Nicholas Kristof
Opinion

If Donald Trump is elected president on Tuesday, one factor may be anger at Biden administration policies in the Middle East.

Some Arab Americans, including those in swing states like Michigan, are enraged at President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Their taxes are paying for weapons that may be killing their relatives. A poll found Arab American support for Kamala Harris is 18 percentage points below support for Biden in 2020.

Many young people share frustration with Biden’s policy in the Middle East. So do I. Biden has supplied weapons for a war that so far has killed more than 3,000 children in Gaza younger than 5, according to Save the Children, and he has become complicit in the starvation of civilians there.

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So to those so upset about Biden’s policies in the Middle East that they are thinking about voting for Trump, staying home or voting for a third-party candidate — I understand. But don’t allow this anger to elect Trump, for that would amplify the suffering abroad that rightly upsets you. Refusing to vote may seem a noble gesture, but it’s a self-marginalization that could mean even more starving children, even more displacement and even more death.

Note that Trump has consistently been utterly uninterested in Palestinians. It was his administration that moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, that closed the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, that reversed the American position that Israeli settlements were illegal and that avoided even using the term “occupied territories” for Palestinian land.

On the war in Gaza, Trump urged: Let Israel “finish the job.” He said he had a “very nice” phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu recently, and he recounted that he advised the Israeli prime minister, “You do what you have to do.”

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Rift Between Netanyahu and Trump

One of the few times there has been an obvious rift between Netanyahu and Trump did not arise from Netanyahu’s recklessness in Gaza or the West Bank, or from Trump’s periodic resorting to antisemitic tropes. Rather, it was when Netanyahu congratulated Biden for winning the 2020 election.

Trump is also the person who instituted the so-called Muslim ban, seeking to block travel to America by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.

So by all means weigh Harris’ shortcomings. But remember that this election is not a referendum on one candidate, but a choice between two. More broadly, I worry that we’ve somehow accepted a lower bar for Trump than for Harris, and that this is one example of that.

People complain about Harris’ supposed ethical lapses, such as her campaign editing headlines in online ads; weigh that against Trump’s boasting about sexually assaulting women. The Heritage Foundation claimed (unfairly, I believe) that Harris has at times been soft on crime, but it seems less troubled that Trump is a convicted criminal.

I worry about the way electoral choices reflect the streaks of moral purity on both the left and the right that put a premium on shaking one’s fist rather than actually getting things done. On the right, look at how extremist Republicans have periodically paralyzed the House of Representatives. On the left, consider how enough liberals voted in 2000 for Ralph Nader to swing the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore. The 2016 election was more complicated, but if the votes received by the liberal Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, had instead gone to Hillary Clinton, Trump would not have become president.

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History Spells Out Cost of Protest Votes

That history should teach us something about the cost of protest votes. Pragmatism may not feel as satisfying as purity, but it accomplishes more.

Even if one somehow believed that there wasn’t much difference between Harris and Trump on the Middle East, remember that much more is at stake than that. Trump bungled the beginning of the pandemic, tried to repeal Obamacare and appointed some of the Supreme Court justices who took away abortion rights. Trump cut taxes for the wealthy, while Biden and Harris reduced child poverty by half — until Republicans blocked an extension of the program and sent child poverty soaring again.

If you’re throwing away your vote, don’t envision yourself on a moral mountaintop above the fray, but rather be willing to look into the eye of a woman whose health and life are at risk because of your principles.

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Of course there’s a difference between Harris and Trump. To those who say that they’re Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I roll my eyes and note: Harris doesn’t praise Adolf Hitler; she never tried to overthrow an election; she didn’t sexually abuse anyone; and she isn’t a felon.

“This is not the election you want,” said James Zogby, a co-founder and the president of the Arab American Institute, who both laments Biden policies in the Middle East and favors Harris. “It’s the election you’ve got. You can be as pissed off as you want to be at Democrats. But don’t forget who Donald Trump is and what he represents and what will happen in the next four years of his presidency.”

“Your principles,” he added, “can’t be greater than the suffering of the people who will pay the price for a Donald Trump presidency.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Nicholas Kristof/Daniel Ribar
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