On October 14, a volunteer with The Worker interviewed two graduate students and organizers of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, hereafter referred to as A and B, about their decision to boycott the 2024 presidential elections.
The Worker (TW): Why are you boycotting the elections?
A: In 2020 I did vote. And I voted for Biden. But then, this time we saw this genocide unfold under a Democratic president. I realized that the two parties are the exact same, minus the way they appeal to voters. Policy-wise and rhetoric-wise, it’s almost the exact same. We’ve seen many years of people trying to make a difference through [presidential elections] and it never actually works out. I’m at a point where I believe the two-party system is set up to just keep who [the imperialists] want in office. The difference for me between Trump and Kamala is none. She has been the Vice President the whole time during the genocide. There’s not much difference between her and Trump. As a Palestinian myself, just seeing the atrocities this past year it makes no sense for me to vote for either of them. Even if it means we have Trump. Because to me that means nothing. They’re the same.
B: I would agree with that. I voted in 2020. I wrote in Gloria La Riva from the PSL. And I will not be voting at all this election. I think that boycotting and abstaining from the system is extremely powerful. I voted for a third party candidate, but I think that by voting you are in effect legitimizing the system. I believe that only more genocide and death would come from that. [Elections] grip our nation and take up all of the media time every two years. We have elections constantly. The government is a corporation. By feeding into it we are just making that machine even stronger. Fascism is on the rise so there will be someone who is “worse than Trump” always. There will always be this duality—in quotes—that they try to make us think, “lesser of two evils.” America is the greatest evil.
TW: What are your thoughts on the Uncommitted National Movement?
A: Initially, I thought it was fine. It mobilized Arab-Americans, particularly in Michigan to vote uncommitted for the Democratic Party, so that would be sending a sign to Biden, at the time, that “okay, we’re not going to vote for you if this genocide continues—or period.” But then during the Democratic National Convention their rhetoric changed—and leading up to that. It was pretty clear they were selling out and on their way to sell out the entire cause. They had planned on endorsing Kamala if they let a Palestinian person speak on stage at the DNC. They have a lot of resources for some reason, I don’t know how or from where, but they have a lot of resources to do really successful art builds, or make t-shirts, or get their name out there. So to me, it’s suspicious and weird. They use their full names and their pictures. You know who these people are. It’s suspicious. At first it might have been a principled movement, but the minute that it seemed “okay maybe this genocide isn’t going to end within this election cycle,” then it became more like “okay what’s the best way we can continue to platform ourselves and try to get one of us to speak on the stage?” They ended up legitimizing the Democratic Party when their whole thing was being uncommitted to the Democratic Party.
B: They released a statement where they said, You should vote. And you should vote for the anti-Trump candidate. And also not for a third party. So I think we all know what that means. I was reading a bit about why people felt it failed—and for many reasons, it’s because it’s a liberal movement. People were using their full names and it was really based around certain people’s identities and their personalities, rather than based on a unified goal. I think what we can learn from that is having unified and concrete goals and having a strategy to achieve those goals is the most important thing for our movement.
TW: What should people do instead of voting?
A: There are a lot of ways to get socially involved without voting. Showing up to actions in your city or engaging in educational events whether that’s movie screenings, or whatever. That’s the type of stuff that will ultimately raise your consciousness and you’ll get your answer as to why you shouldn’t vote. You’ll get to be with a community that feels similarly. Channel that energy into something more grassroots and productive for things that you care about.
B: I was thinking about this as well and I think we are so past voting and so past reforms. I would say it’s a time to get creative. There are many ways to get involved. Join a community organization. Even before you do that, what I would say is that this is a moment to clarify your values outside of a two-party system and outside of elections. I’m hearing a lot of people saying that it’s a compromise. They say that Kamala is “not great” but she’s “better than Trump.” I encourage people to think about what they’re saying when they say that. The biggest threat to us domestically is the violence of US imperialism. Palestine is not just an issue for people to vote on or to compromise on. It should be the number one thing that people are thinking about right now. It symbolizes so much more than just something that’s happening far away from us. Our values are clarified in the struggle. Refusal and non-normalization is something we can learn from Palestinians and apply to our context here.
image: Columbia University Apartheid Divest-led walkout of students at Columbia University on October 7, 2024
