Alexander Vindman Is Not the Hero Florida Needs. He Is the Problem Florida Has.
Genocide denial. Anti-Muslim bigotry. A twin brother voting to the right of nearly 75 Republicans. Florida deserves better. Fortunately, we have Angie Nixon.
This article is going to be an uncomfortable conversation for many, but that is all the more reason why it is necessary. Many view Alexander Vindman as a national hero for standing up to Trump. For doing so he deserves credit. But this article isn’t about that. It’s about what he’s done since, and why it is disqualifying in his run for U.S. Senate.
You’ve heard me say this before, but it bears repeating.
We are facing fascism in the United States. Not creeping authoritarianism. Not a political disagreement. Fascism—in real time, with real consequences for real people. And the Democratic response to fascism cannot be candidates who deny genocide, demonize Muslim Americans with zero evidence, whose family members vote to the right of dozens of MAGA Republicans, and whose own stated priorities on their official website ignore the existential threat of climate change, the gutting of voting rights, and the epidemic of gun violence.
Alexander Vindman moved to Florida to run for the U.S. Senate, positioning himself as a hero of democracy who stood up to Trump. But courage in 2019 does not purchase a lifetime exemption from accountability. Nor does it defend the record Alexander Vindman has since built—on denying genocide, on demonizing Muslims, on what kind of Democrat he intends to be. His record is one that violates the conscience of anyone committed to justice and humanity. It is a record corporate media has wholly ignored. But it is a record every Florida voter deserves to see in full before casting their vote. Because we are facing fascism, we need true fighters, and not risk electing appeasers. Let’s Address This.
Opening Thought
Perhaps most frustrating about this conversation is that Florida already has a stellar candidate for U.S. Senate in State Rep Angie Nixon. A candidate that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party ignores. You can watch my interview with Rep Angie Nixon here. The Democratic Party leadership loves to issue talking points about how Black women are the base of the party, that 93% voted for Harris in the last election, and how nobody wins the Democratic nomination for President without Black women.
But suddenly when an incredibly qualified Black woman runs for office, the corporate wing of the party tips the scale behind an out-of-state white guy whose centrist policies are Chuck Schumer’s wet dream. I preface this article with mention of Rep Angie Nixon to make clear that I write this not to scream into the wind about Vindman’s dangerous record, but to offer the right answer on who should be our next US Senator from Florida—Angie Nixon. More about her in a minute.
Problem 1: The Genocide That Vindman Refuses to Name
Watch that video. Then consider the following.
The genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people is not a contested opinion among serious human rights institutions. It is a documented, confirmed, legally analyzed conclusion reached by the most credible bodies on Earth—including Israeli ones.
B’Tselem—Israel’s leading human rights organization—has explicitly stated that Israeli policy in Gaza constitutes genocide. Israeli Physicians for Human Rights has documented the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure as part of a pattern consistent with genocidal intent. Omer Bartov—one of the world’s foremost genocide scholars, an Israeli historian at Brown University who has spent his career studying the Holocaust—has stated clearly that what is happening in Gaza meets the definition of genocide.
Beyond Israeli scholars: The United Nations has documented genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice is actively adjudicating genocide charges against Israel, having found sufficient evidence to order provisional measures. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. Amnesty International has published a comprehensive report titled “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza. Human Rights Watch has reached the same conclusion.
This is not a fringe position. The only people still in denial about Israel’s genocide on Palestinians are those who are either politically compromised, willfully ignorant, or both.
Alexander Vindman is in denial. On video. Publicly. Without shame.
This matters. As Professor Ta-Nahisi Coates responded when asked whether he thinks the Democratic Party can defend democracy in America:
We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy . . . and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.
Professor Coates is right. Alexander Vindman is standing in direct contradiction to every credible human rights institution on Earth and daring to call it a principled position. It is not a principled position. It is genocide denial. And genocide denial, whatever its motivation, has no place in the United States Senate.
