When pro-Palestine activists created the “uncommitted” movement, they had one goal: Pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and enact an arms embargo on Israel.
It didn’t work. Harris lost, and many activists are disillusioned with the Democratic Party. But organizers are still largely trying to work within the party apparatus in the next two years.
Some feel they don’t have much of a choice.
“We are really, really focused on using the Democratic Party as a way to push on our anti-war movement,” said “uncommitted” co-founder Layla Elabed.
Incoming President Donald Trump has been hostile toward anti-war protesters, and activists don’t have many inroads with his world, organizers told NOTUS. They also believe progressive Democrats are more likely to buy into their policy asks, which include pushing for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and enacting an arms embargo on Israel.
Many activists are in a postelection lull, but Elabed said she and her colleagues meet twice a week to strategize how to tackle activism under Trump.
They will be working to elect anti-war candidates to state Democratic Party leadership positions and local offices and then to urge like-minded candidates to run for office in the 2026 midterms.
“We have talked about what does the plan look like for 2026, here in Michigan, where we have a slate of anti-war candidates that we want to prop up,” Elabed said.
Khalid Turaani, who worked for the Abandon Harris campaign in Michigan, said he and other activists are focused on combating state-level Republican legislation that cracks down on protesters. Turaani recently testified before the Ohio state Senate to oppose a bill that would classify any anti-Israel sentiment as antisemitism, which he argued infringed upon protesters’ First Amendment rights.
“At the end of the day, abandoning Biden and abandoning Harris was for a specific purpose,” he said. “It was started by people who are activists. So activists will continue to be activists. When you know you’re done with one effort, you go on to the next.”
Hatem Natshah, who spearheaded organizing efforts in Texas, said he and allies are prepping for the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to pass bills “that will target our Muslim, Arab, Palestinian communities.”
“We’ve been working the last few weeks, just to be prepared with our Democratic allies in the House and the Senate to fight these bills,” he said.
All of this is complicated by the frustration many “uncommitted” activists have with the Democratic Party.
“We’re talking about where we go from here,” Burhan Ghanayem, an activist in North Carolina, told NOTUS. “People are terrified of Trump, but the Democratic Party didn’t show us any signs that they are worth our support.”
Some activists are more open to working with Republicans than others. Warren David, president of the Arab America Foundation, argued that if Trump administration officials wanted to engage with leaders in the Arab American community, they shouldn’t turn them away.
“We should always be open as a community. The door is always open,” he said. “We will always speak truth to justice. We should never forget that we are American citizens at the end of the day and we are just as much a part of this country and this government as anybody else.”
The ultimate goal is the same regardless of which politician is in charge: It’s about “fighting for a pathway to peace in Palestine,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution.
“In this political moment, we are going to push politicians of both parties to end the conflict,” he said.
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Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.