Possibly the least self-aware people who voted in the presidential election (or maybe Latinos who will now see their relatives deported), Muslims who voted for Trump are now realizing too late what an incredibly poor choice they've just made.
Source: Reuters
US Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.
“Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others,” says Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.
Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Rubio said earlier this year he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy “every element” of Hamas. “These people are vicious animals,” he adds.
Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and staunch pro-Israel conservative who backs Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two-state solution “unworkable,” as the next ambassador to Israel.
He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a “cesspool of antisemitism” for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations.
And what was the reaction?
Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), says Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that.
“We are very disappointed,” he said. “It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement.”
Or maybe they should have taken a hint last summer.
