Your choice in the Michigan Senate race essentially boils down to whether or not you buy into Islamophobic conspiracies about Abdul El-Sayed. This became very clear during the debate between Mike Rogers and Abdul that took place this past Thursday. If you were looking at the scoreboard before the debate, you might mistakenly think that Rogers is in a tough spot. He is inextricably tied to every unpopular neo-conservative policy of the last 25 years — everything from surveillance to forever wars to rising healthcare costs. He is also inextricably tied to the very unpopular sitting president, whose current disapproval ratings rival that of Nixon’s at the height of Watergate. Even during the debate Rogers had very little to offer in the way of policy aside from the typical nibbling around the edges that’s all to common in our national politics, so his only card left to play is calling Abdul (and his mother) a terrorist.
Rogers made an effort during the debate to connect Abdul to Al-Qaeda, the IRGC and CAIR — suggesting that Muslim fundamentalist groups were undergirding the finances of Abdul’s campaign. He challenged Abdul to denounce Hamas and the IRGC, two groups that Abdul has never endorsed or been involved with in anyway. It seems that Islamophobia is the last remaining form of bigotry that is completely acceptable at the highest circles of America’s elite political intelligentsia. Very few people in power will bat an eye when Republican and Democratic politicians call on people like Abdul El-Sayed, Hasan Piker, and Zohran Mamdani to answer for the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Insinuating that they support terrorism or are soft on denouncing terrorism is a type of blood libel. The media will ask, “Why won’t you just denounce the IRGC? Why won’t you just denounce Hamas? Why won’t you just cut ties with Hasan Piker?” The secret to this strategy is to trick Abdul into putting blood in the water, distancing himself from positions he never held in the first place and thereby implying some level of guilt. Why should Abdul be expected to answer for the IRGC or Hamas? He is not Iranian. He is not Palestinian. He has no connection to these groups whatsoever, but the brain rotted Fox News boomers that make up the current Republican electorate don’t know the difference from a Shia and a Sunni. To them, Muslims are a flat category that operate as a group and are on the same side of every issue.
But it’s worth asking: Why is Mike Rogers never asked to denounce any of the white supremacist fringes of his political coalition? Yesterday pardoned J6er Jake Lang attempted to crash an Abdul rally just outside of Hart, MI. Lang was there with his supporters brandishing Mike Rogers campaign signs and crosses while chanting “Mike Rogers for Senate”. So much hay has been made this election cycle about the supposed rise of antisemitism, and cynical political operators like Rogers gleefully lump in anyone critical of Israel under that umbrella. But Lang is an open, self identified antisemite who uses the N-word and supports turning the United States into a whites only fascist ethno-state. Is anyone in Michigan’s media class going to ask Rogers if he denounces Jake Lang? Will there be a years long wall to wall news cycle about the dangerous extremism of Jake Lang in the same way we’ve had to listen to seemingly endless hand wringing over Hasan Piker? Of course not, and it just goes to show that the United States has some very backwards ideas about extremism.
No one ever asks Mike Rogers to denounce the Gaza genocide or the IDF. He can simply say that there is no genocide and not be expected to answer for the things Israel does. No one ever asks Mike Rogers to apologize for the war in Iraq or his role in the creating the modern mass surveillance state. He is never asked questions about Trump’s connection to Jeffery Epstein. There are completely legitimate criticisms of Rogers that totally fall by the wayside because none of it compares to Abdul’s mortal sin of being a regular Muslim man in the United States.
This dynamic creates a slanted playing field in favor of Rogers. The enemy is permitted to constantly put words in your mouth and disingenuously ask you to denounce things you never supported and had nothing to do with, insinuating a connection or collective guilt. And yet Mike Rogers can never be held responsible for the things he actually says and believes because his flavor of extremism is permissible by the media landscape.
Say what you will about El-Sayed, but he is not by any stretch of the imagination an extremist. His platform is broadly popular with the American public — things like medicare for all, ending forever wars, money out of politics, cutting off support to Israel and investing that money in public services in the United States. He supports a pluralistic society with people of all races and religions living together in harmony, which the modern Republican Party does not. Mike Rogers is the one whose political beliefs are on the outs with most people in the US, and he is the candidate who receives support from people who were actually convicted of terrorism. His final Hail Mary is making an appeal to schizophrenic racists and Islamophobes who will be suckered into Hasbara nonsense about American Muslims, and I have a sinking feeling that there may be just enough people in this state dumb enough to fall for it.
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