Control of the US Senate hinges on a handful of races that, a year ago, seemed like complete longshots. Democrats would have to flip the House and Senate even as multiple state legislatures dominated by Trump-loyalist Republicans rushed to blatantly gerrymander their districts ahead of the primaries. Ultra rich billionaires were consolidating their hold on new and old media alike (and, somewhat ironically, still claiming their voices were being silenced). And if that wasn’t bad enough, polls across the country showed the Democratic brand was uniquely unpopular among potential voters.
But Trump and Republicans’ efforts to shape the midterms seem to have backfired. The open corruption and self-dealing of US President Donald Trump and his sycophantic Cabinet, and their collective incompetence, have left people literally poorer, sicker and more isolated in the world.
In Michigan this morning, there’s a cautious optimism that US government policies that, by and large, benefit US President Donald Trump could fall to a coalition of voters united by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
A progressive, a populist and an epidemiologist, El-Sayed, is the Democratic nominee for the Senate. His unlikely campaign has seen vile attacks from Republicans, and fellow Democrats.
On Sunday, I was smoking a cigarette with Rebecca at her home in Detroit when we got word that outgoing Rep. Haley Stevens was up the street, tooling around a predominately Black Pentecostal church with El-Sayed’s opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers. My colleague and I scrambled to the church where we found a scrum of reporters standing around outside asking one another the same question, “What the fuck is going on?”
While Stevens, El-Sayed’s opponent in the bitter primary earlier this year, was still inside the church with Rogers, an aide for Rogers walked over to the scrum and announced that Stevens had just posted a video to social media.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” the aide said, making it clear that this was all as much of a surprise to the Rogers campaign as it was to the shifting amorphous blob of cameras surrounding a small podium full of microphones.
This was seemingly confirmed when Rogers, upon returning to his waiting vehicle after the abrupt end to the impromptu press conference, let out a big sigh. Someone from behind the crowd had called Stevens a “traitor,” causing staff for both Stevens and Rogers to quickly wrap things up and usher them to their respective cars.
Rogers wore the look of a man running through the outcomes of a potentially monumental life choice. It was the face one wears when wondering if you have, maybe, quite possibly, fucked up.
Then as he entered his car, he picked his head up and stared directly down my lens. Fade out. Queue the music.
I spoke to a few people yesterday.
A college student at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) in Ypsilanti said he voted for El-Sayed in the primary because he simply didn’t trust Stevens. He said that Stevens’ stunt only confirmed his doubts. For him, data centers were the most important thing, and he went on (in great detail) about how one local township had found itself getting screwed over by a company that found a way to abuse outdated zoning laws to quickly set up a data center locals feared was polluting the environment.
“There’s one near my parents,” he said, “The noise is terrible.”
He wasn’t aware that El-Sayed was going to be speaking at his school with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. He was bummed that he had to miss it. He had class.
Shortly before the rally began, I watched a line of students stretching through the hallway of the building get turned away over capacity issues.
”It’s not us,” a security guard said. “It’s the fire marshal.”
Over in Detroit, a few hours before El-Sayed’s final rally at the Majestic Theater with the rapper Common, I was having a coffee. Two men, both service industry workers, said they were simply ready for the election to be done. One disliked the factionalism of politics, the “us versus them” system that he says prevents people from simply walking into a neighborhood coffee shop and chatting.
“Some of that is our fault,” I apologized (because I’m Canadian), noting that some of that rhetoric is fed by an independent news business that, while rough before, is now forced to compete with discount talking heads bullshitting into cellphones on social media.
PAYPAL AND VENMO BELOW!
The other said he was just sick of the election, and ready for it to be over. He also was voting for El-Sayed. He too didn’t trust Stevens in the primary.
“When she did that thing at the church yesterday, the flipping sides, or whatever,” he said. “That kind of just confirmed what I thought already, right? It seems pretty messed up.”
While checking into my umpteenth hotel, several hotel workers noted that they too were ready for the election to be over. They complained about being bombarded with unsolicited texts from both Democrats and Republicans begging for money. While they declined to say who they were voting for, they noted that many of the Republican ads seemed crazy.
“Everything is all this, like, scary stuff,” a worker said rolling her eyes and giggling. “‘They’re coming to get you!’”
”It’s such bullshit,” another worker said shaking his head. “I can’t vote for that. I live here, I know it’s bullshit.”
On the eve of the election, El-Sayed was holding his final rally at the Majestic. Common, the outspoken progressive activist, actor and rapper, was set to perform. The line to get in stretched around the block, and people were still piling in at 7 p.m. when the rally was set to start.
The rally featured many names from the top of the ticket, including Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield, Lt. Gov and nominee for Secretary of State Wayne Gilchrist, nominee for Attorney General Eli Savitt, as well as Sen. Warren and El-Sayed’s wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku.
El-Sayed’s closing message, a line he’d delivered in multiple stump speeches, is that people could call him names, and try to scare them, but he didn’t care. He argued that the mountains of attack ads only proved his point: that his opponents were scared he might continue building a coalition — a coalition built on a simple slogan he and the crowd called back and forth: Take the money out of politics, put money in pockets, and help pass Medicare for All.
Aight, we're off to vote. Hubby worked from home today so that he can go with me. As he does every election, he's wearing the little gold medallion of the Blessed Virgin Most Pure which his grandfather wore while fleeing Cuba from Castro's dictatorship to freedom in America.
Wish us luck and 𝗬'𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗩𝗢𝗧𝗘!!!
𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 — 𝗹𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗳𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀
𝘐’𝘮 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘯. 𝘞𝘩𝘰’𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-223042144