<Sourced via Facebook surfing:
A fair snapshot of the mood?>
<i.>
Never mind the pundits, here's the reality behind all their bollocks: voters in two major primaries will finally have their say, after endless months of media bloviating, record levels of dark money spending, and the usual standard issue wish casting will likely end up forgotten -- depending on tonight's outcomes.In this corner, you have Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary. It's one that pits its handpicked Establishment favorite, Haley Stevens, against the insurgent upstart doctor and former public health official, Abdul El-Sayed. In that corner, voters in Missouri's First District -- situated just outside of St. Louis -- will decide whether to turn out Democratic incumbent Wesley Bell, and replace him with Cori Bush, whom he ousted in 2024.
As it happened, the 2024 Bush-Bell matchup served as a harbinger of things to come. Its major legacy remains the $8 million that the notorious pro-Israeli lobby, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), successfully spent to oust Bush from office.
This time around, they're shelling out a smaller sum ($3 million), possibly because their attention is elsewhere -- judging by the mind-boggling $60 million that it's invested, along with its notorious Astroturf groups, particularly the United Democratic Project (UDP) -- toward the goal of preventing El-Sayed from winning his party's nomination.
This time around, they're shelling out a smaller sum ($3 million), possibly because their attention is elsewhere -- judging by the mind-boggling $60 million that it's invested, along with its notorious Astroturf groups, particularly the United Democratic Project (UDP) -- toward the goal of preventing El-Sayed from winning his party's nomination.
For space and practicality reasons, we'll focus on the Michigan primary, whose stakes are billed as so much existentially greater -- though, as Bush and her allies rightly point out, if she wins tonight, it'll mark the first successful reclamation of a seat back from AIPAC. That wouldn't be a small development, either, as Justice Democrats spokesman Usamah Andrabi notes (see link below):
"I think her victory this cycle would be monumental. We haven't had a lot of cycles to try this out, but this would be the first time that we would be able to take a seat back from AIPAC after they bought one and deliver it back to working-class people."
"I think her victory this cycle would be monumental. We haven't had a lot of cycles to try this out, but this would be the first time that we would be able to take a seat back from AIPAC after they bought one and deliver it back to working-class people."
But we'll focus more keenly on the Michigan primary race, even though there's a lot of overlapping factors between both races -- particularly the spending, which has become the story, much to the chagrin of Stevens and her claque of Establishment backers (Governor Gretchen Whitmer, former Congresswoman Debbie Stabenow, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and retiring Senator Gary Peters, to name a few).
In any event, the Guardian writeup (see link below) offers a crisp, detailed summary of the Bush-Bell rematch, which is no less bitterly contested than last time -- whether you favor Bell's perspective ("“I’m not a fan of Netanyahu, but I think it’s important to stand with all of our allies"), Bush's (“I credit the fact that we didn’t stop, that we grew the coalition, and then having the loss grew the coalition even more"), or voters tired of money buying elections ("“Blind support for AIPAC candidates is not leading us to anything").
In any event, the Guardian writeup (see link below) offers a crisp, detailed summary of the Bush-Bell rematch, which is no less bitterly contested than last time -- whether you favor Bell's perspective ("“I’m not a fan of Netanyahu, but I think it’s important to stand with all of our allies"), Bush's (“I credit the fact that we didn’t stop, that we grew the coalition, and then having the loss grew the coalition even more"), or voters tired of money buying elections ("“Blind support for AIPAC candidates is not leading us to anything").
However Missouri's rematch goes, there seems little question that AIPAC's initials are becoming as politically toxic as AI, and its champions' promotions of the data centers needed to impose their consumer surveillance state. But we'll touch on that matter shortly.
<Republican Fearmongering, Exhibit A-Z
(...Some Things Never Change)>
<ii.>
In many ways, El-Sayed's background is much a study in contrasts as the dynamics of the race that's pitted him against Stevens. Critics complain of struggling to square the signature chant of his rallies ("Money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare For All!") with an educational background that includes some of the marquee names of higher education (University of Michigan, Oxford, and Columbia, where he completed his medical degree).
They also question, as Steven does, if someone who's written three books, hosts a public health podcast ("America Dissected, With Dr. Abdul El-Sayed"), and owns multiple rental properties in Ann Arbor, Dubai, and India -- worth an estimated $500,000 -- can claim to genuinely champion working class interests. It's a fair question worthy of a fair answer, though the nitty-gritty of such accusations is more complicated, as we'll see momentarily.
The short answer is that El-Sayed appears to have seized the momentum more successfully in his direction. His basic platform -- including a data center moratorium, Medicare For All, redirecting our $4 billion aid for Israel toward domestic priorities, refusal to take corporate donations, trimming Big Tech's sails, and a wealth tax -- ticks all the relevant progressive boxes as well as a popular discontent that's never seethed more strongly against the billionaire class striving so hard to buy Stevens the promotion she seeks, from Congresswoman, to U.S. Senator.
They also question, as Steven does, if someone who's written three books, hosts a public health podcast ("America Dissected, With Dr. Abdul El-Sayed"), and owns multiple rental properties in Ann Arbor, Dubai, and India -- worth an estimated $500,000 -- can claim to genuinely champion working class interests. It's a fair question worthy of a fair answer, though the nitty-gritty of such accusations is more complicated, as we'll see momentarily.
The short answer is that El-Sayed appears to have seized the momentum more successfully in his direction. His basic platform -- including a data center moratorium, Medicare For All, redirecting our $4 billion aid for Israel toward domestic priorities, refusal to take corporate donations, trimming Big Tech's sails, and a wealth tax -- ticks all the relevant progressive boxes as well as a popular discontent that's never seethed more strongly against the billionaire class striving so hard to buy Stevens the promotion she seeks, from Congresswoman, to U.S. Senator.
If its headlines are any sign, the legacy media's reaction to El-Sayed's surge -- most polls show him leading Stevens by a double-digit margin -- ranges from fuddled brow furrowing (New York Times: "Michigan's Tense Democratic Senate Race Poses A Big Test For A Divided Party") and wish casting (The New Yorker: "Will Left-Wing Democrats Reinvent the Party, or Hurt Its Chances in November?"), to blind panic (The Atlantic: "Abdul El-Sayed Fuses Together Two Toxic Ideologies").
The scarifying language of such headlines -- coupled with negative press that dutifully echoes Stevens's accusations of sexism, political dilettantism, and so on -- mirrors the fervent prayers of Schumer and his fellow Boomer Beltway mandarins, that this horrible "democratic socialist" virus is some hideous passing fad that will thankfully melt away, once the little people finally come to their senses.
The scarifying language of such headlines -- coupled with negative press that dutifully echoes Stevens's accusations of sexism, political dilettantism, and so on -- mirrors the fervent prayers of Schumer and his fellow Boomer Beltway mandarins, that this horrible "democratic socialist" virus is some hideous passing fad that will thankfully melt away, once the little people finally come to their senses.
The only problem with such reasoning, as El-Sayed has repeatedly pointed out, is that it ignores the rottenness of a system that gave Trump such a welcome space to enter the public square in the first place. If the root cause simply came down to voters missing a lecture or two on moderation, how does that hypothesis explain Trump's 2016 and 2024 victories?
If Schumer and company really think so, they may face a rude awakening from voters like Les Lukacs, who cited his lack of health insurance as the reason for casting a ballot for El-Sayed: ""We can barely afford groceries and gas. I have to make sacrifices - and healthcare is one of them." He doesn't plan to vote for Stevens if El-Sayed ends up losing; it's likely that his sentiment isn't an isolated one.
If Schumer and company really think so, they may face a rude awakening from voters like Les Lukacs, who cited his lack of health insurance as the reason for casting a ballot for El-Sayed: ""We can barely afford groceries and gas. I have to make sacrifices - and healthcare is one of them." He doesn't plan to vote for Stevens if El-Sayed ends up losing; it's likely that his sentiment isn't an isolated one.
This reality on the ground is what the punditocracy and its Washington allies seem unable to grasp. When polls show that half of Americans struggling to afford groceries -- and four in 10 cite gas prices as a "significant source of stress" in their lives -- is it really so surprising that voters are tiring of cautious incrementalism as a cure-all for those ills, especially as the basic disease (hint: rampant levels of inequality) continues to get worse?
Why should anyone expect us to tolerate a system that delivers so little, and inflicts so much pain, presided over by a political class that seems hellbent on wrecking our lives beyond repair, even as it refuses to invest the minimal effort of sweeping up the resulting hot mess? Those who insist otherwise do so at their peril...to put rather midlly.
