The mood inside the Democratic National Convention is triumphant, but not everyone is content to toe the party line. On the first day of the convention, three uncommitted delegates dropped a banner calling for a stop to US arms to Israel. In what has now become a viral internet moment, the delegates around them responded by hitting the banner-drop activists with their DNC signs. Liano Sharon, one of the DNC delegates who dropped the banner, speaks to The Real News in an exclusive interview.
Video: Kayla Rivara
Post-Production: David Hebden
Transcript
Liano Sharon: Hi, my name is Liano Sharon. I’m a Democratic National Committee member elected from Michigan — And I emphasize elected because 55% of the Democratic National Committee are not elected to be members of the Democratic National Committee.
Maximillian Alvarez: Liano, thank you so much for talking to us. I know you’ve had a busy week, and we’re only halfway through this thing.
And you were part of an action that started on the first night of the DNC last night. I was wondering if you could tell our viewers and listeners a little bit about what happened, and how the reaction has been since then.
Liano Sharon: Sure. So myself, and Nadia Ahmed, and Esam Boraey, the three of us raised a banner during Biden’s speech, in the highest part of the Florida delegation area that said “Stop arming Israel.”
And we did that because, first of all, for myself as a Jew, I was always raised to believe that never again means never again for anyone, anywhere, ever, period. And that’s not what we’re doing. What we’re doing is we’re continuing to support a genocide and the mass murder of children, and that has to stop.
But another very important reason that I did it, and that we did it together, is that it’s good electoral politics. A poll came out a few days ago, for example, that said that 60% of undecided voters under 30 across three of the big swing states — Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania — 60% of them will be more likely to vote for Harris if she supported an arms embargo. Which is to say that if she chose to enforce the Leahy laws, which already exist on the books, which already make it illegal for us to be sending over the weaponry that we’re sending over there.
And there are statistics like that out of the individual states, Georgia and Arizona, et cetera, and it’s similar numbers. For example, it’s 60% in favor, 7% against, or 39% in favor, 5% against. It’s that kind of big difference that’s in favor of significant electoral gains from making this move.
And at the same time, she’s running on the idea that she’s the prosecutor, she’s the law enforcement official, she’s going to enforce the law. Well, if she’s going to enforce the law, then she needs to enforce the Leahy laws, which would require imposing an arms embargo.
So it’s good electoral politics, it’s good law, and more than that, we have to understand it’s good politics in general, because Netanyahu is an ally of Donald Trump. He is going to do everything he possibly can to incite things in the Middle East, not have a ceasefire, and do everything he can to tank her campaign in order to remain in power.
Because if he gets out of power, which would happen if he agreed to a ceasefire, that would stop the war, which would mean that he’d have to run for re-election, 72% of Israelis don’t want him, and he’s under investigation for corruption from before Oct. 7. So if he accepts a ceasefire, he’s probably losing power, and he’s more than likely going to jail, from what I understand of the court case against him.
So he has every incentive not to accept a ceasefire, as demonstrated by the fact that a few weeks ago he murdered the person on the other side of the table doing the negotiations in Tehran.
So if you have a situation where a guy is your political opponent, and he has every incentive not to accept any kind of a ceasefire, if he has every incentive to try to drag this out and try to make Trump win so that Trump will give him carte blanche, then if you’re calling for a ceasefire but you’re not calling to enforce the Leahy laws, you’re not calling for any kind of an arms embargo, then how do we take you seriously?
If you’re not going to use leverage against a guy who has demonstrated that he doesn’t want a ceasefire, if you’re not going to use leverage to get a ceasefire, you’re not making a credible argument that you actually want a ceasefire.
And given all of those facts, then the question arises, are you really serious about defeating Donald Trump? Here is an ally of Donald Trump who’s literally going to do everything he can to ensure that you lose, and you have leverage available to you over him that is actually just enforcing the laws, but you’re not going to do that? Why should anybody take you seriously, that you really want a ceasefire?
Maximillian Alvarez: Oh, please.
Liano Sharon: No, no. Those are the key things.
Maximillian Alvarez: Well, and as you said, you’re an elected delegate from the great state of Michigan, where I myself lived for many years, but where a lot of this political struggle has been coming to a head. The uncommitted campaign in Michigan made a really big statement earlier this year.
Of course, Dearborn has a massive Arab population, a long history of activism in the state. But also, this is where Kamala Harris was speaking recently, and when protesters were making the case that you’re making now, she infamously responded with, if you want Donald Trump to win, just say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.
I guess, what is your message as an elected delegate from Michigan who, as you said, you don’t want Trump to win. What is your response to that way of framing from Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party?
Liano Sharon: Well, let’s just be clear. That way of framing things is really actually a fascist kind of way of framing things. It’s I get to say what I want, but the rest of the coalition, the supposed big tent party, they have to be quiet. That’s not an acceptable way to do it.
