Progressive Charlotte-area delegate wanted Bernie Sanders, but he’ll back Joe Biden

Nazim Uddin is one delegate to the Democratic National Convention who does not subscribe to everything Joe Biden stands for, but he’s not about to walk away from the party.

Uddin, who lives near Harrisburg, said former President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” opened his eyes to his political choices as a Muslim-American.

“The zeitgeist in the country really … informed me that there’s really only one place left for Muslim-Americans to … have a voice in the political process,” Uddin said.

Now, he is very active in North Carolina’s Democratic Party. In June, he was selected as an at-large delegate at the party’s state convention.

Uddin was born in Bangladesh and lived there the first 11 years of his life. But, he says, “I’m originally from a lot of places.”

He moved from New Jersey to Charlotte in 2013 to become a social media analyst at Bank of America. Before that, he lived in Connecticut with a brother who was a submarine officer in the Navy, and in Michigan, where older siblings had gone for higher education.

Long ties to Democrats

Uddin’s ties to the Democratic Party began roughly 40 years before his birth.

“My dad actually was an immigrant here,” Uddin said. His father, who came to the United States in the late 1930s, was a union worker at a Ford Plant in Dearborn, Mich. He moved the family back to Bangladesh when he retired.

Uddin realized at an early age that his father’s union pension supported his family financially, especially when he was growing up.

“He was a Democrat his entire life,” he said. “So a lot of my dad’s views sort of influenced me.”

Uddin was only 11 when his father died. He and his mother then moved to Michigan to be with family. He remembers working on a school project at his new school about the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama and the capture of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. That event and the first Gulf War had a big impact on his understanding of politics.

“I was really fascinated with U.S. power and how we were able to ... execute that program so well,” he said. “And so, I always kept an eye on foreign policy kind of issues.”

Foreign policy led him, as an adult, to become increasingly active in the Democratic Party. In 2000, he volunteered for Al Gore’s Democratic presidential campaign. After the terrorist attacks of 9-11, he became still more convinced he was in the right party.

Into the party machine

As a progressive Democrat, Uddin donated to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign the day after Sanders announced. After Donald Trump’s inauguration in January of 2017, however, Uddin felt prompted to become part of what he calls the “party machine.”

He attended his first precinct meeting in 2017, hoping to offer a more progressive voice. “I was going to do whatever I could,” he said.

Since then, he has become more deeply involved in state and local politics. Last year, he helped found the Progressive Democrats of Mecklenburg County, a caucus that aims to represent more progressive voices within the party. And earlier this year, he organized community canvassing activities for Sanders from his home.

As a progressive, Uddin advocates for less military spending, more investment in schools and more financial assistance for students in college. He is especially concerned about equal education opportunities for those in underrepresented and minority communities.

“We’re going to have to get Biden to come to the right side of policies for everybody,” he said. “Not just a few select students.”

But Uddin ranks health care as his highest priority. He even voted against the Democratic Party platform because it did not include “Medicare for All.”

“Health insurance becomes a burden on the families, especially working-class families,” he said. Referring to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, he continued, “There’s no safety net when it comes to health insurance.”

Some progressives, feeling ignored by the Democratic Party, have launched a #DemExit movement.

Uddin scoffs at that. “No!,” he said. “We need people to get into the party, so we can move some of these people who have been blocking the policies that would help the most people.”

State party platform updated

He, and others who think like him, updated the North Carolina party platform to eliminate some “right-wing language from the 2000s,” he said. “The foreign policy section now ... recognizes the rights of Palestinian people, which is a big issue for me.”

For now, though, he is focused on winning the election. Even if that is with Biden. And he’s proud to support Biden’s choice for vice president, Kamala Harris, whose mother’s family is from the same part of Asia as his own.

“At the end of the day, I think they can win,” he said. “And that’s all that matters now.”

Margaret Thacker is part of a team of student journalists from the James L. Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte who are covering the Democratic National Convention.

This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 4:04 PM.