funding and armaments, has played a significant role in perpetuating the violence that is causing civilian casualties and has eroded trust in voters who previously put their faith in you,” the group also wrote.

“We will mobilize increased voter turnout to make our voices heard,” the council also wrote. It added that Michigan, a swing state with a large Muslim population that went for former President Donald Trump in 2016, went for Biden by 2.6% in 2020.

“We emphasize the significance of Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Arizona,
Nevada, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, where many of our voters reside,” the group also said.

More than 4.4 million Muslims live in the U.S., making up 1.3% of the population, according to the 2020 U.S. Religion Census conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

The reflex is to dismiss this by noting that the GOP position on the Israel-Hamas war is to take a lot more pro-Israel line than Biden has. After all, Biden, while publicly lining up with the Israelis, nonetheless is attempting to dump $100 million in “humanitarian aid” on the Palestinians – money he says, convincing precisely no one, won’t end up in the hands of Hamas militants freshly equipped with rockets and other munitions. Everybody knows that money would fund the Hamas war effort.

So it’s dumb to think that the Muslim Democrats would vote for an even more hostile party than the one they’re voting for now.

But with West available as a friendly protest vote, who’s to say they can’t stick it to Biden another way?

I’m not saying this is the death of Joe Biden’s presidency. I’m just saying it’s something to watch. As I’ve been saying again and again, it’s a mistake to make any assumptions about 2024 at this point.