For Muslims, US elections are a moral wormhole of ethical turpitude headed on a crash course to limbo

Alameen Templeton

“Is this really the best we can do?” has been a question repeatedly thrown out during US election cycles and the political system in 2024 is spewing out its usual “unacceptable choices”, particularly for Muslim voters.
Stuck between open Muslim hater, Republican candidate Donald Trump and resolute genocide-enabler, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, Muslim voters find themselves stuck with either spoiling their votes to trying to decide between “the lesser of two evils”.
Polls last week said 60% of Muslim voters are going to scratch their X next to either Harris’s or Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s names.
Election limbo
Confusingly, a survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said “the majority” of Muslim voters had decided against voting either for Trump or Harris.
Twenty nine percent said they’d vote for Stein in November
That leaves about 70% of them in election limbo. They can either spoil their votes or chose the candidate from either of the two main parties that they think will do the least damage.
It’s like asking a dancing rhinoceros to pirouette on a pinhead – the outcome’s benefit is doubtful and the performance destiny is disaster.
Stein, who is Jewish, appears to be going all-out to win the hearts of the Muslim “undecideds”, telling Middle East Eye: “”We’re grateful for the strong support of Muslim voters who share with us an ironclad determination to end genocide in Gaza, as well as the endless wars in the Middle East, and the discrimination and injustice faced by our Muslim neighbours, immigrants and refugees.
‘The moral imperative’
“We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide. If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it. Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time.”
With her Jewish roots, some Muslim voters may harbour concerns Stein could be a “Trojan horse” candidate whose origins may overwhelm her conscience at some uncertain, future date.
But, an uncertain future is better than an ongoing genocide, right?
Harris has stomped her foot down on Muslim hopes, declaring her iron-clad support for Israel and an unflinching disregard for the Palestinian holocaust.
But the systemic prejudices streamlining down the wormhole of moral jeopardy that is the election supercycle are herding fears and categorising diminishing choices to a precise pinprick, a suspect lineup of ethical turpitude.
Barrel of a gun
So, another 29% of Muslim voters say they’ll line up like cattle at a slaughterhouse to vote for Harris and continuing genocide.
That leaves another 22% staring down the barrel of a gun. They’re split down the middle – 11% say they’ll vote for Trump. Their thinking is Harris is a genocide definite; Trump has a wildcard potential, a Joker’s turn, a blond ambition laced with taciturn churlishness that often sees him rampaging down corridors no one expected or foresaw.
So, he’s crazy. And voter choices are so circumscribed by superpac meddling that “crazy” for some is about the only logical choice out there.
That leaves another 11% of “undecideds” who will probably just scribble in despair on their voter sheets with their eyes closed or they’ll stay away completely.
But the election is so close, with just marginal points between Trump and Harris that even that last 11%’s choices on the day could be the deciding factor in the final count.

Don’t be surprise if Trump and Harris suddenly take to hugging Muslims or praising warm relations with some, arbitrary Muslim country – cheap election tricks that mean nothing and go nowhere – to try and tip the scales come voting day.