Within hours of Donald Trump being announced as the 47th president of the United States, Zaineb Haider received a text message from an old contact - a white woman.
It was probably intended as a message of support, with the sender likely checking in on Haider after the Democratic nominee and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris lost in a landslide defeat on Tuesday’s US presidential election.
But the subject and tone infuriated the 24-year-old, Haider told Middle East Eye.“The message asked if I was feeling okay [about Trump] coming back to office,” she said.
“I told her: ‘I haven’t been fucking okay for an entire year’.”
For more than 13 months, Israeli forces have killed at least 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of them women and children, with schools, hospitals, universities and critical infrastructure specifically targeted by Israeli air strikes and shelling.
Haider said she immediately recognised the message for what it was: liberal’s shedding tears and only expressing concerns about the future of minorities and others after Trump’s re-election, not what came before his resounding victory.
What are the Palestinians complaining about? They got what they wanted.
Talk about lacking foresight.
Good luck with things ever getting better for Palestinians now.
In Haider’s case, she didn’t think the bus trip to the polling station was worth the hassle.
Nope, scratch what I originally wrote, yeah, no, fuck you. You get what you voted for and if you think that the Democratic party wasn’t taking you seriously, boy howdy, leopards and faces my friend.
Nope, good luck, hope you enjoy your decision.
This person you’re discussing would’ve voted in New Jersey, which was overwhelmingly won by Harris. You’re totally discounting a valid frustration with Liberals who follow a politics of aesthetics instead of policy. Things probably will be much worse for the Palestinians with Trump, but there has been zero evidence the situation would’ve gotten any better under Harris. There’s been an ongoing genocide with no stop in sight for over a year and the US is actively funding it right now.
She helped give Trump the popular vote. Which is just as important as winning the stupid electoral college when you now have a overwhelming victory here giving them a mandate for their racism. And you said it yourself, things will be worse under Trump well good luck there. At least with Harris she would have pushed for a cease fire while Trump told Netanyahu to get the job done. Not only do you have zero evidence or will improve, you’ve now got ample evidence it will get worse so you voted to enable the greater of two evils and good luck with influencing those policies now.
You think genocide was unacceptable under Biden/Harris well good luck to your community under Trump and may your community deal with the consequences, including asylum status since we all have to live with the results.
Harris gave Trump the popular vote.
You think genocide was unacceptable under Biden/Harris
You did not have to write anything after that. But how does it feel knowing you supported a genocide and gained nothing for it?
The number of dead in Gaza is about to get worse thanks to Trump’s victory… The writer didn’t think about that much.
Articles like these are frustrating to read. But it’s worth reading them to think about: how can Democrats get Arab and Muslim Americans to vote for them again?
Because Democrats won’t succeed without understanding them. And saying “Trump will never allow elections again” is just doing his job for him.
