United States: On Thursday, US President Joe Biden will appear at an event with autoworkers in Michigan Gaza, where the war issue continues to eat away at the federal leader’s credibility due to which several leaders of the Arab American community refused a meeting last week with his campaign team.
Gaza Conflict Impact on Credibility
The campaign trip by Biden to the election battleground state was a celebration because the United Auto Workers (UAW) union had recently put him at odds for re-election. However, his visit might be eclipsed by objections from the state’s Arab- American and Muslim constituency that supposedly feel hurt that the President has failed to request an end to hostilities in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Protest Preparations
Fearing the protest of association, they scrimmaged facts pertaining to this ongoing visit by Biden. In protest venues in the Detroit area, hundreds of protesters were waiting around in cars and vans with “Abandon Biden” signs and Palestinian flags at their ready to attend whatever UAW local he visits.
“We’re ready to go. I have my megaphone in the car,” said Farah Khan, a Pakistani American who voted for Biden in 2020 but now supports the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan, told Reuters. “We have 92 Abandon Biden chapters across the country. This is bigger than just Michigan.”
First, however, before it left Washington for Michigan, Biden had his breakfast. He did his best to settle the Israel-Hamas fight, as well as a two-state solution in Palestine and a triumphant return of hostages abducted during the Gaza assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 when southern Israel was attacked.
“We are actively working for peace,” he said at breakfast.
Union Backing
President Biden will have a meeting with UAW President Shawn Fain, who endorses the Democratic incumbent and rebuked Donald Trump’s candidacy last week.
Afterward, Trump blasted Fain for doing what he argued was Ukraine’s bidding to his face. On Wednesday, he met with the Teamsters Union, one of America’s biggest unions representing truck drivers, airline pilots, and others, as he sought their support ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Politics and elections are inseparable from the auto industry, on the one hand, and its labor movement – with politics being an integral part of any election district there.
It was in 2016 when Trump attained a level of union support that no Republican had ever received since Ronald Reagan won the presidency for this party in 1980; this vote assisted him in winning the crucial states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Biden, in 2020 with unions, regained his footing so much so that exit poll results showed him enjoying a roughly 16-point advantage as he reclaimed those states that have been called the Rust Belt, which has lost painful jobs due to decades of plant closings as companies prefer cheaper and nonunion locations. In 2020, he scored the state of Michigan’s victory by over 154,000 votes.
In its percentage of the vote in Michigan, Arab Americans make up 5 percent, and Biden’s narrow margin of victory over Trump was 2 percent only in the most recent elections. However, at the same time, in October, Biden’s support of Arab Americans had dropped to 17 percent from 59 percent as recorded when he was running for a presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign thinks that his alliance with the union workers will outweigh any decrease he may experience among the Arab American electorate. A representative of a Biden campaign argues that in comparison to the state’s voters, mostly Muslim ones, and their anger against Republicans at such time as November 2020, the UAW would prove more effective.