It’s time for Muslim Americans to do politics like other minorities

If we want this dynamic to change, we can’t just inveigh against President Trump’s hostility or wait around for sympathetic politicians to press our case. We must build mechanisms for mobilizing as a voting bloc. We need to develop institutions like EMILY’s List, the fundraising organization that promotes Democratic women candidates; J Street and AIPAC, Jewish American advocacy groups that lobby on Israel policy; and Latino Victory Fund, a political action committee that backs Latinos running for office.

When we want to build an Islamic center, we come together. Activists bring together Muslim immigrants with American-born Muslims, blue-collar and upper middle class Muslims, devout and not-so-devout Muslims to acquire land, raise funds for construction and develop staff and programming. We often work successfully with leaders of other faith communities to immediately integrate our mosques into the fabric of local congregations. Why not replicate this approach in the context of partisan politics? Muslim Americans have made scattered forays throughout the country — in the Dallas area, where I live, the Good Citizen Committee, a local Muslim American political group, has exerted its influence in recent local elections through its voter registration and mobilization efforts. But to achieve broader impact, we’ll need build a nationwide, professional political strategy apparatus. We’re a small percentage of the electorate, but we have the wherewithal to make this happen — according to Pew Research, 20 percent of Muslim American households have income of $100,000 or more per year; by 2050, Pew projects, we’ll be the largest religious minority.