Bangladeshis who are voting for Trump

Sitting on a bench in Battery Park, a leafy enclave on the southern tip of Manhattan, a newly arrived Bangladeshi immigrant to the United States agrees to tell me who he's going to vote for. “I am voting for Trump,” he says, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, just across New York Harbour. He's not alone. Trump's Bangladeshi supporters who have spoken to the Dhaka Tribune include a well-to-do, Buet-trained computer scientist based in California and a New York City banker. This stunning admission requires explanation. He asks to remain anonymous, but agrees to explain his reasons. “I am not offended by his concern about Muslims; there is a problem. Even in our country. What's wrong with careful screening?” he asks. Does he have family in Bangladesh? “Yes,” he says, but: “I have my wife and children here with me.” So a travel ban of the kind Trump has said he favours would not affect his family directly. “Trump is fresh, he's rich and life in New York City has been tough. The country needs somebody to get the economy going,” he says. “America is a big country. It has strong laws. He cannot… nobody can… do anything that is not allowed. His tough talk is just talk. But he knows what to do,” he reassures me. So Trump's bluster is all a bluff? In the Jackson Heights area of Queens, another borough of New York City, I mention this conversation to a Bangladeshi-American working at a little general store. A second-generation American, he is aghast at the prospect of a member of his community voting Republican, let alone for Donald Trump. Like others in the tight-knit community, he believes Trump's xenophobic rhetoric is partially to blame for a number of murders of Bangladeshi Americans over the summer. The shooting of a Bangladeshi-American Imam and his assistant in Queens in August and the fatal stabbing of a 60-year-old Bangladeshi woman a block and a half away just two weeks later are being investigated as possible hate crimes. To be sure, the vast majority of Bangladeshi-Americans that spoke to the Dhaka Tribune said they favour the Democratic Party, if not Hillary Clinton herself. But the community could have its share of Shy Tories – conservative-minded voters whose answers mislead pollsters and lead to unexpected election results. If a significant number of such voters exist in any vote bloc, it could mean a stunningly different outcome today than is being forecast. The Shy Tory phenomenon could well be at play in 2016 because of Donald Trump's peculiar brand of electioneering. Many who support him may shy away from open affiliation with his campaign for fear of being stigmatised. Trump's controversial campaign, described by opponents as frequently racist and often Islamophobic, has not deterred some Muslims from saying will vote for him anyway. Despite Trump's call last year for "a total and complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the United States, 12% of Arab-American Muslims said they would vote for the Republican candidate, according to a recent Zogby Analytics survey. Sixty-seven percent said they'd vote for Democrat Hillary Clinton. The reason behind Muslims who would vote for Trump? " … there are people who are culturally Republican and simply cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat,” said Jim Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, which commissioned the poll. His nephew Jonathan is CEO of Zogby Analytics.