Although the main event in the global information space related to Muslims this week remained the terrorist attacks in France and Vienna, to which we will return as new information emerges, the main global political event was undoubtedly the U.S. elections, or rather the counting of their results. It is clear that according to the announced preliminary results, Joe Biden is clearly in the lead, while Donald Trump is claiming massive fraud to steal his victory, which he intends to challenge in court. We will not delve into the discussion of these issues, nor into the discussion of the peculiarities of the American electoral system, nor into speculation about the fact that the American political system as a whole is currently facing one of the greatest crises in its history. There are enough people doing that without us, so we will consider what Muslims can expect from the victory of either of these two candidates in these elections.
We should start this reflection by emphasizing that no matter how someone tries to present it, talk about the entire Islamic world supporting one or the other of these candidates is infinitely far from reality. Even if we exclude those who are completely disconnected from politics or those who consider any American leader an enemy, even those Muslims who support one of these two candidates have divided opinions depending on their political and geographic affiliations.
Let’s start with American Muslims themselves — those who identify as such. Yes, indeed, the majority of them supported Biden in this election — 64% compared to 35% who voted for Trump. Preferences are obvious, and we will analyze them now, but from the data provided it can be seen that there is no consensus, including when compared to the Jewish community, where Trump was supported even less than Biden — 30/68%. And this despite all the initial Islamophobia of Trump on the one hand and his licking of Israel and Zionists on the other.
But how did it come about that even a significant portion of American Muslims supported Donald Trump? Our long-time readers will recall that Trump’s victory in the last election was perceived by many as a disaster, especially for American Muslims, and for that reason we were implacably opposed to him, responding to his open hostility to Islam itself. What did and did not happen with respect to these concerns? Trump has indeed implemented what he promised as a «Muslim ban» — a ban on foreigners from a number of problematic Muslim countries entering the United States. It is therefore understandable that American Muslims affected by this ban would oppose him. But the same cannot be said of many conditionally native American Muslims, including white and old black Americans, a significant number of whom were inclined to support Trump before the election. Such people usually condemned the excesses of Trump’s «Muslim ban,» such as the separation of families of American citizens for whom exceptions could have been made, but their attitude toward immigration to the US from troubled countries in the Middle East and Africa is obviously different from that of their fellow countrymen. In the US itself, it must be acknowledged that under Trump there have been no infringements on the religious rights of Muslims.
What led a significant portion of American Muslims to support Donald Trump? If for some it was mainly pragmatic considerations, as was often the case with successful African Americans who benefited from Trump’s economic policies, then a significant portion of those who supported him were American Muslims who did so thanks to … his Muslim opponents. The fact is that for many Muslims, the leaders and ideology of the influential «Muslims Against Trump» movement, which supports the Democratic Party and is close to it, are categorically unacceptable. It is not necessary to go far, here is a vivid example from the legislative elections that took place along with the presidential elections: in Oklahoma, for the first time, a non-binary creature was elected, that is, someone who refuses to be called a woman or a man, who wears a headscarf and calls herself a Muslim, which in this case cannot be translated as «Muslim woman» or «Muslim man».
Unfortunately, this is not an exotic case — this is the face of the «Muslims against Trump» movement and, more broadly, of the so-called «progressive Muslims» who are primarily associated with the Democratic Party and liberals in the modern American understanding. Their well-known representatives, such as Ilhan Omar or Linda Sarsour, consistently advocate for so-called LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, abortion, the fight against patriarchy, and the fight against conservative values. And if it started with the Muslim minority, which, according to its religious principles, united with other minorities such as the LGBTQ+ community in the struggle for the rights of all minorities, today this leads to «progressive Muslims» actively and successfully (for them) normalizing phenomena such as homosexuality or feminism within the Muslim community itself.
Thus, within the conditional Muslim community in the US, it is mainly those for whom «minority rights» are more important than religion who vote for Biden. Among them are many «Muslims» like the «non-binary Muslim» Maori Turner. Those who prioritize religion and see such «progressive Muslims» as a threat to it, as well as outright Islamophobia, either do not vote at all, like the supporters of Daniel Haqiqatjou, or tend to support the more conservative Republican Party, like those who rely on the opinions of Euro-American Hamza Yusuf and African-American preachers ranging from Abdul Hamid Ali to Louis Farrakhan.
Worldwide, the ummah is equally divided in terms of sympathy and antipathy toward Biden and Trump — those who think it possible to wish one or the other success. Trump’s main opponents in the Ummah are the Palestinians and those who prioritize their cause, as well as the Arab Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated circles. The reasons are clear — Trump’s ardent pro-Zionist policy (which, as we can see, has not brought him any success domestically) and his support for the existing UAE and KSA regimes, especially in their confrontation with the Muslim Brotherhood. And finally, it includes Iran and pro-Iranian Shiite circles, as Trump abandoned the Democrats’ policy of normalizing relations with them and began to impose sanctions and targeted strikes against them.
On the other hand, many Uyghurs today vigorously support Trump for bringing the issue of their genocide in China into global politics, as well as anyone who sees China as a greater threat and evil compared to the US and Israel. Trump has also officially wished the Afghan Taliban success for starting negotiations with them and for his plans to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. Finally, Turkey’s ruling circles are interested in Trump’s victory — despite all the above, his administration did not offer much resistance to them, while democratic circles, both Republican and Democratic, demanded and continue to demand harsh sanctions against Ankara.
As for Biden as a possible president, he has already promised to contribute to the overthrow of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and demanded that he return the Hagia Sophia to a museum. He has also promised to support Greece in its confrontation with Turkey and to support the Armenian lobby. However, it is unlikely that anyone believes that Biden will return to the Palestinians what Israel has taken from them under Netanyahu; yes, perhaps a democratic wave could lead to a change of power in Israel, but one should not be deceived by the liberalism of the Israeli opposition towards the Palestinians. Also, those who hope that the U.S. will withdraw its support from authoritarian anti-Muslim regimes in the Arab world should remember that the coup in Egypt took place under the Democrat Barack Obama, who publicly condemned it and spoke out against Bashar al-Assad, while in practice fighting the forces of «political Islam» at the hands of Iran and Russia. And the attempted coup in Turkey also took place under Democratic rule under Obama, not Trump.
In short, there should be no excitement among ordinary Muslims about the possible victory of Joe Biden. Yes, the Islamic world has reasons not to love Donald Trump, but it was precisely when a person who did not hide his hatred of Islam came to power in the world’s leading power that many Muslims stopped harboring illusions about the U.S. and realized that they had to rely on their own strength. This course should be maintained no matter who becomes the next president of the United States. Moreover, no matter who it is, the irreconcilable contradictions within that country are such that they can either prevent it from pursuing an active foreign policy or, on the contrary, encourage the new leadership to use it as an instrument to solve domestic problems, as has happened several times in the history of the US and American-Muslim relations.
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