Republicans wanted to paint Abdul El-Sayed as an extremist who was too extreme for Michigan, but in the state’s Senate race, it has been Republican Mike Rogers who has been weighed down by Donald Trump’s pro-billionaire extremist right-wing agenda.
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The GOP is relying on dividing Michigan’s electorate by using El-Sayed Muslim faith against him, but during an interview on MS NOW’s The Beat with Ari Melber, the Democrat was asked by Melber if he sees anti-Semitism as a problem that has to be guarded against on the right and the left.
El-Sayed answered:
Antisemitism is a scourge. Nobody should be discriminated against for how they pray or their ethnic background. Judaism and the Jewish people are a beautiful faith, beautiful people, and have made incredible contributions to our society, and I'm committed to the well-being of Jewish Americans in this country. I've stood alongside Jewish sisters and brothers.
I want them to understand that I'll stand alongside them as a US senator. And so yes, we have to put down antisemitism. It is critical for us to make sure that nobody is discriminated against. And I can tell you as, as somebody who is Muslim-American and has faced my own fair share of criticism simply because of how I pray, I don't want anybody in this country to be discriminated against for who they are or how they pray or how they love or how they identify- or the color of their skin.
We need to be able to stand up against antisemitism as a form of hate that is on the rise. And I want to be a champion of that as someone who understands what it means to be discriminated against and to offer that kind of solidarity alongside Jewish sisters and brothers.
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The politics of unity is a very different tone than what the country has been living with during the Trump presidency, but El-Sayed’s answer on data centers and AI was also revealing.
