Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has spent recent weeks telling anyone who will listen that he is not a socialist — going so far as to embrace the "capitalist" label in an interview with The New York Times. But social media posts unearthed this week tell a very different story, and they come straight from the people who know him best: the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
According to reporting first surfaced by Fox News Politics and picked up by 930 WFMD Free Talk, the Detroit DSA chapter welcomed El-Sayed into its ranks with open arms in 2019, writing "Welcome to the team comrade" alongside a photo of the then-gubernatorial candidate. The post was not an outlier. After El-Sayed endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, the same account praised him again: "Thank you to our friend and ally Abdul El-Sayed for endorsing Bernie Sanders. Our movement is unstoppable."
Those are not the words of a free-market champion. They are the words of an organization that describes itself as socialist, welcoming one of its own.
A PATTERN, NOT AN ACCIDENT
The DSA posts track closely with the platform El-Sayed ran on during his 2018 gubernatorial bid — a campaign that included calls to seize General Motors plants after the company announced roughly 14,000 job cuts. Per the uncovered posts, El-Sayed "signed onto our bold demand to seize abandoned GM plants and convert them into green, public use." The DSA thanked him for the support, calling it "the courage and vision we need from our leaders to make the Green New Deal a reality."
That was not a one-time rhetorical flourish. El-Sayed has championed Medicare for All, tax hikes on the nation's top earners, and harsher penalties on businesses that, in his view, abuse natural resources. Those are the same planks the DSA has pushed for years.
In his Times interview, El-Sayed attempted to distance himself from the socialist label by explaining capitalism as "leveraging the laws of supply and demand to efficiently allocate capital expenditure." It is a definition that sounds like it came out of an economics seminar — and it conveniently ignores that the DSA itself has publicly claimed him as an ally.
MORE THAN JUST ECONOMIC REVIEWS
The unearthed posts go beyond economics. In March 2020, he blamed U.S. sanctions for contributing to Iran's COVID-19 pandemic.
Most alarmingly, he implied that the United States was responsible for the Taliban's takeover of Kabul, suggesting American actions created the conditions for the violence that ultimately killed 13 service members at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan.
These are not the musings of a moderate Democrat trying to win a general election in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since 1994. They are the record of a man who has spent years aligning himself with the most radical elements of the left — and who then tried to scrub that record when the general election arrived.
ROGERS CAMP RESPONDS
The campaign of Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who represents Alabama's 3rd Congressional District, has already highlighted El-Sayed's numerous ties to organizations accused of supporting terrorism — ties that Breitbart News has reported include campaign contributions from individuals affiliated with those groups.
Recent Fox News polling shows the race essentially tied, with El-Sayed at 50 percent and Rogers at 49 percent. Michigan voters will decide in November whether they believe El-Sayed's sudden conversion to capitalism — or the DSA's own words calling him a comrade.
"Thank you to our friend and ally Abdul El-Sayed for endorsing Bernie Sanders. Our movement is unstoppable." — Detroit DSA, 2019
The El-Sayed campaign has not responded to requests for comment on the unearthed posts. It is not yet known whether the DSA's national organization plans to formally endorse him in the Senate race.
Our Take
Patriots, this is how the game works. A candidate spends years telling one group exactly what it wants to hear — calling for the seizure of private businesses, praising socialism, blaming America first for the world's problems — and then, when the general election rolls around, he throws on a suit, sits down with The New York Times, and pretends he's been a capitalist all along.
The Detroit DSA didn't misread Abdul El-Sayed. They knew exactly who he was. They called him "comrade" because he earned it. They praised his calls to seize GM plants because he made them. The only question is whether Michigan voters will let him rewrite that history now that he needs their votes.
Mike Rogers isn't a perfect candidate — no one is. But the choice in Michigan is clear. One candidate spent the last decade fighting for border security, American energy, and the working families of this country. The other spent it apologizing for America, praising socialists, and trying to convince people he's something he's not.
Don't let the media tell you this is a close race between two moderates. El-Sayed is a self-avowed socialist who got caught. The only question now is whether Michigan patriots will hold him accountable at the ballot box.
Hold the line. Vote Rogers.
