GOP Hate in Michigan

Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (6)

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

No. of Recommendations: 11

Substack: The Stakes in Michigan

There is nothing subtle about the authoritarian playbook that has captured so many countries around the world, including the United States. Unleash corruption to enrich your cronies and finance your politics. Stack the judiciary with compliant judges to facilitate your power grabs. Rig the political system in your favor. Wrap it all up in an Us versus Them nationalism that pits the real Americans against a frightening Other.

This last ingredient is essential because corrupt autocrats tend to make life worse for everyone outside a small circle of wealthy oligarchs. Hence the closing argument for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Unable to run on a record marked by rising prices, declining services, endless war, and White House renovations, they have unleashed a torrent of racism, xenophobia and transphobia amplified by the most powerful people in the country and hundreds of millions of dollars (much of it from Elon Musk).

In this cycle, Islamophobia has emerged as the preferred drug of choice with Michigan the epicenter of the effort.

If elected, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed would become the first Muslim U.S. Senator. In recent days, Donald Trump has called Abdul a “jihadist lunatic” and refers to him as “Muhammad.” Ted Cruz called him a “jihadist leprechaun” and said his election would endanger the United States. Mike Rogers, Abdul’s opponent, suggests that he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other surrogates have linked Abdul to 9/11 and various other terrorist offenses.

We are so numbed to racism and cruelty after the last decade that none of this feel surprising. But this is the most bigoted closing argument that I have seen in American politics, and that’s saying something given the eight years I spent in the Obama White House. And it is made more infuriating because of the disappointing response of some establishment Democrats.

Now let me be clear: most Democrats have rallied to Abdul’s side. In Michigan, leading politicians like Gretchen Whitmer, Elissa Slotkin, Gary Peters, and Mallory McMorrow (among many others) have rallied vigorously to back Abdul. So have national leaders like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Barack Obama who rightly pointed out how powerful, how American it will be if Michigan is represented by two Senators – Slotkin and Abdul – who are Jewish and Muslim.

But that is not the end of the story. In recent days, Abdul’s primary opponent – Haley Stevens – has reemerged to give a series of television interviews that offered at best tepid support for Abdul while calling on him to disavow an online advertisement blaming Israel for high prices that he has nothing to do with. After her fiancé announced his support for Mike Rogers, Stevens put out a meandering statement announcing that she’d be willing to campaign with Abdul while criticizing him for several paragraphs over this ad.

It doesn’t stop there. Nancy Pelosi – a woman whom I have long admired – called Abdul’s positions on Israel wrong and added, “This new person in Michigan, we’ll see if he gets elected to Congress.” Multiple Democratic members of Congress have felt compelled to go on television to say they don’t support Abdul. The former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party announced he would be leaving his ballot for Senate blank.

What is going on here?

Obviously, Israel is once again at the center of an internal Democratic controversy (bear in mind that AIPAC spent a record $30 million to support Stevens in the primary). Abdul has called what Israel did in Gaza a genocide and wants to cut off all assistance to the Israeli government (a position shared by 74 percent of Democratic voters). I agree with those positions, even as I accept that not every Democratic politician or voter will do so.

But the tenor of the rhetoric about Abdul often slips beyond mere policy disagreement. Too often, it tilts into suggestions that he is unfit for office and vaguely dangerous – particularly for Jews. In other words, a watered-down version of what the Republicans are saying.

Full disclosure: I know, like and support Abdul. Because I know him, I also know that these suggestions are ludicrous. He is a born and raised Michigander, a Rhodes Scholar, and a deeply patriotic American. As a doctor and public health official, the animating cause of his political career is health care. His oft-repeated slogan is: “money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all.”

Whatever you think about his positions, Israel is not central to his politics or his campaign; when he does talk about it, it is almost always to make the argument that we should be spending money on health care and education at home rather than sending it abroad. An Egyptian American, he opposes aid to Egypt on the same grounds that it abuses human rights. Indeed, the people who are most focused on Israel are the people trying to tear Abdul down or damn him with tepid support.

Which brings me back to the stakes of this election, because Michigan may very well determine who has control of the U.S. Senate.

We are approaching the mid-point of the most corrupt and dangerous administration of my lifetime. A fascistic autocrat is enriching himself, launching wars, disappearing people on our streets, emptying the treasury, threatening the integrity of elections, and tearing at the very social fabric that holds a big and diverse country together. If you care more about an online ad or a reliable vote for military aid to Israel than all of that, you haven’t just lost the plot, you are making yourself an accomplice to the authoritarian takeover of the United States of America.

Beyond that, you are also choosing to overlook – or minimize – the steady stream of hate and vitriol that is being directed at Abdul and other Muslims. Ironically, many of the concerns around Abdul are framed as concerns about Jewish safety. How safe do you think Muslim American children feel when they see the President of the United States ranting about jihadists and the Muslim Brotherhood? How safe do you think those kids feel when they see Republicans calling for the deportation of naturalized Muslim Americans like Zohran Mamdani and Ilhan Omar, or demanding that Abdul pass through a metal detector before he can enter the Capitol?

We should have vigorous debates about policy in this country and within the Democratic Party. Yes, the Democrats who criticize Abdul have not stopped to the dehumanizing rhetoric of Republicans. But Democrats should not be passive onlookers to this ugliness, as some have chosen to be. Doing so suggests that you do not understand the moment that we are in or – worse – accept Islamophobia as an inevitability in our politics and society.

As someone who comes from a Jewish background, I was raised to understand Jewish safety as something that was connected to the safety of all Americans. That’s why people like Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman – the Jewish civil rights workers who were murdered along with James Chaney in Mississippi – were revered figures. Because they put their bodies on the line for others. Because Jews understood that they would never be safe in a country unless everyone was safe.

We have now seen this cycle play out twice – before Abdul, it was with Zohran Mamdani in my native New York City. Like Abdul, Mamdani models a fearless and joyful brand of progressive politics. Like Abdul, he was pilloried for his positions on Israel. Today, Mamdani enjoys an approval rating of nearly 70 percent in the largest Jewish city in the world outside of Israel.

Perhaps that is what some of these politicians fear: that principled progressives, including those who happen to be Muslim, might just represent the future. —Ben Rhodes, Notes on the Stories We Tell

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

Print the post Share: X · FacebookFB · LinkedInLI · WhatsAppWApp · Email

Members reply directly to velcher here — and replies get answered. Reading is free; so is joining the conversation. Join Shrewd'm »

This community has written 88,852 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:

It's going to get worse · 33 recs · 2025

G’day Donny · 30 recs · 2026

Old Related Story · 28 recs · 2026

HCR is a national treasure · 27 recs · 2025

Fascism in America · 27 recs · 2025

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (6)

Prev | Next

Announcements

US Policy FAQ

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.