36 NEWSWEEK.COM MARCH 13, 20 20
POLITICSSanders also hasn’t worked particularly hard to
court this demographic. The day after his resound-
ing Nevada caucus win put him in the driver’s seat
for the Democratic nomination, he infuriated
many in the Jewish political world by tweeting
that he wouldn’t attend the American Israel Pub-
lic Affairs Committee convention in Washington
D.C. in early March. His reason: He was “concerned
about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who
express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.”
An “Authentic” Voice
all this just makes sanders’ views seem more
authentic to Arab-American voters, according to
Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, the 40-year-
old Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants. “You get
tarred as somehow a member of a terrorist group,
told you are somehow not fully American, you get all
kinds of Islamophobia spewed against you,” Shakir
says. “Then here comes Bernie Sanders who stands
up and says, ‘I’m going to a Muslim convention’ and
he speaks authentically about Kashmir, the Isra-
el-Palestinian dispute, the Afghanistan war, the Chi-
nese treatment of the Uyghurs. Muslims have been
dealt injustices from American politicians of both
parties and then Bernie Sanders says, ‘I see that, I
speak to it and I tell you, I’ll do better.’ ”
El-Sayed, the Medicare For All activist whom
Sanders endorsed in his failed pursuit of the 2018
Democratic nomination in Michigan’s gubernato-
rial race, agrees. “National Democrats talk about
us when it scores some political points, like when
they want to virtue-signal that they’re standing
with Muslims [against President Donald Trump’s
ban on travel from Muslim-majority nations] and
fighting for our rights,” he says. But they don’t do
the work of engaging the issues as we see them or
engaging on our turf. .”
Shakir and CAIR’s McCaw both trace the origins of
Muslim affinity for Sanders at least back to his 2003
vote against the authorization of force that started the
Iraq War. In 2007, as Keith Ellison of Minnesota was
about to become the nation’s first Muslim member of
Congress and controversy swirled over his plan to be
sworn in on the Quran, Sanders was the first to call
to bolster his resolve. “Brother Bernie, he said, ‘You
swear on anything you want,’ ” says Ellison, now Min-
nesota attorney general,. “That’s why I love Bernie.”
More recently, Sanders campaigned for Tlaib, Omar,
A poll found Muslims rated civil rights, educa tion and the economy as issues of even greater concern than
BUILDING ALLIANCES
Many Muslim American
political leaders, such
as Representative Ilhan
Omar of Minnesota,
here with Sanders at a
2019 campaign rally in
Minneapolis, support the
Vermont senator, who was
also recently endorsed
by Emgage, the largest
Muslim American PAC.