Abdul El-Sayed's victory is not as important as what he defeated

Abdul El-Sayed claimed victory in Michigan's U.S. Senate race in the wee hours of Wednesday, Nov. 4, a result that no doubt left Republicans despondent.

But all sides should celebrate election night's biggest loser:

Fear.

There's no debate El-Sayed has some policies Michiganders of good will did and can continue to disagree over, from Medicare for all to the role of money in politics to whether America should continue providing weapons to Israel.

And questions about whether we can afford government-funded health insurance, whether campaign spending is a constitutionally-protected form of free speech, and whether Israel is worthy of our continued support did come up during the campaign.

But this fight, like so many across our Great Land these days, was too often waged on racist and ethnic tropes.

Democratic distortion

The attempt to stop El-Sayed by playing on prejudice started in the Democratic primary, when supporters of Congresswoman Haley Stevens ran ads propagating the stereotype that Arab and Muslim men oppress and abuse women.

There were plenty of policy differences for Democratic voters seeking to chose between Stevens and El-Sayed, ranging from their position on corporate political action committees (El-Sayed's campaign didn't take their money) to support for Israel (Stevens advocates continuing to provide military aid).

Yet, Stevens did not disavow the ad casting El-Sayed as a misogynist, which became ironic in the general election when she called on El-Sayed to disavow an ad by supporters asserting that eggs were expensive because the U.S. sent billions to Israel "for killing Palestinians."

Bridge Michigan compared the content of the anti-El-Sayed ad with the public record and determined it took El-Sayed's words "out of context to claim he 'disrespects women.'"

The ad also distorted El-Sayed's comments about an anti-obesity campaign Michele Obama supported to imply he criticized the former first lady. And it also created the impression that El-Sayed was one of the subjects of a lawsuit accusing a health care institute where he once worked of committing sex, age and race discrimination.

Bridge Michigan reported that El-Sayed was not a defendant in the lawsuit, and was merely mentioned as someone who said he looked forward to working with other young medical professionals, and as an example of the director's "tendency to hire younger, less experienced men over more qualified women candidates."

"The examples referenced in anti-El-Sayed ads don’t back up claims that he has a pattern of disrespecting women," the nonprofit newsroom ruled.

When Bridge Michigan asked Stevens about the ads, she said she would let El-Sayed “answer for himself,” but suggested he’s “taken shots” at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other women in politics. (El-Sayed ran against Whitmer in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary, finishing second.)

“We can do better than that,” Stevens said.

Democratic primary voters decided they could do better than Stevens in the U.S. Senate race against Republican Mike Rogers. 

Truth adjacent

I've been listening to politicians and political operatives twist words to score points for more than three decades.

Still, I couldn't quite believe my ears when, in the absence of any evidence linking El-Sayed to terrorist groups, I heard critics refer to him as "terrorist-adjacent."

The implication was "if El-Sayed isn't a terrorist, he's close to them" — whatever that means — and, consequently, unfit to serve.

Republicans from Rogers to President Trump repeatedly relied on innuendo as they accused El-Sayed of being a threat to American security and, if not a terrorist himself, sympathetic to terrorists.

Rogers even dragged El-Sayed's birth mother — who was born in Egypt, but was divorced from his father when El-Sayed was young — into his contorted contention that El-Sayed could not be trusted.

Trump went even further.

While campaigning last week in Port Huron, the president called El-Sayed a "jihadist" who was "on the side of the terrorists" and who would "have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the Senate."

Trump even compared El-Sayed to the hijackers responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Again, all without any evidence.

We've become accustomed to Trump making these kind of absurd and offensive accusations over the past decade.

But Rogers, who differs from El-Sayed on everything from universal health care to alternative energy, used to be a conservative Republican congressman whose measured tone, well-reasoned views, and bi-partisan approach on subjects ranging from international affairs to fiscal policy played well when he appeared on national news programs.

Rogers did spar with El-Sayed over their policy differences in two televised debates. But as the campaign entered the homestretch, and polls showed Rogers trailing, his desperate attempt to close the gap seemed to rely on ratcheting up his rhetoric over El-Sayed's "supposed" links to terrorists.

Among those tenuous ties were an opinion piece El-Sayed wrote in 2011 supporting pro-democracy protesters and a letter he signed in 2012 supporting the recently-elected president of Egypt. El-Sayed did not express support for the Muslim Brotherhood in either piece.

Yet when Rogers was asked during a Sunday, Oct. 25 appearance on "Meet The Press" to explain a comment he made in 2012 expressing an albeit reluctant willingness to work with moderate members of the Muslim Brotherhood, he became unhinged.

"I don't understand the national press," he told host Kristen Welker moments later. "They have to twist themselves in knots to understand Abdul's relationship with the thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood."

El-Sayed's ties to controversial influencer Hasan Piker, who has made incendiary comments about the 9-11 attacks and Israel, as well as El-Sayed's assertion that Israel and Iran are equally dangerous to America provided fodder for his critics. And it has been reported that his half-sister wrote on social media in 2012 that "my family has long been MB" (which is apparently short for "Muslim Brotherhood").

But I suspect El-Sayed, like many of us with half-siblings, doesn't speak for them.

And I suspect that El-Sayed, like many of us with half-siblings, doesn't control what they say — let alone endorse all of it. (El-Sayed did disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, by the way)

Nevertheless, with the price of gas and groceries soaring, and the war in Iran simmering, El-Sayed was continually asked to denounce groups he never belonged to, as well as proclaim his patriotism in a way that other candidates were not.

Critics missed the point when they faulted El-Sayed for turning the tables on a Republican operative who asked him at a forum if he denounced the Muslim Brotherhood. The ensuing debate should not have been about whether El-Sayed denounced them vociferously enough, it should have been about whether anyone should have assumed he supported them in the first place just because he is Muslim.

I'm mostly Irish. I lived in Ireland. I have relatives in Ireland. I visit regularly. I have dual citizenship. And I want to see the six counties in Northern Ireland that are part of the United Kingdom reunited with the 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland.

Yet, no one has ever asked me whether I support the Irish Republican Army.

There are countless positions that separate our political parties, and that drive us to support one or the other.

Those differences are diminished when candidates try to win elections based on the way we look, the way we love, the way we pray and where our families come from.

When he took the stage at the Hudson's building in downtown Detroit at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4 to claim his historic victory, El-Sayed said: "Rather than try to unite us to contend with the price of gas and groceries, the opposition decided to tried to divide us. At first, they pointed to my name and my faith.

"When that didn't work, they went all in on one of the ugliest campaigns we've seen in our lifetimes."

That campaign is over.

If we are to move forward together — not always in agreement, but agreeably and sticking to the issues — El-Sayed's victory is not as important as fear's defeat.

"To all the parents who struggle to explain why the president mocks someone for their name and how they pray," El-Sayed said, before the assemblage began chanting his name again, "let them know tomorrow that the bad guys lost."

Now it's up to us to decide whether tomorrow starts today.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, director of student investigative reporting program Eye On Michigan, and host of the ML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick