President Joe Biden made his planned trip to the Wolverine State to quell the Muslim voter revolt brewing across the Rust Belt and try to glean something from the recent United Auto Workers Union endorsement. The leadership of the UAW might be all in on Biden, but its rank-and-file are not, something that their president admitted.
“A great majority” of UAW members will not support the president for numerous reasons, not least because their paychecks have been cannibalized by high inflation. Biden’s domestic energy agenda delivers a sledgehammer to these people’s livelihoods. His visit with union workers was also marked by routine strangeness, where Biden said that American workers don’t taste that good. He also faced angry pro-Palestinian demonstrators, which required the deployment of riot police (via NY Post):
President Biden told auto-union workers in Michigan that Americans “don’t taste that good” in a bizarre aside Thursday — before being jeered by anti-Israel hecklers hours later in the critical swing state.
“Remember they told us we’re dead — manufacturing is dead in America, China is gonna eat our lunch?” Biden said an event with the United Auto Workers. “Well guess what, man? We don’t taste that good.”
Not long after, the 81-year-old commander in chief took heat from a crowd of protesters as he visited a restaurant north of Detroit with members of the UAW, which last week endorsed his reelection campaign.
“Genocide Joe: How many kids have you killed today?” protesters chanted, along with “F— Joe Biden” — repeating slogans from two large marches to the White House against Biden’s support for the Israeli invasion of Hamas-ruled Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 slaughter of about 1,200 and abduction of about 250 others in southern Israel.
Michigan has a large Arab American population and polling indicates a large cohort of the group is considering opposing Biden over the war in Gaza.
Signs of a Muslim voter revolt over the Israel-Hamas War have been brewing for months, and the feelings of antipathy toward Biden from this community have only intensified. If these people stay home come November, Donald Trump is the next president of the United States. There were even more troubling signs that this trip could be marked by drama, as local Muslim leaders refused to meet with the president or his surrogates (via Axios):
Hours before traveling to Michigan, a key epicenter of Arab American outrage over the war in Gaza, President Biden signed an unprecedented executive order targeting Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians.
Why it matters: The timing may have been coincidental, but the Biden administration is eager to present deliverables to Arab and Muslim American voters who have threatened to sit out or actively work to defeat the president over his support for Israel.
Those communities — not to mention the younger generations alienated by Biden's policies toward Gaza — typically vote Democratic by wide margins.
A major defection would imperil Biden's 2020 coalition: In Michigan, for example, Biden won by 154,000 votes. Census estimates put the state's Arab American population around at least 278,000.
Driving the news: Biden did not meet with any Muslim or Arab community leaders in his visit to the Detroit area, where he delivered a campaign speech to UAW workers a week after receiving the union's endorsement.
Pro-Palestinian protests were held Wednesday night in Dearborn, Michigan — home to the country's largest Muslim population per capita — but Biden's event was not disrupted.
Zoom in: The raw anger many of these communities have expressed toward Biden's policies — including his refusal to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war — cannot be overstated.
Activists have organized an "Abandon Biden" campaign that plans to endorse a third-party candidate, even at the risk of boosting former President Trump — who is likely to be more hostile to the Palestinians.
Some Palestinian American community leaders declined an invitation to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken today, saying they "cannot imagine" what he could have to say after "nearly four unbearable months."
Last week, some Arab American elected officials refused to meet with Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez in Michigan — calling it "dehumanizing" to discuss electoral politics while the war is ongoing.
Sanctioning Israeli settlers is another dumb move by this administration, along with reports that the State Department is looking into recognizing Palestinian statehood. Biden has also been pleading with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale down the Gaza War since its headlines are starting to chip away at his support with younger voters. The gall of this weird, lying old man: please stop your war against a genocidal terrorist enemy that murdered 1,200 of your citizens because it’s hurting my re-election chances.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) has been the Democrats’ canary in the coal mine of sorts, noting that Michigan is a winnable state for Republicans, especially if the Democrat at the top of the ticket is dementia-ridden milquetoast who rolls out laughably transparent policies to placate specific ethnic groups at the expense of national security priorities. Coup de grâce is that these moves did little to assuage the fury engulfing the Arab American community—not that we should be all shocked that another Biden political move ended in total failure (via Associated Press):
Biden’s Michigan schedule did not include any meetings with Arab Americans, adding to increasing frustration over his support of Israel in its war with Hamas as the Palestinian death toll has mounted.
“Why not have a meaningful conversation for how you change course with a community that has first-hand accounts of what it’s like to live in the countries where your decision-making is unfolding?” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation.
Despite the White House offering no advance details about Biden’s planned meeting, close to 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were waiting for Biden near the UAW Region 1 building in Warren ahead of his event there. The president’s motorcade bypassed them using side streets.
Protesters chanted “Hey Biden, what do you say? We won’t vote on Election Day” as well as pro-Palestinian slogans, including “Free, free Palestine.”
Amir Naddaf, 34, traveled with friends from Ann Arbor to protest the president’s UAW event after having supported Biden in the 2020 election
“We came here to send a clear message to the administration that they’re not welcome in Michigan,” said Naddaf.
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Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime Biden ally, said Democrats need to tend to a multitude of constituencies in Michigan to hold on to the state in 2024.
“Michigan is a purple state. I say that to everybody,” she said. “Clearly, the Arab American community matters. But young people have to turn out. They were very decisive two years ago in voter turnout. A lot of the union leadership has endorsed the president, but we’ve got to get into the union halls and do the contrast so people really understand what it’s about. And we’ve got to make sure women and independents turn out. You know, we’re a competitive state.”
Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, led a group of campaign advisers to the Dearborn area last week as part of her ongoing effort to meet with core supporter groups around the country. She spoke with some community leaders, but the trip ended abruptly when Arab American leaders declined to show up for a meeting with her.
Labor unions, young people, and Arab voters aren’t the only areas where the Democratic Party base is bleeding ahead of the 2024 elections. Black and Hispanic voters are not thrilled with Joe Biden, young black voters especially, who, like Arab Americans, want a ceasefire in Gaza. They don’t care about student loan relief or other niche progressive issues meant to gin up the Democratic Party base. These games don’t work, especially when the party leader lacks political skills.
The only thing keeping Biden afloat is that chardonnay-sipping suburbanite and single college-educated women aren’t turning their backs on Biden. They’re keeping it close, but can they make up the difference in other areas of the base that have opted not to hop aboard the Bidenomics train and wait for something else? If that’s something after Trump, so be it. I can see Arab Americans taking that position. In the long run, it keeps Democrats from embracing a full-throated defense and support for Israel. For now, whatever splinters, demoralizes, and sucks the life out of Democratic base voters is what we want.