And I commend her for subsequently changing her framing of that and addressing the issue with more compassion. And that actually gives me a bit of hope in the sense that she’s clearly responding to the pressure that she’s being put under.
And she’s clearly, it seems to me, what she’s been doing so far is running a very data-driven campaign. I think that’s a good part of the reason why she picked Tim Walz, which I think is a great pick. Because I think that she’s got a team that’s looking at the data, and if you look at the data, it clearly mitigates towards, it clearly drives towards having actual leverage and actually using that leverage over Netanyahu. And literally all it takes is enforcing our own laws.
So on the one hand, the way that she responded to it is the way that the Democratic Party has generally responded to these kinds of things, and I’m encouraged by the fact that she changed.
But then again, that’s her, and she’s trying to win an election, whereas last night, the people that ripped the banner out of my hand and hit my colleague Nadia Ahmed over the head with their signs, here’s a hijab-wearing woman, and they’re beating her over the head with their signs. That is the more common way that we have seen the Democratic Party behave in general.
And that’s just Brownshirt behavior. It is political violence designed to silence people. We were not practicing violence. All we did is we held up a banner that said “Stop arming Israel.” We weren’t chanting, we weren’t disrupting, we held up a sign. Lots of other people were holding up different signs. That’s fine, that’s political expression. We’re supposed to be a big tent party.
But the problem is what the party tries to do is it tries to enforce unity, and enforced unity is just a kind of authoritarianism. What we need in the Democratic Party in order to be democratic is solidarity. That way, in a solidarity situation, we have a lot of different factions, they have differences, but we do have commonalities. And when different factions feel that they need to express themselves, we encourage that expression. We don’t try to shut it down.
Maximillian Alvarez: And you’ve been so gracious with your time, I really appreciate it, I just got one more question for you. What’s your message for folks out there who are heartsick about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, they want it to stop, that is their primary concern. They also don’t want Donald Trump to win. So now they’re caught between this rock and a hard place heading into the general election in November. Where does this movement go, and what room is there to push Kamala Harris and the Democrats in the next few months? What would you say to folks out there who are in that position now?
Liano Sharon: I would say get out there and demonstrate, show what you want. Because there was a similar situation that happened under FDR. Where he was talking with the socialists, and the communists, and the labor unions who want the New Deal, and what he said to them is, make me. Make it politically impossible for us to do anything else here in Washington.
That’s what we need to do. We need to have people out there protesting every time there’s an opportunity to get in front of her with a sign that says “Stop arming Israel, enforce the Leahy laws.” If she’s not going to do that, it undercuts her entire argument that she’s the law enforcement officer, that she’s the great prosecutor, if she’s not going to enforce the laws. So I really think that that is a key part of what we need to do.
There are a lot of people out there — And I support them 100% because that’s democracy — That will not vote for Kamala Harris if there is not something like that going on that really demonstrates that she’s serious about shutting down this genocide. There’s an awful lot of people who will not vote for her.
I’m not one of them. I don’t want Donald Trump, and I’m perfectly willing to say that I’m going to vote against Donald Trump. My only option to vote against Donald Trump in this election is Harris. Same thing happened last time with Biden, and 68% of actual Biden voters in 2020 told exit pollsters that they didn’t vote for Biden, they voted against Trump. So for myself I’m in the same situation as I was back then.
Though I will also say that I want to vote for her. I want the opportunity to vote for her. I want the opportunity to vote for somebody who does not support genocide.
But we have to understand it’s not only about the genocide that’s going on in Israel. We have to recognize that there’s genocide of a kind going on right here in the United States when we have a privatized health insurance system that literally murders 68,000 specifically poor people, disproportionately women and minorities, every single year like clockwork.
And the only thing that I know of that murders tens of thousands of people every single year like clockwork, is a Nazi death camp. That’s the kind of health insurance system or “health care system” that we’re running in this country and that she’s supported.
So there’s a lot of different issues that we need to look at, and we need to understand how these things are connected. Because right now, given the electoral math, given the logic of her campaign about enforcing laws, given all that stuff, the only forces pushing against this kind of an arms embargo, enforcing the Leahy laws is number one, APAC, and number two, the military-industrial complex who want to keep up their contracts and get lots of money.
So literally, in both cases, in the insurance industry case and in the Gaza case, we’re murdering people for money. And that’s got to stop. And I think that right now, the logic of stopping the murders in Gaza demonstrates that the way to make her do it is to make her do it. To demonstrate that it is not politically viable to not do it. And I think that’s the same thing that we have to do with the mass murder that we’re experiencing every year in healthcare as well.
Maximillian Alvarez: Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work so please, tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity Forever.
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