How the Ilhan Omars Could Rule America
In Jordan, where I grew up, the vote was never about ideas. It was tribal. You didn’t weigh policy, you counted cousins. A candidate could be brilliant, credentialed, articulate, it didn’t matter. If his tribe was small, he was finished before he began. Elections were not contests of vision; they were headcounts of bloodlines. Tribes weren’t political coalitions, they were pre-political power structures, loyalty machines trading votes for patronage, jobs, protection. Smart men with real programs never even tried because they didn’t have bodies to mobilize.
When I moved to Lebanon, tribalism morphed into sectarianism, but the logic didn’t change. The National Pact divided power by confession. Maronite president, Sunni prime minister, Shiite speaker. Elections were negotiations between sectarian bosses. Voters didn’t ask who had the best plan; they asked who defended their confession. Even Christians organized as blocs to survive in a Muslim-majority system.
Islam universalized tribalism. The ummah extended kinship beyond blood into faith, but it preserved the instinct: solidarity first, outsiders second. Pre-Islamic Arabia ran on tribe, Islam broadened the circle, but it kept the structure. Loyalty, honor, protection of the group, these remained sacred.
That tribal DNA travels with migrants.
Western democracy, especially in America, is built on the opposite premise. The sovereign voter, the secret ballot, the individual weighing arguments, judging policies, crossing party lines if necessary. The system assumes independence of mind. But when large numbers of people shaped in collectivist environments enter this structure, the friction is real. In collectivist cultures, the vote is not an individual instrument, it is a communal asset. Family, mosque, clan, ethnic network, these guide political behavior, loyalty outweighs platform.
Look at Europe.
In Britain, Labour has relied for years on concentrated Muslim communities in urban districts. Mosques, extended families, ethnic associations, they deliver turnout when it counts. Safe seats are safe because bloc loyalty is reliable. contexts. Macron’s recognition of a Palestinian state, following the October 7 atrocities, reflects these numbers. Macron and his left-wing coalition know that France has approximately 2.1 million actual Muslim votes cast, compared to fewer than 300,000 Jewish votes turning out. That is why further catastrophic foreign policy shifts, policies that appease terrorists, embolden jihadists, and abandon allies like Israel, can be expected from France for the sake of ballots.
