Is It Okay Not to Vote?

For the past year, Shadi Hamid has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza — and the Biden administration’s complicity. Now he, like many others, is baffled by the Harris campaign’s disregard and seeming disdain for Muslim and Arab voters. In a week is election day, and he is wrestling with the moral and political implications of the choice at hand.

In our pages earlier this week, Shadi and Haroon Moghul debated the merits of voting for Harris or not voting at all. You can read their full exchange here. This podcast episode continues that conversation, but goes deeper. It is, in essence, about voting: is there a duty to vote? In a two-party system, must we accept the lesser of two evils?

Moghul is director of strategy at The Concordia Forum and author of Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future. Haroon shares all of Shadi’s misgivings about Trump and Harris, and has publicly chosen not to vote. “I don’t think you can get to democratic ends with a candidate who is at war with democracy,” Haroon says, “and I don’t just mean Trump, I mean Harris.”

Shadi, on the other hand, takes a more pragmatic point of view: Sitting an election out doesn’t do anything real; it would be better for Muslim and other pro-Palestine voices to continue supporting the Democratic Party, hoping to influence it from within. Meanwhile, Damir Marusic applies his trusty sense for realpolitik to the question. He challenges Shadi, arguing that he’s conflating two very different strategies: electoral pressure and intra-party influence. He questions Haroon whether there is an actual “theory of a change” behind his choice not to vote.

This is a passionate discussion, not so much about electoral politics as about the first principles undergirding citizenship. And it also asks an intensely personal set of questions: how do we ultimately make what can seem like an impossible choice?

Required Reading and Viewing:

* Shadi Hamid and Haroon Moghul debate: “Should Americans Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils?” (WoC).

* Haroon Moghul, “What I Told My Muslim Students about Gaza” (WoC).

* Biden’s comments admitting Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” while also saying “we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel.”

* “Prominent Muslim Democrat Demands Answers After Being Kicked Out of Harris Rally in Michigan” (Democracy Now!)

* “Trump in Michigan makes play for Arab American and Muslim voters angry over war in Gaza” (CNN).

* An emotional debate with our friend and Christian Zionist Robert Nicholson weeks after Oct. 7 (WoC).

* Haroon Moghul,