<A Rogue's Gallery To End All Rogue's Galleries:
A Summary Of Corporate Donors Funding Stevens's Campaign:
Is This What She Means By "Having The Receipts?">
<iii.>
If Abu El-Sayed comes across as the cocky overachiever -- one who's variously dissed his opponent as "the least capable candidate in America," and "a suit with a large AIPAC bank account" -- Stevens seems more like the peremptory prom queen who doesn't understand why nobody loves her anymore, once she's successfully stuffed the ballot box.
It's the reason, perhaps, why she picks public fights about the authenticity of her accent -- as if "sounding Michigan" is sufficient grounds for lifting her over the finish line ("Let's be real. They're making fun of Michigan," she told the BBC. "They're thinking they're better than us.")
The four-term Congresswoman often seems brittle and defensive on the campaign trail, particularly when reporters and voters press her to justify the corporate largesse being lavished so openly on her behalf -- including $30 million from AIPAC, and $30 million from its various Astroturf groups. Call it the "Justin Timberlake" theory of politics, which focuses on carpet-bombing of images, memes, and slick 30-second ads -- all banking on the idea that even if you don't end up saying "yes," or "uncle" (depending on the circumstance), someone close to you might.
Stevens's go-to response, whenever AIPAC comes up, is avoidance -- as seen from video clips of an appearance in Traverse City, that she abruptly called off, on hearing that influencer Troy Masterson might try to bring it up. You can find them without trouble, I'm sure.
The strangest aspect of the Traverse City affair -- as Masterson and other Stevens critics have pointed out -- is that it forced the scuttling of an event for supporters. Like it or not, disruption goes with the political territory, so if Stevens think it's getting weird already, she may want to get out now. Obviously, that's not happening yet, but so runs the logic of the entitled. Right? Whatever they want, they think it belongs to them -- and hell hath no fury to those who suggest otherwise.
Her campaign materials also play fast and loose with basic facts, whether it's the commercial edited to suggest that former President Obama endorses her (he did, but only for her 2018 and 2020 House races), or suggesting that El-Sayed continued to urge the Uncommitted movement against endorsing the Democrats' 2024 losing nominee, Kamala Harris (he didn't).
She has also thrown shade in El-Sayed's direction for allegedly being demeaning and disrespectful of women, focusing on criticisms of Whitmer and former First Lady Michelle Obama -- though some basic fact-checking from Bridge Michigan casts doubt on these claims as misleading, or relying on a fog of innuendo without specific examples to back them up (see link below).
How well such attacks stick will become apparent soon enough. But the real reason for Stevens's impatient defensiveness may boil down to the basic disconnect that voters like Saline Indivisible organizer Naomi Ernst -- leading the fight against a data center in her township, that Whitmer actively promoted there -- already recognize:
"You see politicians promising to work for you, and then when it comes time to do something...nothing ever actually gets done, or they kind of go rogue like Whitmer has. If you look at what Dr. El-Sayed says about following the money, it makes perfect sense."
We think so, too.
It's the reason, perhaps, why she picks public fights about the authenticity of her accent -- as if "sounding Michigan" is sufficient grounds for lifting her over the finish line ("Let's be real. They're making fun of Michigan," she told the BBC. "They're thinking they're better than us.")
The four-term Congresswoman often seems brittle and defensive on the campaign trail, particularly when reporters and voters press her to justify the corporate largesse being lavished so openly on her behalf -- including $30 million from AIPAC, and $30 million from its various Astroturf groups. Call it the "Justin Timberlake" theory of politics, which focuses on carpet-bombing of images, memes, and slick 30-second ads -- all banking on the idea that even if you don't end up saying "yes," or "uncle" (depending on the circumstance), someone close to you might.
Stevens's go-to response, whenever AIPAC comes up, is avoidance -- as seen from video clips of an appearance in Traverse City, that she abruptly called off, on hearing that influencer Troy Masterson might try to bring it up. You can find them without trouble, I'm sure.
The strangest aspect of the Traverse City affair -- as Masterson and other Stevens critics have pointed out -- is that it forced the scuttling of an event for supporters. Like it or not, disruption goes with the political territory, so if Stevens think it's getting weird already, she may want to get out now. Obviously, that's not happening yet, but so runs the logic of the entitled. Right? Whatever they want, they think it belongs to them -- and hell hath no fury to those who suggest otherwise.
