In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Shadi Hamid writes:
According to a 2016 survey by my Brookings Institution colleague Shibley Telhami, few things predicted partisan affiliation more accurately than attitudes toward Muslims and Islam.
But Muslims who were brought into the Democratic tent didn’t necessarily align themselves with the party’s evolving views. Asma Uddin, in her book “When Islam Is Not a Religion,†describes “a tacit agreement that Muslims, as religious believers, will never challenge any of the rights championed by the Left, such as a progressive vision of gender or sexual equality.†Muslims became an integral part of the party not as a faith community with distinct theological commitments but as a “marginalized†group requiring protection from Republican bigotry.
For a time the bargain appeared to be holding and even solidifying. According to a Pew Research Center survey, in 2007 only 27% of American Muslims said homosexuality should be “accepted by society.†By 2016 that number had jumped to 52%. Many Muslims justified the shift by arguing that while same-sex relationships may be haram—forbidden by Islamic law—they weren’t so under American law.
But during the Trump years, the Democratic Party veered sharply to the left on social and cultural issues. The Republican Party lost interest in Muslims, with Mr. Trump neglecting to antagonize them during his 2020 re-election bid. The new enemy was “wokeness,†and a growing number of Muslims found themselves on the GOP side of that divide. According to the AP VoteCast Survey, as many as 35% of Muslims voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, compared with 8% to 13% in 2016.
The Democratic Party’s cultural turn has intensified. In March the Montgomery County Board of Education—the largest school district in Maryland, in a Democratic stronghold with a significant Muslim population—informed parents that they would no longer be notified when their children were reading from the school’s approved “selection of over 22 LGBTQ+-inclusive texts,†and that no opt-outs would be tolerated. Hundreds of Muslim parents have since sounded out in protest, some of them joining Christians in filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the mandate.
I think I can answer Mr. Hamid’s implied question—why are Democrats deserting Muslims? I don’t believe the Democratic leadership is thinking that far ahead. They see the views they’re championing as self-evidently righteous and believe that all right-thinking people necessarily agree with them. Their concern is focused unswervingly on the next election.
My two cents. Everything is progressing as I have suggested. People don’t abandon their culture, politics, or religion when they come to the United States or when they vote for a political party. And, as I posted twenty years ago, the irony of the present political moment is that there has been a sort of resonance between the views of Muslims and that of Jacksonians who are now largely Republicans, obvious for a century. Unless they happen to be black. But that’s changing, too.
I also think that a lot of Democrats, secular to the core, don’t understand religion, viewing it as a sort of personal preference that should be exercised privately and kept out of the town square. Religion just doesn’t work that way.
Most Democrats probably dont understand the very small number of people who are actually religious. I am sure you saw that recent study where they tracked people and showed that less than 3% of people average going to church once a week. However, Democrats understand pretty well the large majority of “evangelical Christians”. It’s really a tribal, cultural affiliation only loosely associated with Biblical beliefs. It does not require any behavior on the part of the “believer” consistent with the claimed religious beliefs. It does require support for the political beliefs and leaders its leaders support.
(I am not sure where I would rate on this survey. I dont go every week but do go to church 5-6 times a month.)
Steve
The Democrats went from a Big Tent party that included communists and segregationists to a doctrinaire socialist party and now to a party of the super rich, the 1%, and the fringes. They no longer represent the workers or middle class. When Sanders, a classical Marxist, tried to run on class issues, the Democrat Party simply ignored him.
How Muslims fit into the Democrat Party is a puzzle. There may be an element of al-taqiya involved, biding one’s time and keeping quiet about one’s beliefs until the time comes for action.
It is notable that the occasional eruptions of anti-Israel sentiments among the immigrant Muslims from Africa and the Middle East are usually followed by some sort of retraction.
Of course, anti-Semitism is rife among native black Americans, too. Louis Farrakhan speaks for the great majority of blacks, and he is by far the most important black leader today. Even Obama pays homage to him.
The current coalition that is the Democrat Party appears to be unstable. How can native blacks and immigrant Muslims possibly stay together with billionaires, Jews, atheists, LGBTQIA2S+, et al.?
“How can native blacks and immigrant Muslims possibly stay together with billionaires, Jews, atheists, LGBTQIA2S+, et al.?â€
Why the Left puts so much effort into painting the Right as Racist.
“You may agree with them but they secretly hate you.â€
holds them in the fold.
You are clearly xenophobic. Probably voted for Trump. Damned tribalist, you.
Lakota Sioux AAMOF.
Secretly? When did it become a secret? As noted, Muslims fit culturally better with social conservatives. They vote for Dems, as noted in the article, hoping for protection from the political right because Muslims perceive the hatred. I think this is actually pretty good evidence that they have adopted to our culture.
Steve
Should be noted that fundamentalist Muslims are a special case because they have immutable beliefs and are not inclined to compromise or live and let live.