Problem 2: Vindman’s Dangerous and Baseless Smear of Muslim Americans
Civil rights groups report record highs in anti-Muslim hate crimes. Muslims in San Diego are still reeling from the horrific attack on the San Diego Islamic center, which killed three people and targeted more than 140 American Muslim children. Now, read what Alexander Vindman said on a podcast about Muslim Americans. Read it first. Then listen to him say it himself. Here is his exact quote, in his own words:
“There is an inherent trained racism against the Jewish people in the Muslim communities. It is encouraged. It is nurtured. It is something that is not discussed. There are plenty of you know kind of more open-minded liberal uh Muslims that so it doesn’t apply to everybody by any means. But in large communities it is nurtured. This, this hatred and anti-Semitism. It is not something that’s I’ve seen addressed in any significant way.” — Alexander Vindman
In reality, Vindman has told a dangerous lie that would make Donald Trump proud.
Because this is the same playbook Donald Trump used when he claimed—with zero evidence—that he saw Muslims celebrating in New Jersey after 9/11. When he claimed that “Islam hates us.” Alexander Vindman is using his platform—built on genuine, documented opposition to Trump—to launder Trumpian anti-Muslim propaganda under the cover of Democratic credibility. That is not opposition to fascism. That is the adoption of fascism’s toolkit while wearing the other team’s jersey.
Vindman has never retracted this dangerous, false, and dehumanizing smear against Muslims. He’s only doubled down by trying to justify and whitewash genocide.
Vindman’s spouse adds later in the convo that in short, Jews love life and Palestinians love death and martyrdom. Another dehumanizing and false statement that you can listen to on your own if you can stomach it. But I want to pause on the profound, almost poetic irony here. Vindman prefaces his propaganda statement by first acknowledging that his best friend growing up was Palestinian—a Muslim who welcomed him as a Jewish refugee and never mistreated him in any way. He establishes from his own lived experience that the premise of his claim is false.
And then he makes the claim anyway.
This is not analysis. This is not evidence. This is not scholarship. This is a smear—a dangerous, documented, empirically refuted smear against approximately 3.5 million Muslim Americans—delivered without a single piece of supporting data. In fact, this hateful rhetoric advances both anti-Muslim hate and anti-Jewish hate. For example, authorities report that the two white supremacists who attacked the San Diego Islamic Center wrote a manifesto expressing violent hatred against both Jews and Muslims. Alexander Vindman’s indefensible attempt to pit Muslims and Jews against one another ignores the ground reality that those who hate Muslims also hate Jews, and vice versa.
But it gets even worse for Vindman, because his entire premise about alleged “inherent trained racism” from Muslims against Jews is pure propaganda. This isn’t my conclusion—but that of the Anti-Defamation League itself. And once again, no legacy media outlet has even bothered to do this analysis.
Who Is Igniting Antisemitism in the USA?
The Anti-Defamation League—the organization whose entire mission is documenting and combating antisemitism—has kept meticulous records of antisemitic incidents in the United States. And here is what their own data shows:
Since 2002, the ADL has documented 40,180 cases of antisemitism in the United States. Here is the ADL HEAT MAP of that data.
Moreover, the ADL lets users download the file of every single documented act of antisemitism. I have downloaded that full list of 40,180 cases of antisemitism and uploaded it here for free access.
The ADL HEAT MAP furthermore identifies the attacks by the motivating ideology behind the antisemitic attacks, and lets users filter attacks by ideology. These are the categories of ideologies the ADL provides.
Of the 40,180 documented acts of antisemitism, how many do you think were motivated by “Islamist” ideology? Given Vindman’s outrageous claim that “There is an inherent trained racism against the Jewish people in the Muslim communities. It is encouraged. It is nurtured,” we might guess a significant percent of those 40,180 antisemitic incidents are committed by Muslims, right?
The actual answer. Two.
No, not two percent. Two incidents.
According to 25 years of ADL data currently on the ADL website, and linked above, the ADL have only found two documented cases of antisemitic attacks by anyone claiming to be Muslim. That chart is below.
