With only weeks to go until the United States presidential election on November 5, and with the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency casting a shadow over the polls, pro-Palestine activist and former Democratic Party organiser Sravya explains why she is undecided about whether to vote for Kamala Harris.
* * *
For the first time in my life, I am an undecided voter.
I have voted Democrat in every election I have ever participated in. Every election cycle since 2014, I have spent hours at my local Democratic Party office calling voters and knocking on doors.
This is the first time I have ever felt I would not be able to bring myself to vote Democrat, because presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s values do not reflect my own. Harris has stated directly that she will continue the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel and allowing the Benjamin Netanyahu government to continue its genocide of the Palestinian people.
As the United States government violates its own laws that restrict security assistance from going to military units and countries that violate human rights, Harris has indicated no departure from her predecessor’s policy of arming the country responsible for the death of more than 40,000 people. Despite the determined efforts of activists, Harris would not even let a Palestinian speak at the Democratic National Convention, a decision that led the organisation Muslim Women for Harris to withdraw support for her.
Despite being the first Black and South Asian woman to run for president, Harris is also not representing the interests of people of colour. During her tenure as a prosecutor, she aggressively targeted Black and Brown communities through initiatives such as criminalising parents for truancy. As vice-president, Harris oversaw efforts to keep Central American asylum seekers from seeking refuge in the US, famously telling Guatemalans: “Do not come.”
Harris’s policy positions have made many lifelong Democrats in my circles, mostly people of colour, loath to cast their ballots for her.
If people of colour and working-class people do not turn out in large numbers, the Democrats will likely lose crucial swing states such as Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin.
A new poll from the Council on American Islamic Relations found that 40% of Muslims in Michigan and 44% of Muslims in Wisconsin plan to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. The pro-Palestine movement is clearly having a significant impact on voter sentiments, shifting many people away from the Democratic Party toward a third party.
But greater support for third parties could also increase the chances of putting Trump in office again, and the stakes of this election –– with a fascist demagogue running as the primary alternative to Harris –– make this a much harder decision for many voters, including myself.
About 77% of Black voters, 62% of Asian voters and 52% of Hispanic voters support Harris in this election. Most major labour unions such as the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations have endorsed her. Third parties have not done enough on-the-ground organising to create a credible threat to the Democratic establishment, and many people of colour and working-class Americans are not willing to risk a Trump presidency, to push for change on the issue of Palestine. I feel this similar risk aversion.
Authoritarianism
Trump is an existential threat to democracy, and if he were elected, we would see the US enter an authoritarian era. Trump has repeatedly vowed to use the justice department and Internal Revenue Service to target his political opponents. Project 2025 — developed by Trump loyalists and former staffers — aims to replace key positions in the independent civil service with his allies, allowing him to enact his far-right, white supremacist agenda far more efficiently than during his first term.
A Supreme Court ruling giving presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution means that Trump may be able to take extreme means to consolidate power and suppress dissent. The violence enacted on Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestine protesters will seem feeble if we experience a second Trump term.
I largely agree with the argument in leftist circles that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party enable US imperialism, unfettered capitalism and racial injustice. A large number of voters refusing to vote for Harris, many advocates argue, would send a clear message to the Democratic Party that bankrolling genocide is unacceptable. But these arguments have significant issues.
First, Trump is not just any Republican. I believe many activists are underestimating the challenges of organising under a second Trump presidency. Organising under a Democratic administration is hard enough, and we can see from the repression in India under Narendra Modi to Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the freedom to protest can easily be crushed when authoritarians are willing to do everything they can to curb dissent. Trump would not hesitate to use every tool under his disposal to repress opposition, including violence. While the opposition is Trump –– not simply a Republican –– the stakes of losing are too drastic.
Secondly, I doubt that the Democratic Party will take the right message away if they were to lose this year. In 2020, the lesson it took away was that it needed to better appeal to rural white men, with Biden running on a moderate platform that decentred the needs of Black and Brown communities. If the party loses, it is more likely to blame the voters who abstained than listen to us.
Green Party
I have a lot of friends who have encouraged me to vote for the Green Party, represented by Dr Jill Stein at the top of the ticket. But unlike in parliamentary systems such as Australia’s, third party candidates in the US have a nearly impossible chance of gaining a seat due to the winner-takes-all voting system.
Third parties are often spoilers. George W Bush won the presidency in 2000 by nabbing Florida by 500 votes –– causing two wars that may have been avoided had a few hundred Green Party Ralph Nader voters voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore instead.
Nader’s presence was certainly not the only reason Bush won the election. The disenfranchisement of minority voters in Florida, the conservative Supreme Court’s refusal to allow a recount, and the American political system’s use of the Electoral College are all to blame for what happened in 2000. These broken elements of the US election system are still in place today and prevent third parties from gaining ground.
Instead of electing our president directly through a national popular vote, we use the Electoral College to select state “electors” who are allocated based on the population of each state with a minimum of two electors per state. This undemocratic process undermines a fair vote by allowing a handful of small, conservative states to have a disproportionate impact on the winner of an election. It also further entrenches the two-party system by letting a handful of swing states determine the outcome, creating a high incentive for people in swing states to cast a strategic vote for one of the winning parties over a risky vote for a third party that could take votes away from a preferred candidate.
In many states, including in Florida in 2000, people of colour have been prevented from having their votes counted due to oppressive voting laws and practices. New laws mandating voter IDs, restrictions on Sunday voting and the reduction and relocation of polling locations and drop boxes that are often used by voters of colour have already had a hugely negative impact on minority voter turnout.
I do not live in a swing state, where I probably would fill in the Harris bubble to avoid catastrophe. I live in Oregon, a solidly Democratic state that is unlikely to change this year. I could vote for a third party simply as a way of registering my opposition to the status quo. But I would certainly feel guilty about taking a Harris victory for granted.
I am also extremely uncomfortable with self-serving behaviour from the Green Party that I see as harmful to the cause of human rights, from Stein’s reluctance to condemn Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, to political opportunism.
Palestinian-American human rights activist Noura Erakat was in talks to be the Green Party’s vice-presidential candidate, on the condition that the party would drop out of the race if the Democrats were to secure a permanent ceasefire and offensive arms embargo. This would have been an effective way of putting real pressure on the Democrats to change its policy toward Israel, leveraging the Greens’ power as a spoiler. But the Green Party turned the deal down, making a decision to prioritise its political future over securing an end to the genocide.
Then again, I will also feel guilty about casting a vote for a candidate that’s allowing a genocide to continue in front of our eyes.
I have been trying to advocate for Palestine for almost a year now, participating in protests and working with human rights organisations to advocate for policy change. But despite the efforts of thousands of people who have done far more than me, nothing has changed at all. Maybe this election is the chance for those of us to lay on the pressure –– particularly those of us in solidly Democratic states who are likely to see a Harris victory regardless of our individual choices.
I will leave it to Harris to make the case as to why I should vote for her. Until then, I will remain undecided.