In a July 19 interview with a leading Democratic Senate candidate in the swing state of Michigan, CNN host Jake Tapper homed in on the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran — but he didn’t ask the candidate’s thoughts on the hundreds of Iranian and Lebanese civilians killed, nor the possibility of U.S. war crimes, and not even 18 dead U.S. soldiers. Instead, Tapper posed: “Why were you worried about offending people who support the ayatollah?”
As Michigan’s August 4 Senate primary between El-Sayed and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens draws near, he has faced a barrage of Islamophobic attacks ranging from thinly veiled policy critiques to outright racist caricatures. The two Senate hopefuls seem to embody the forked path facing the Democratic Party ahead of the 2028 presidential cycle, with 43-year-old Stevens representing the old guard thanks to her backing by the party establishment and the pro-Israel lobby, and 41-year-old El-Sayed representing an insurgent movement skeptical of long-standing U.S. foreign policy interests and corporate capture of American politics. With the latter vision comes a form of fearmongering that’s been endemic to American politics for decades.
Nancy Khalil, an anthropologist who researches Muslims in America at the University of Michigan, called Tapper’s interview “sloppy and offensive” and pointed out that the anchor’s questions implied an assumption that because El-Sayed is Muslim and Arab, “he needs to have an opinion on this, and the opinion needs to align with whatever the media wants it to be.” That assumption is “completely racist,” Khalil said.
I don’t think ‘slamming’ in a headline is too valuable politically, additionally since they have to primary an establishment Democrat to be able to participate in an election I think it’s reasonable that they will be saying negative things about that incumbent Democrat.
If they win the primary, I would expect them to stop campaigning against the Democrat and begin campaigning against the Republican. I am not sure specifically what you want to see - a press release with a negative statement about a Republican?
sorry I am slow, I don’t have access to a computer currently and I’m not too fast at directed search and typing on my phone.
I will agree with you that the DSA is an insurgent movement within the Democratic party though. I am sorry if I misunderstood that. The difference I think I have with you, is that I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad strategy. The tea party successfully performed a hostile takeover of the Republican party, which demonstrates the concept works. In the current political system here, starting a new party isn’t feasible without money and time that we don’t have.