The two green dots are the “Islamist” acts of antisemitism. And lest anyone claim that “Leftists” are responsible for any significant share of antisemitic attacks, the ADL data documents only one such Leftists attack. All the rest are from right wing extremists, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists.
Read that again. Two versus forty thousand, one hundred and eighty.
This is not my data. This is ADL data. The very organization that exists to fight antisemitism has documented, in its own records, that the overwhelming, catastrophic, existential threat to Jewish Americans comes not from Muslim communities—but from the same right-wing extremist movement that Alexander Vindman claims to oppose.
And yet Vindman goes on a podcast and declares that there is “inherent trained racism against Jewish people in Muslim communities”—without referencing a single study, a single data point, a single piece of evidence. He simply asserts it, qualifies it slightly, and moves on as if he has made a profound and courageous observation.
The bottom line is this—we do not accept such dangerous hate and lies from Trump. We must not accept such dangerous hate and lies from Vindman either. Vindman himself frequently reminds his audiences while condemning Donald Trump’s lies that in the United States, facts matter. That evidence matters. That truth matters. And now, he literally taking a page out of Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim playbook.
How reprehensible. How indefensible.
Problem 3: His Brother Eugene Vindman Votes to the Right of Nearly 75 Republicans
Alexander Vindman is running for U.S. Senate. And his twin brother Eugene Vindman is a sitting U.S. Congressman from Virginia. Eugene Vindman’s voting record tells us something important about the worldview the Vindman brothers share.
The purple triangle in the sea of red dots is Eugene Vindman. Vindman is a member of the New Democrat Coalition—the centrist caucus of the House Democratic Party. And according to GovTrack’s nonpartisan ideology analysis, Eugene Vindman’s legislative positioning places him among the most conservative Democrats in the chamber, to the right of nearly 75 Republicans.
He is the single most conservative Democrat in the House. His voting record does not align with Democrats. It does not even align with Independents. It aligns firmly in the Republican camp under a MAGA fascist regime.
Let that sink in. A Democrat. Voting to the right of 75 MAGA Republicans. During a fascist administration that is dismantling democracy, destroying voting rights, gutting healthcare, exacerbating climate change, stripping food from tens of millions of families, launching illegal wars, and threatening to annihilate entire civilizations.
And just last week Eugene Vindman was one of only eight Democrats to join MAGA Republicans and throw trans kids under the bus.
The Vindman twins are not identical politically, of course. But ideology is not formed in a vacuum. Families share values. Worldviews develop in common. And what the Vindman record—Alexander’s genocide denial, his anti-Muslim smears, Eugene’s right of MAGA conservative legislative record, Alexander ignoring the existential threat of climate change and the epidemic of gun violence on his official website—tells us is this: this is a family that believes the path forward for Democrats is to move right, appease the MAGA crowd, and avoid the bold moral clarity that this moment demands.
That is not just wrong. It is catastrophically dangerous.
We do not need an appeasement party. We need an opposition party. And we cannot build an opposition to fascism with candidates who adopt fascist talking points about Muslims, while denying the genocide that every credible human rights institution has confirmed, and while voting repeatedly to the right of MAGA fascists.
The Ultimate Consequences of Vindman’s Dangerous Rhetoric
This is not merely a philosophical debate about political positioning. Alexander Vindman’s actions are doing real harm with documented, deadly consequences.
Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the United States reached a record high in 2024, with CAIR documenting 8,658 complaints—a 7.4% rise year on year and the highest number since CAIR began compiling data in 1996. Since October 2023, alarming incidents have included the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy, the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man, and the beating of a Muslim man in New York.
And in the backdrop of this record high violence against Americans who are Muslim, Alexander Vindman is going on podcasts to declare, without evidence, that Muslim communities are hotbeds of “inherent trained racism” against Jewish people.
Vindman’s comments are precisely the kind of content that normalizes anti-Muslim suspicion, fans the flames of Islamophobia, and materially contributes to a world in which Muslim and Arab Americans are attacked, discriminated against, and killed. And worth repeating, Vindman’s unhinged hate against Muslims also endangers Jewish people. The same right wing extremists who hate Muslims also hate Jews, and now they have Vindman to cite as “justification” for their hate.
