Tudor Dixon speaking at the Trump campaign office in Hamtramck, Michigan. Nov. 3, 2024. Photo by Jon King.
Former GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon said Republicans have more in common with Muslims and Arab Americans than either group has been led to believe — and she hopes their support can give former President Donald Trump a win in Michigan Tuesday.
Speaking at Trump campaign headquarters in Hamtramck Sunday, Dixon made her pitch to Arab-American voters in Michigan angry with the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
“When [Trump] talks about the global stage, he talks about peace. This, I think, has hit our state harder than any other state because we have people who have lost people on both sides of this war, whether it is in the Middle East, or in Eastern Europe. Same situation. People have lost people on both sides. Donald Trump, when he was in office, I think this is such a stark difference, he was signing peace treaties while the Democrat[ic] Party was signing bombs.”
Dixon was referencing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signing ammunition in September during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant. The munitions made in the plant are assisting Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion.
The peace treaty Dixon mentioned was the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature Middle East achievement that created full diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, although forward progress on the agreement was halted by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel.
Michigan has the highest share of Arab Americans and one of the highest shares of Muslims in the nation. With Trump winning Michigan by less than 11,000 votes in 2016 and President Joe Biden taking the state in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes, the GOP is hoping Arab-American and Muslim voters will prove decisive this election.
With that in mind, Trump visited Dearborn on Saturday, promising to bring peace to the region despite recently telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “do what you have to do,” in the ongoing offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In her 2022 campaign, Dixon made her own play for Arab-American and Muslim voters, appearing in Dearborn after some parents pushed to ban LGBTQ+ books in schools. That was one of the key parts of her education agenda, along with a Florida-style “Don’t Say Gay” law and banning trans athletes from participating in school sports.
Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, who endorsed Trump in September, introduced Dixon to the more than 60 people packed into the small meeting space, hailing her visit and Trump’s visit the day before to Dearborn as evidence that a political realignment was underway.
“This is a big thing. The disconnect between us and the Republican Party has resulted in the misunderstanding and distrust of some people and the fear. You know the Democrats used to say, ‘These people hate you. They don’t want you. They will come and deport you.’ This is not true. I have found that they are very nice,” said Ghalib.
However, the mayor’s endorsement has not been universally welcomed by the community, most especially the progressive members who welcomed his election in 2021 as the first Arab American and Muslim mayor, working with the first all-Muslim City Council in the nation, as a sign of progress.
But that has faded after Ghalib and conservative members of the council, turned toward right-wing politics, including voting last year to prohibit certain flags, including the LGBTQ+ Pride flag, from being displayed on city-owned property, and then removing two members of the Hamtramck Human Relations Commission after the defied the council and flew a Pride flag over a public sidewalk.
Ghalib appeared on Dixon’s podcast last year and slammed the group that flew the Pride flag as a “militia.”
“I was passing by and I saw people videotaping and taking pictures and some militia gathering around the flagpole, and I took action,” he told Dixon. “The city took it down within a couple of hours, but [came] to find out who led this process, it was the chair of the [Human Relations Commission], the former mayor [Karen Majewski], a group of politicians that one day they used to lead this city, and now they are acting like a militia … No responsibility, very irresponsible action. No respect for law and order.”
Majewski told the New York Times for a recent story that those same progressives welcomed the city’s transition from its Polish roots to a more diverse population of mainly Muslim immigrants from Yemen, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Albania, helping to place into ordinance the right of mosques to broadcast the call to prayer and publicly opposing Trump’s Muslim travel ban in 2017.
Majewski told the Times she was “disillusioned [and] pissed off,” adding there was “a lot of outrage and a lot of disgust.”
Majewski also held a Poles to the Polls event Saturday at Polish Village Cafe in Hamtramck with Christine Baranski, an Emmy and Tony award-winning actress who starred in “The Good Wife.”
Baranski said Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ mention during the Sept. 10 debate with Trump stirred up feelings of pride for her and others with Polish heritage.
During the debate, Harris claimed that if Trump was elected, “Putin would be sitting in Kiev with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”
Baranski noted that Polish Americans have not often been courted by political candidates because it’s just been assumed whoever was president of the United States would support NATO and protect Europe.
“And what is happening clearly in this election, is the man running for the Oval Office is friendlier with [Russian leader] Vladimir Putin than he is with his own NATO allies. And suddenly, there’s a lot to say for those of us who care about Poland and who lived through the years of the Iron Curtain,” said Baranski. “There’s something very much at stake here in this election, so that’s why I’m here. Now, we can talk about the economy and we can talk about all kinds of differences between these two candidates, but at this point — even given the last week — what we’ve heard from the other side, the difference is so stark in terms of character and humanity. … The choice, to me, is very clear. And the issue at hand is getting people to vote.”
However, none of that discord was apparent at Sunday’s event, as Dixon worked to cement the budding relationship between Republicans and Arab Americans.
“I think the Republican Party has changed a lot over the past eight years and has become a party that’s listening, a party that is able to be corrected. As the mayor was saying, when something isn’t right, he can sit down and talk to [Trump],” said Dixon.
She then highlighted what she said was their shared love of faith.
“This is something important to us. And just as I want to be able to wear this,” she said, lifting the cross on a chain around her neck, “around without somebody yelling at me, I want you to be able to share your faith and to show your faith. “As I said, the Republican Party has changed. The Democrat[ic] Party has changed, as well. They are now the party that says they do not accept religion of any sort. We’ve seen it as Christians. We’ve been attacked as Christians. If you want to practice your faith, suddenly you’re a Christian nationalist and there’s something bad. And we know that you’ve suffered this same fate, that you have been attacked for your faith. Those days have got to be over in the United States.”
Biden is a devout Catholic who has often professed his faith as a deeply personal and important part of his life. Harris, while not making her Baptist faith a key element of her campaign, has talked about growing up in the Black church and says she prays often with her pastor.
In making her closing argument to the Trump supporters who turned out for the event, Dixon said not to believe what they see or read in the media about the former president.
“Donald Trump, when he tells you that he is going to serve you well, he means it. The person that you see, this big bombastic person on TV, that is who he is, but he is also someone who deeply, deeply cares and loves people,” she said, adding, “The people here who are choosing Donald Trump, you are making the right choice.”
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