I am having a huge political debate with a Pakistani American who wants to vote for Trump because he believes that Joe Biden will be pro-India. His VP pick might eat Masala Dosa and have a mother who immigrated from India, but culinary habits and lineage don’t define a person’s political policies. The Biden-Harris ticket is the most diverse ticket in American history.
Biden-Harris ticket: A reflection of what America looks like in 2020
It is a great snapshot of what America really looks like in 2020. There are many descriptors to define Bidren’s running mate: female, parents from 2 nations, lived abroad, married to a Jewish man, step mom, California girl, sorority sister, Historically Black college alumni, lawyer, mayor, and senator.
Superficial summaries of what the candidate might believe or think based on her “background” won’t work because she doesn’t have one background; she has many. While Trump has no context for the most militarized zone in the world, Harris certainly does.
She is much more likely to be pro peace or at least pro conversation because she understands extended families, separated by partition, are still trying to heal. And American foreign policy which has been a disaster for Islamic majority nations is going to take enormous time to repair. Or undo. Or make reparations for.
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Biden-Harris’s stance
She also understands that Americans, including Trump, are woefully ignorant about Asia. How many Americans really know that Pakistan is next door to China? Under Biden-Harris, India and Pakistan won’t just be those “shithole” countries Trump likes to bully. Instead there is a candidate who understands the need for diplomacy in the region.
It is unconsciounable to me that a Muslim man or woman could ever vote for Donald Trump. In fact, Trump might be the most dangerous man for the entire Muslim world. His recent support of Lara Looper, who won a primary election and who called Muslims savages and Islam a cancer, has been so vile in her rhetoric, that she has been banned from social media. His fiery attacks against Ilan Omar and Rashida Talib ought to be enough to lay out a clear portrayal of the most Islamophobic president to govern our nation.
So, while Biden might have a running mate with an Indian mom, Trumps cozy courtship with the fellow facist Modi does not bode well for Pakistan either. If the butcher of Gujurat can be shapeshifted into a “democratic leader” and the American President has no idea of that history, you can be quite sure no Muslim is going to “win” anytime soon.
And if you believe in Kashmiri and Palestinian rights at all, how can you cast a vote for a man who triumphanlty moved the capital of Israel in a land he does not technically govern? I doubt their is a Palestinan family waving a Trump flag tonight after the last 8 nights of bombings in Gaza.
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No remorse for Muslim countries
Pick a majority Muslim nation–excluding Saudia Arabia, because every American President salivates at the money and the weapons contracts, that might fare well under Trump. Somalia? Yemen? Syria? Drone strikes have become so casual its not even discussed unless of course you are grieving and saying dua for the family and friends you have lost. How can you support Trump when according to The Pew Research Center India has the third largest Muslim poplulation in the world?
Trump isn’t just a disaster when it comes to violence. He’s terrible for Pakistan from an environmental perspective. Imran Khan has made huge strides in planting trees in Pakistan to thwart the challenges brought by climate change. Trump, who bailed from the Paris Accords because he does not believe in science, does not worry about air quality, or flooding, which has had catastrophic impacts worldwide.
Which Muslim are you saving exaclty, if the temperature reaches 120 degrees and you lose hundreds of people to heat stroke? So Pakistanis don’t really win either way because they are either drowning in Karachi flood waters or they are drowning in Houston.
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Afghanistan & Iran have not fared well under Trump
The 2 decades long war has failed to end and the assisination of Solemani in Iran is a hint of what’s to come. So I am not sure exactly how Pakistan benefits if the withdrawal from Afghanistan is chaos and war looms on yet another border.
The game of chicken Trump is playing with Iran and China isn’t child’s play. If the Americans show up, they are not leaving. Ask Korea, Japan, or Germany. I am so tired of the military rotations to Korea – three generations of my family have deployed there. Trust me…if the Americans show up, they are not going home. They might throw up an air base or two and leave a few troops in play, but they are not leaving.
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Trump has been quite sweet on Russia
I wonder if he knows there is a large Muslim popluation there? And I wonder, if his diplomacy would change at all if he knew that. He doesn’t – let’s leave it like that.
Nations, and the leaders that govern them, will come and go. Election cycles, coups, King’s coronations and the pageantry of war and regime change will continue. If you are a person of faith, hold on to that. Please. Our allegiance to our faith must be above any other loyalty we have because nationalism is arbitrary and temporary. I collect globes. Nations that once existed are gone. They are redefined. They are renamed.
USSR, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, East Pakistan are names that once appeared on those globes. The maps get redrawn. Where should our allegiance lie? Where should we look for a moral compass?
That direction, comes from faith. And we should never elect a leader who believes that my faith, or your faith, is the faith of savages. For today , it is simply rhetoric, but tomorrow that rhetoric will be written as a policy that too many people will have to fight, to survive.
Leigh Anne is an educator and humanitarian living in the United States. She can be reached at leighannetreistman@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.