The Uncommitted National Movement has caught fire with Democratic voters since Listen to Michigan launched early last winter. More than 100,000 Democrats declined to vote for President Biden in Michigan’s Feb. 27 primary, choosing instead to vote “uncommitted” to signal their disgust with the administration’s backing of genocide in Gaza. Voters in eight other states followed suit. “Uncommitted” organizers Layla Elabed of Michigan and Elianne Farhat of Minnesota joined Convergence Publisher Cayden Mak on the Aug. 9 episode of the Block & Build podcast to discuss the strategy behind “Uncommitted” and the movement’s plans for the Democratic National Convention. Here are a few highlights from their conversation.
Cayden Mak: Could you tell a little story about where the idea for Uncommitted originated and give us a brief overview of what led to this point?
Layla Elabed: A memo by Waleed Shahid was being passed around to organizers and activists and folks that have been involved in political organizing in the state of Michigan.
This memo was a theory of change. It suggested we could use Michigan’s primary to vote uncommitted in order to send a message to President Biden, the Democratic Party, and his reelection campaign that without a shift in policy that ends the killing and occupation of Palestinians, he was at risk of alienating and losing a key Democratic base right here in Michigan. That’s significant because Michigan is a key swing state. Michigan lies in the pathway to the White House. That pathway runs through cities like Dearborn.
The current administration’s policy on Gaza deeply impacts folks here, not just within the Arab American and Muslim American community, but it is significant to our community because it is our community that knows firsthand the impact of American-funded bombing.
Many folks were like, I’m just not going to vote. I can’t. I don’t want blood on my hands. And so the fact that we had this strategy for the presidential primary was really something that we could all get behind. And it really offered hope in a time of hopelessness within our communities.
Here in Michigan, it was a catalyst for a national movement that spread across the country. And it went from Michigan to Minnesota, who launched their campaign literally in just a few short days, and they were incredibly successful.
In Michigan we were able to mobilize 43 percent of unlikely and first-time voters to the Michigan primary. It speaks to the coalition that we built, that this is not just contained within the Arab American or Muslim American community, that this is voters of conscience. These are Democratic voters who don’t want to see our tax dollars being used to fund war crimes and hope that we could unite our party and give Democrats the fighting chance we much, much need.
Cayden Mak: Elianne, could you talk about the pivot into Minnesota?
Elianne Farhat: We put together a campaign in Minnesota in a couple days, two weeks before our own election day, because we in the state felt the energy for the strategy. We have a very robust movement calling for a ceasefire, calling for an arms embargo.
We were in the streets. We were taking action. We were passing resolutions, particularly a very strong one in Minneapolis. You know, we were contacting our elected officials. We were doing all these things that you’re supposed to do to make change in our democracy. And another lever that we have is elections.
Layla and I both work for organizations that are seriously contesting in the electoral arena, and this really resonated with us as another arena and point of leverage.
Nineteen percent of Democratic primary voters in Minnesota voted uncommitted. It delivered 11 delegates to the national convention.
There was the national infrastructure and state-based infrastructure from Michigan that sort of pivoted to Minnesota. And like the coalition in Michigan, Um, while led by Arabs and Muslims, as well as Jewish leaders who are organizing in the state, ours was a truly multiracial, multigenerational, multi-faith statewide vote that delivered that win, and then it just continued to grow.
Cayden Mak: Watching the discourse bubble up, it looked like people were also seeing a different way of thinking about elections, inserting the idea that elections can be an expression of a popular desire for policy change, popular frustration with the refusal of the establishment to change. Did you see the discussion of the work that you all were doing shift during that time?
Layla Elabed: Some folks looked at our strategy as a strategy of helping Trump. But we are turning out the vote for Biden’s Democratic base that otherwise may stay at home and not vote at all. And taking that frustration and those feelings of voter apathy. and building off of the movement that was happening on the streets with the rallies and the marches, um, and the protests and taking that to the ballot box.