A man whose comments contribute to that environment has no business representing us in the United States Senate.
Problem 4: Vindman’s Actual Policies are Abysmal
As if all of the above were not already disqualifying, Alexander’s stated policies on his campaign website are abysmal. While the United State remains the only developed nation on Earth without universal healthcare, Vindman opposes it and wants to build the health insurance private industry that kills 68,000 Americans a year annually. While Florida capitulate to climate change, Vindman doesn’t mention it even once on his platform. While the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act and condemns Black Americans to a modern day Jim Crow dystopia, Vindman doesn’t mention it even once on his website. While gun violence remains the leading cause of preventable death for children in America, and Florida has seen the horrors of the Parkland and Pulse mass shootings, Vindman doesn’t mention gun violence prevention even once on his website.
What are his positions on these vital issues? Who knows. He hopes you don’t ask him, and believes he can skate by on name recognition alone. One thing is for sure, this is not the fighter we need.
Florida Has an Incredible Choice: Angie Nixon
As always, I never cite a problem without also offering an answer to that problem. The actual answer to MAGA fascism is Florida State Representative Angie Nixon. I recently sat down with Rep Nixon for a full conversation, live from her bookstore, on her run for U.S. Senate in Florida. We often talk about the fact that Black women are the base of the Democratic Party. With Rep Nixon, we have the chance to reinforce that talk with actions. Take the time to watch or listen to my interview with her before Florida’s August 4th primary.
Angie Nixon is not a transplant who moved to Florida to run for office. She is from Florida. She was elected in Florida. She has dedicated her life to uplifting Florida communities. Last week she walked onto the Florida House floor with a bullhorn to denounce racist, unconstitutional redistricting maps, unapologetically and without hesitation. Governor DeSantis had her arrested for getting into the good trouble of protesting Jim Crow America on the Florida House floor.
That is the kind of courageous fighter we need to send to the U.S. Senate.
Rep Nixon supports Medicare for All—because healthcare is a human right. She condemns the genocide in Gaza—because human rights require consistency and courage, not political cowardice. She champions voting rights, reproductive freedom, and economic justice. She is 100% people-funded. And she is inclusive of all people, of all faiths and no faith—because that is what genuine leadership looks like.
Closing Thoughts
In a world of complex decisions, this is among the easiest.
Florida’s primary election is on August 4th. The establishment wants a complicit Alexander Vindman, the people need a courageous Representative Angie Nixon.
Angie Nixon is Florida. She has earned her place in that community through years of service, sacrifice, and showing up—not through a résumé built elsewhere and a candidacy parachuted in at the last moment.
Alexander Vindman moved to Florida to run. He has no roots in Florida, no community organizing, no contribution. He only wins if we ignore the much more qualified Black woman who was already running a stellar campaign for U.S. Senate.
Above all, Florida and the future of the Democratic Party does not need a candidate whose platform rests on genocide denial, dangerous propaganda against Muslim Americans, and corporate centrism to appease Chuck Schumer. Florida needs a leader who will fight—loudly, boldly, and without apology—for every person in this country.
That leader is Angie Nixon.
Support her campaign at angienixon.com.
Vote Angie Nixon for U.S. Senate.
Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered politics that corporate media ignores. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union
.
Thank you! Just got a text “from” Larry David about voting for Vindman and I thought, what would qasim say? I appreciate your regular interviews and articles that point to what we need.
I used to follow them. But the more I did the more I had this “uhh, wait a minute” reaction. I can’t remember what it was now that made me flip my switch to no way on those two but it cemented it for me.
Thanks for calling them out. If people call this some kind of purity test, it’s not. We’ve all got to keep in mind to really look at and solve problems and drive things to where we want them to be, at times we have to hear and accept things we don’t like. People moving to where they can win elections and then don’t really vote for what you want them too, but they’re waving your flag, that’s how we got into a lot of this mess.