This week, Michigan held its primaries, and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Senator. He won it despite being a Muslim American (should he defeat his Republican opponent in November, he’ll be the first Muslim American in the Senate); he won it despite his primary opponent ceaselessly running ads showing her with Barack Obama (despite the fact that Obama never endorsed her); and, most of all, he won it despite outside PACs spending nearly 11 times more money on his opponent. With over $80 million spent on the race, it was the most expensive Senate primary in US history. Around $54 million of that was spent on his opponent’s behalf, and $30 million of that came from AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobbying group. Once upon a time AIPAC throwing money at a race meant the other guy was going down. Just ask Cori Bush: AIPAC defeated her two years ago for the comparatively economical price tag of $9 million. But defending the bombing of Palestinian children is more expensive these days.
So El-Sayed said he wouldn’t support sending arms to any state committing genocides, even if it happened to be Israel, and that put the target on his back. But, this time, the target failed. So maybe now he’ll be able to stop talking about Gaza and get back to his primary campaign message, which was always: money out of politics; money in your pocket; Medicare for all. Maybe he will: his opponent has conceded and endorsed him, which is more than a defeated Republican would have done, so that’s something. But she spent months stirring up people against him and accusing him of antisemitism, so it could well be too little too late at this point.
But I’m not counting El-Sayed out just yet. He’s a strong progressive who often gets lumped in with the Democratic Socialists, even though he’s not one. In this respect, he’s a bit like Bernie Sanders, who is often considered the most progressive Democrat in Congress, despite the inconvenient fact that he’s not a Democrat. But association with Sanders is a big part of what earned El-Sayed the label of “socialist” ... and, just maybe, a big part of what propelled him to an underdog victory. If you want to hear Bernie talk about El-Sayed’s victory, check out his video on the topic. But let’s not count out El-Sayed just being a smart, charismatic campaigner: you can watch him convince hesitant voters in a recent More Perfect Union video to see his raw talent and skill. So the question may just come down to whether AIPAC and its allies are willing to spend money on a Republican to avoid having more Democrats stand up to them. Let’s hope not.
But it wouldn’t surprise me.
Other things you need to know this week:
- A really good Even More News this week, covering the El-Sayed win, plus point-by-point dismantling of RFK Jr’s latest round of lies. Returning guest Kaveh Hoda is the perfect accompaniment for this episode: like El-Sayed, he is a doctor, and an American of Middle Eastern heritage (Hoda is Persian-American where El-Sayed is Egyptian-American, but I suspect they’ve faced many of the same prejudices).
- Runaway Country covers the court case which has once again halted Trump’s ballroom construction.
- What a Day covers Tucker Carlson’s possible political ambitions.
- There was a pretty good “Kinzinger Report” on Thursday, where Adam provides more nuance on the reports that we’re “running out of missiles”, talks about succession plans in Trumpworld, and discusses RFK Jr’s disastrous interview with Dana Bash, among other things.
- And, speaking of Adam Kinzinger, there’s this short video about accountability that he released Monday. It reads like a campaign ad, but he doesn’t appear to be running for anything: he’s just campaigning for eliminating corruption. Can’t really argue with that.
- Gary Stevenson did an interview on PoliticsJOE, where he’s still talking about taxing wealth not work despite saying for the past several weeks that he’s going to take a break from talking about such topics. Best quote: “There’s nothing more powerful that the rich could ever do to protect themselves and their wealth than to make the poor selfish. Because the poor are individually incredibly weak. And the rich are individually incredibly strong. And the only power that the poor and ordinary people have ever had to protect themselves from the rich is strength in numbers. And they only use that power if they act collectively. ... You know, if the rich can convince the poor to be as selfish as they are, then they will eat you alive.”
If the victory of El-Sayed is not hopeful enough for you, let me also share my favorite news snippet of the week (although if you watched either the Even More News episode or the “Kinzinger Report” linked above, you’ve already gotten a bit of a preview).
One of the first defeats of a Trump-backed candidate of the year happened this week: a Navy veteran who worked in intelligence as well as federal law enforcement, a man born in Michigan to generations of auto-workers, with the full-throated endorsement of Trump, lost ... to a man who had already dropped out of the race, possibly because he couldn’t figure out how to operate the FEC website (it also might have been the fact that he raised less than $2,000 for his campaign). How on earth did this happen, you might ask? Well, the dropout was named Tom Smith, and the Trump endorsee was named Amir Hassan.
Now, you might discount the obvious reason that everyone is talking about. “Oh, poo!” you might say: “surely Trump voters wouldn’t reject someon
If you don’t remember who Loomer is, first of all: congratulations! I can tell that your news diet is much healthier than mine. Secondly, if you really want to know who this Queen of All Nutjobs is, I’ll send you back to week 60 where I highlighted a Some More News piece on her. Short version: of all the crazy, racist, rightwing MAGA nutjobs, she is the craziest, most racist, rightwingiest, and MAGA-ist, and she has the ear of the President, regularly costing people their jobs when she feels they don’t toe the company line well enough to suit her. So what did this deranged nutjob say about Hassan? Here’s just a taste:
“Amir Hassan” claims he’s not a Muslim, but it doesn’t matter. His name sounds like he’s fresh off the boat and MAGA voters reject the Islamic infiltration of our country and party.
This should be an eye opener to Trump’s advisors that we don’t want Muslims, Arabs or anyone who may even sound Arab or Islamic serving in office. We are done with the Islamic takeover of our country, but they won’t pass this message along to President Trump.
And:
Dude should have changed his name. If my name was Amir Hassan and I wasn’t a Muslim, I’d be changing my name as soon as I turned 18.
I will never vote for anyone with an Islamic name. Neither will most of President Trump’s voters.
So, I dunn
Look, as Kaveh pointed out on Even More News, when you train your base to just automatically assume anyone with a Muslim-sounding name is bad, you get what you pay for. Don’t even get me started on why a Black man would seek the endorsement of the White House white supremacis
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