Abdul El-Sayed Is an Opportunity for Democrats

The victory of progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for one of Michigan's seats in the United States Senate was a dramatic upset over a coalition of establishment corporatists, the right-wing media infrastructure and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the vicious Israel lobby that influences American elections without identifying itself. Rather than take stock of the fact that they lost to a guy they outspent 12 to 1, however, the powers that be who gave you presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris are framing the next two months as a test of the progressive left wing of the Democratic Party -- specifically, its electability.

OK, Abdul, you can beat us. But can you beat the Republicans in November?

El-Sayed and his allies and supporters certainly hope so. But he's not the only one being tested.

Like El-Sayed, the national Democratic Party establishment needs to decide how much they care about building a stronger, bigger tent with an inclusive approach to ideological varieties and heresies.

If El-Sayed loses, the Democratic National Committee that kneecapped Sen. Bernie Sanders, not once but twice, will point to his defeat as scientific proof that progressives can't prevail in general elections in flyover country. Moreover, this is a national party that is exceedingly cash-strapped, with a current negative bank balance of $2 million.

On the other hand, the balance of the U.S. Senate may well hinge on the outcome of the Michigan race, where the seat is currently held by an incumbent Democrat. This in the age of Trump -- who threatens democratic norms.

Even many conservative Democrats won't view this as the year for such reindeer games. The civil war within the party could heat up even more dramatically if the DNC refuses to tap its donors and leaves El-Sayed to the tender mercies of his AIPAC-backed Republican opponent.

No one has ever gone broke betting against the national Democratic Party doing the smart or farsighted thing. But this high-profile Senate race has the opportunity to unite the Democratic Party at the very time Republicans appear to be seconds away from ripping apart at the seams. Will they grab this rare chance?

Progressives are already anticipating party perfidy. How, for example, some are asking, did a guy who was 11 points ahead in the polls the day before the election barely squeak by with 1.5%? Others half-expect a replay of the scenario from a couple of decades ago, when neoconservative Sen. Joe Lieberman lost his Connecticut primary to a progressive, only to launch an independent bid supported by the Democratic establishment against its own nominee.

No one on the left believes the national Democratic establishment will send its big guns to Michigan to campaign for El-Sayed, as they did for his primary opponent Haley Stevens, much less throw him some significant campaign funding.

It is an article of faith among the left base of the party that centrists would rather lose to Republicans than to progressives. "Blue no matter who," after all, has always been a one-way street. When the nominee is a corporatist, progressives are successfully bullied into falling in line. When the primary winner turns out to be progressive, however, stabbing them in the back is standard operating procedure.

The Clintonite corporatist organization, Third Way, has already announced a $15 million spending spree to fight a "war" against left-leaning Democrats in order to sabotage their candidates, allow Republicans to win and discredit the young voters who support the Democratic Socialists of America. Among Third Way's complaints: Young voters aren't pro-war enough. "How this discrediting campaign will affect the current midterm cycle -- potentially undercutting Democratic nominees in swing-state races and undermining the party's chances of retaking Congress -- remains unclear," The New York Times reports.

Establishment Democrats could do something that establishment Democrats rarely do: Surprise us. Embrace their own voters.

They could send Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Sen. Chuck Schumer and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to Michigan to campaign hard next to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders to convey to everyone, including the reluctant Black voters who supported centrist Stevens in the primary, that it's both safe and important to vote for El-Sayed. They could shake down George Soros for a hefty campaign contribution. They could pull out all the stops in order to convey the message that this Democratic Party prioritizes electing Democrats more than it cares about centrist/corporatist control of the party apparatus.

If there was ever a time to break the ugly tradition of DNC conservatives shivving the progressives who provide all the energy and ideas for the party, El-Sayed is a surprisingly safe option. For one thing, he's not a self-declared democratic socialist. For another, he's not all that left. For example, he supports the authoritarian government of Ukraine, a favorite beneficiary of neoconservatives from both parties. He also opposes "defunding" the police.

True, he's not on Team Genocide. And he's Muslim. But this is Michigan, where the 2024 pro-Palestinian "uncommitted" movement was centered in a state with the biggest Arab population in the country. No one who supports Israel is a viable Democratic Party nominee in Michigan. El-Sayed is as easy a progressive to embrace as corporate Democrats will ever find; they should grab him and hold him in a bear hug if they want to keep their party together in the near future.

I do not, of course, expect national Democrats to take my advice. They rarely do. Should there be some wild impulse among those elites to allow sanity to prevail, however, here it is.

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Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the brand-new "What's Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems." He co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.