Elianne Farhat: I’ve been in deep conversations around this. Coming out of the Minnesota context of 2020 and the mass uprising for Black lives and Black futures after the police murder of George Floyd, and many other experiences across the nation, what we have learned as a movement in these upsurge moments is the importance of organizers, organizations, leaders, seeing their lane, naming their lane, claiming their lane and then delivering inside of it. And the Uncommitted National Movement is a perfect example of that.
The lesson for me here, which is not unique to electoral politics, is when we do our politics, on our terms, and are courageous and creative and in touch with what we feel in our bases and with our people, it’s the right play.
A lesson for the field on this is we got to get sharper and tighter and braver at the ballot box. We need a more powerful left electoral apparatus.
Luckily, we had an issue arena to play in. We’ve seen over and over again, in elections at the local, state and national level, the power of issues actually being on the ballot and people being able to directly tie their vote to an issue that they care about. Uncommitted showed an interesting way that, even without a ballot question, we can connect voting to an issue and make that resonate powerfully for people and the action they’re taking, and also in the public debate and public conversation.
Cayden Mak: What can you share about what you’re looking forward to at the Democratic National Convention, and what listeners who are going to be in Chicago can expect, and what all of us as observers can look out for?
Layla Elabed: Uncommitted does have an inside-outside strategy. We have these 30 delegates going to the DNC representing the over 700,000 uncommitted voters nationwide, and they will be going to the DNC for the very first time as anti-war delegates. The last time delegates went to the DNC not committed to a candidate was in 1964 with Fannie Lou Hamer’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Over 4,000 delegates are going to be committed to Vice President Harris, but we’ll be using that time and those spaces to remind folks that there is an ongoing genocide happening and that our US policy decisions support Netanyahu’s war crimes and his right-wing government to carry out that agenda.
And we also will be reminding the Democratic Party that we have to unite the Democratic base who right now are fractured over Gaza, because 80% of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire and somewhere around 63% support conditioning weapons aid to Israel.
Those delegates are going to be representing that anti-war agenda at the DNC, and then recruiting Harris delegates to be ceasefire delegates so our coalition can be even stronger, um, and more visible at the DNC. Part of that programming includes storytelling and candlelight vigils, and demands from our delegation.
We demand a speaker at the DNC floor that can speak to the human impact of US policy decisions. We started a campaign, a petition to demand that there be speaking time for Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, who is a renowned pediatric intensive care physician. We’re also demanding speaking time from one of our leaders of the Uncommitted movement or one of our uncommitted delegates to address the DNC delegates, and platform language that includes ceasefire and arms embargo. There’s a number of things that are happening on the inside of the DNC.
Outside of the DNC, we are kicking off our Not Another Bomb campaign Sunday, Aug. 18 in locations across the country, especially in states that had very robust uncommitted campaigns. They will be doing rallies and marching and art builds to continue pressuring the Biden-Harris administration. and VP Harris to adopt the demands of our movement to end the killing and occupation of Palestinians.
Cayden Mak: You’re staying busy!
Elianne Farhat: We’re going to stay busy. Conventions are a little ecosystem, and we’re getting ready because there is something in the pressure cooker of a convention that creates some more opportunities.
We’re going to organize with our base, with delegates who are there, with ally delegates, to identify all the different ways that we can put pressure on the moment to win that arms embargo. Who knows what else will emerge?
It’s also important to know there are others who are organizing around this moment. We need a multitude and a diversity of tactics. The march on the DNC that’s been planned for a long time with deep policy and leadership, particularly from Chicago, will be an important component of what is moving and putting pressure on the broader ecosystem, the distributed actions, the continued organizing people are doing around this issue across the country is really important to continue to put that pressure on the administration to deliver, deliver the arms embargo.
To keep up with news from the DNC and ongoing opportunities for action, follow the Uncommitted National Movement on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.