Her campaign materials also play fast and loose with basic facts, whether it's the commercial edited to suggest that former President Obama endorses her (he did, but only for her 2018 and 2020 House races), or suggesting that El-Sayed continued to urge the Uncommitted movement against endorsing the Democrats' 2024 losing nominee, Kamala Harris (he didn't).
She has also thrown shade in El-Sayed's direction for allegedly being demeaning and disrespectful of women, focusing on criticisms of Whitmer and former First Lady Michelle Obama -- though some basic fact-checking from Bridge Michigan casts doubt on these claims as misleading, or relying on a fog of innuendo without specific examples to back them up (see link below).
How well such attacks stick will become apparent soon enough. But the real reason for Stevens's impatient defensiveness may boil down to the basic disconnect that voters like Saline Indivisible organizer Naomi Ernst -- leading the fight against a data center in her township, that Whitmer actively promoted there -- already recognize:
"You see politicians promising to work for you, and then when it comes time to do something...nothing ever actually gets done, or they kind of go rogue like Whitmer has. If you look at what Dr. El-Sayed says about following the money, it makes perfect sense."
We think so, too.
<What's that old saying again?
"One picture is worth a thousand words...">
<iv.>
"One picture is worth a thousand words...">
<iv.>
But let's set all this stuff aside, for one hot minute. One of the final ironies of today's Michigan primary is that El-Sayed's potential path towards a historic victory -- which would come in November, as Michigan's first Muslim Senator -- is also one being increasingly used as a cudgel to disqualify him. It's the centerpiece of Stevens's argument, after all, that she is the safer bet against Republican Mike Rogers.
On a certain level, El-Sayed's previous experience is slender, based on two stints as director of public health in Detroit (2015-17), and Wayne County (2023-25) -- offices that are worlds apart, Stevens argues, from the messier power dynamics of Washington, D.C., that she already inhabits as an incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But that argument is equally easy to turn around. One of Stevens's major talking points is her presence on the team credited with saving Michigan's auto industry in 2009. It's the same feel good ad where you'll see the clever editing used to suggest Obama's endorsement of her current Senate campaign -- and while there's no question that win was significant, it happened almost 20 years ago.
Though the auto rescue played out in an economic climate just as brutal as our current one, two questions are worth asking. What role did Stevens actually play? And how is her effort, such as it was, relevant in a climate of absurdly rampant levels of corruption, power abuses, and social inequity? If she's offered specifics on either point, we've yet to see them.
In contrast, wouldn't the Senate have benefited from the presence of someone like El-Sayed, when Obama crafted his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? Surely someone involved in crafting actual public health policy could have improved on a finished product that jettisoned the oft-touted "public option," in favor of buying off the health insurance industry's cooperation.
But how grand does that bargain look, now that Republicans in power have effectively gotten the repeal they narrowly achieved in 2017 -- simply because Obama's team failed to make the subsidies, on which its business model depended, a permanent proposition?
Various alibis have been raised to explain the oversight -- most of them beginning and ending with, "Those f#cking Republicans" -- but if you're caught in the same old, same old dispiriting shit sandwich that voters like Les Lukacs struggle to navigate every day, those alibis sound hollow, and unconvincing.
And, by implication, so do the endless repeated pleas of Schumer, Stevens, and all their enablers, in the Beltway, the public arena and the media, to wait just a little bit longer -- because, well, "help is coming, just around the corner." The only problem with this mantra is that learned helplessness -- or the constant reminders of it -- isn't a winning message in itself. The longer the stomach rumbles without an answer, the more likely the hungry voter is to tune out the message -- if not the messenger.
On a certain level, El-Sayed's previous experience is slender, based on two stints as director of public health in Detroit (2015-17), and Wayne County (2023-25) -- offices that are worlds apart, Stevens argues, from the messier power dynamics of Washington, D.C., that she already inhabits as an incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But that argument is equally easy to turn around. One of Stevens's major talking points is her presence on the team credited with saving Michigan's auto industry in 2009. It's the same feel good ad where you'll see the clever editing used to suggest Obama's endorsement of her current Senate campaign -- and while there's no question that win was significant, it happened almost 20 years ago.
