Muslims in the United States have been stereotyped as terrorists, which often put them in the crosshairs of public anger. Yet, there’s a label that more of them seem to be embracing on their own volition that carries a different negative connotation: socialist.
Rashida Tlaib, Fayrouz Saad, and Abdul El-Sayed all ran in the state of Michigan to represent the Democratic Party in the upcoming general election. Of those three, only Tlaib claimed victory on Tuesday, beating a crowded field of Democrats to replace Rep. John Conyers come November, where she’ll run unopposed. (An added twist to the story is that Tlaib lost Tuesday’s special election to Brenda Jones – despite winning the Democratic primary – so, she’ll begin her term in January 2019 rather than immediately.)
All three of these candidates were backed by the Democratic Party’s far-left faction. Democratic socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have supported and campaigned for at least one, if not all, of these candidates. While Tlaib won her election, Saad came in fourth out of five, and El-Sayed came in second.
Other candidates like state Rep. Ihlan Omar, D-Minn., and Arizona Senate candidate Deedra Abboud have either received the backing of far-left politicians and organizations, or have built their respective policy platforms in that mold.
It wasn’t always this way.
In 2000, when George W. Bush ran for president, he had a strong backing from Muslim-Americans. Surveys have shown that Bush won 78 percent of the Muslim American vote, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. Skeptics believe that number is much lower than first reported, but that Bush secured more votes from Muslims than did his opponent, former Vice President Al Gore.
Today, finding a Muslim Republican is a rarity. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration passed the Patriot Act and then invaded Iraq, and soon Muslims’ fealty to the Republican Party had worn out. They voted en masse for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 and haven’t looked back.
The shocking upset victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election only widened the gap between Muslims and the Republican Party, especially after, in 2015, then-candidate Trump proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the country following the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.
Attitudes have changed dramatically within the Muslim community in the United States. What primarily brought them to the Republican Party was their platform of social and economic conservatism. A majority of Muslims (as of 2014) believe that abortion should be legal in all cases. In 2007, it was split at 48 percent between being legal in all cases and being illegal in all/most cases.
This is just one example. Muslim-Americans have been skewing to the Left on the size of government, regulation, same-sex marriage, school choice, and immigration.
Whether their embrace of socialism is genuine or opportunistic to win higher office, it’s hard to dismiss that Muslims in the United States have undergone the most radical political shift over the last two decades.