Though the auto rescue played out in an economic climate just as brutal as our current one, two questions are worth asking. What role did Stevens actually play? And how is her effort, such as it was, relevant in a climate of absurdly rampant levels of corruption, power abuses, and social inequity? If she's offered specifics on either point, we've yet to see them.
In contrast, wouldn't the Senate have benefited from the presence of someone like El-Sayed, when Obama crafted his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? Surely someone involved in crafting actual public health policy could have improved on a finished product that jettisoned the oft-touted "public option," in favor of buying off the health insurance industry's cooperation.
But how grand does that bargain look, now that Republicans in power have effectively gotten the repeal they narrowly achieved in 2017 -- simply because Obama's team failed to make the subsidies, on which its business model depended, a permanent proposition?
Various alibis have been raised to explain the oversight -- most of them beginning and ending with, "Those f#cking Republicans" -- but if you're caught in the same old, same old dispiriting shit sandwich that voters like Les Lukacs struggle to navigate every day, those alibis sound hollow, and unconvincing.
And, by implication, so do the endless repeated pleas of Schumer, Stevens, and all their enablers, in the Beltway, the public arena and the media, to wait just a little bit longer -- because, well, "help is coming, just around the corner." The only problem with this mantra is that learned helplessness -- or the constant reminders of it -- isn't a winning message in itself. The longer the stomach rumbles without an answer, the more likely the hungry voter is to tune out the message -- if not the messenger.
It's a malaise that felt painfully familiar to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, and forms the backbone of one of his most cogent, well-written essays, "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" (see link below), famous for its citation of the white moderate as the greatest roadblock to civil rights:
"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Time will tell, if El-Sayed wins, on the long-term question of his ultimate electoral appeal But if he wins tonight? Then let these words ring long, and loud, and true, in the ears of those to whom "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" comes all too naturally, and too readily -- because they are more relevant and urgent now than ever, and the real reason for his surge.
So, on this night of all nights -- let us hope that the money does not stifle the many. --The Reckoner
"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
Time will tell, if El-Sayed wins, on the long-term question of his ultimate electoral appeal But if he wins tonight? Then let these words ring long, and loud, and true, in the ears of those to whom "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" comes all too naturally, and too readily -- because they are more relevant and urgent now than ever, and the real reason for his surge.
So, on this night of all nights -- let us hope that the money does not stifle the many. --The Reckoner
Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry, Before They Buy
What's Left Of Our Democracy Out From Under Us)
Bridge Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed
And Haley Stevens Make Final Push:
https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens-make-final-push-in-fierce-michigan-senate-primary/
Bridge Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed
And Haley Stevens Make Final Push:
https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/abdul-el-sayed-haley-stevens-make-final-push-in-fierce-michigan-senate-primary/
Bridge Michigan: Fact Check:
Ads Take El-Sayed Out Of Context...:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q0kkr6k2o
Ads Take El-Sayed Out Of Context...:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q0kkr6k2o
BBC: Michigan To Decide Bitter Senate Primary...:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q0kkr6k2o
MLK: Letter From A Birmingham Jail:
https://fee.org/articles/letter-from-a-birmingham-jail/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21607921915&gbraid=0AAAAADkIVmdaHsF8ZMO4kuB1RmT1dsetQ&gclid=Cj0KCQjwm8bTBhDWARIsAC9Hi8lgfU0buWG1F7IAgAOxq9fJbMrCo1wDo4DUsuqs0d-KwRYxAyylKrMaApYOEALw_wcB
The Guardian: Will Missouri Be The Next Primary Win
For A Democratic Socialist Challenger?:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/03/missouri-senate-primary-cori-bush-wesley-bell
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/03/missouri-senate-primary-cori-bush-wesley-bell
The New Yorker: Abdul El-Sayed's Argument For America...:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/abdul-el-sayeds-argument-for-america-and-against-his-own-party
WCMU: Haley Stevens Departs Rally:
https://www.wcmu.org/local-regional-news/2026-07-31/haley-stevens-departs-rally-amid-shouting-influencer-cancels-second-event
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/abdul-el-sayeds-argument-for-america-and-against-his-own-party
WCMU: Haley Stevens Departs Rally:
https://www.wcmu.org/local-regional-news/2026-07-31/haley-stevens-departs-rally-amid-shouting-influencer-cancels-second-event
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