El-Sayed Is the Arab Obama

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

11 Aug 2026

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MAGA bigotry does not make Abdul El-Sayed a friend of progressive politics. (Image: Truth Social)

The Democratic Party will recalibrate its messaging after its well-funded senate candidate in a Michigan primary lost to Abdul El-Sayed, who by his own admission is a capitalist, not a socialist, and a supporter of U.S. wars. El-Sayed is following in the footsteps of another charismatic neo-liberal imperialist.

Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan Democratic Party Senate primary contest despite constant Islamophobic and zionist attacks. The physician and former public health official raised $14 million in defeating his opponent Haley Stevens, a sitting member of congress who raised more than $60 million. Stevens was the beneficiary of the American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC) and a Super PAC formed on her behalf, and therein lay a huge problem.

After nearly three years of witnessing Israel’s war crimes committed in Gaza, most people in this country now view that state in a negative light and AIPAC’s fund raising prowess is more of an electoral hindrance than it is a help. Stevens hadn’t yet received that memo and proclaimed her allegiance to Israel at every opportunity, at one point proclaiming, “I will continue to fight for the people of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel’s existence. Israel comes to me in my dreams.” What Stevens thought was a campaign trail stemwinder sealing the deal instead made her both a laughing stock and a victim of the rising resentment over Israeli interference in U.S. politics.

AIPAC power doesn’t work like it used to, nor does sending out the party’s “old heads” like James Clyburn, or endorsements from Democratic Party leadership. The party is fast losing legitimacy with millions of its voters, who were always more to the left than their establishment figures and who are now determined to chart their own course after watching Joe Biden support genocide, surrender promised legislation to the oligarchy, allow Covid-era safety net programs to disappear, and then leave his reelection campaign after being kicked out by the zionist donor class, and endorsing the hapless Kamala Harris who went down to defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. El-Sayed was then perfectly positioned to pull off a victory but the possibility that he will defeat the republican in the general election and become a United States Senator may be a cause for caution because we have seen this movie before and we know the ending.

When Barack Obama was president this columnist would often joke that he must have paid antagonistic media like Fox News, and right wing commentators like Rush Limbaugh to vilify him at every turn. Often leftist critiques of Obama would disappear when racist and crude criticisms were loudly expressed against him. Obama actually benefited from his loudest detractors. And therein lies a warning about El-Sayed.

Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters are going all in on Islamophobic attacks against El-Sayed. A comical Truth Social post shows a photograph of Donald and Melania Trump next to a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku. The caption reads, “Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s.” There are many differences between the two couples such as the fact that Trump cheated on his wife, a former skinmag model, with a porn star. El-Sayed's wife is a physician whom he met in college.

Apparently Dr. Jukaku’s hijab or the fact that she and her husband are Muslims with family origins in Egypt and India, are supposed to raise hackles. Red meat for MAGA and bad grammar (there was no need to make the word America a possessive) is what we have to look forward to. We can also expect knee jerk defenses of El-Sayed because of racist attacks, instead of the disciplined analysis that we need.

Politics in this country have been moving to the right for the last 50 years, and discourse has narrowed so much that there is unjustified happiness when there should be doubt. It was easy to be impressed with El-Sayed as he deftly took on question after question about Israel. "Nobody ever asks whether Palestine has a right to exist. Israel exists. A better question is: Does Israel have a right to our tax dollars?"

He was spot on in gauging voter sentiments with those words but a closer look shows that El-Sayed is not the progressive champion that his campaign marketed. El-Sayed is squarely in line with the Democratic Party oligarchy on other foreign policy issues. He is in favor of continuing what is now $195 billion in aid to Ukraine, or rather, to the military industrial complex. He sounds like every other establishment democrat on this issue.

“When we’re talking about taking on Putin and his violation of international law I do believe we have a responsibility to uphold international law and therefore to support Ukraine in its efforts.” The bottomless pit of public money for a dangerous proxy war against Russia could pay for the Medicare for All that El-Sayed says he supports. On the subject of U.S. intervention in Venezuela El-Sayed sounds pretty much like the rest of the people who may be his colleagues in the senate. When the U.S. kidnapped president Maduro he stated the obvious about U.S. motives but felt the need to take liberal potshots at the man who now sits in jail in New York City in violation of international law.:

“Maduro is a terrible dictator who oppresses people. Of course he sucks. But so do so many of the thugs Trump so gladly does business with—Sisi, Netanyahu, Milei, Bukele, etc. So why Venezuela? Fentanyl? He pardoned a drug trafficker. The answer is oil and only oil.”

Nor is El-Sayed a Democratic Socialist. “I am not somebody who is a socialist. I believe in capitalism. I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated.” It isn’t clear what that means, but the Senate is the graveyard of even mildly reformist positions. Even if El-Sayed wins in November there will be little reason for leftist or even “leftish” rejoicing.

The decades-long rightward shift has caused even progressives to narrow their world view and to lower their expectations. We should not be lured into El-Sayed love because people like Congresswoman Nancy Mace, famous only for Islamophobic screeds, declare that El-Sayed and every other Muslim official is a “Trojan horse” who threatens “national security.”

Our vision should be larger. Cutting off funding for Israel but continuing it for the Ukraine proxy war is not impressive in any way and should be held up as some kind of progress. Nor is embracing politicians who stand for what El-Sayed allegedly opposes. Kamala Harris quickly endorsed El-Sayed after the primary and he embraced her right back.

Their mutual-admiration society is not surprising. He endorsed her during her 2024 presidential campaign and even lied about her actions in relation to policy on Israel. “Joe Biden flew to Israel to embrace Netanyahu. Kamala Harris boycotted him. She sees the opportunity for a clean break on policy in Gaza—embracing the humanity of the Palestinian people over the brutality of Netanyahu. Winning Michigan will require her to build on this.”

If by boycotted he means that she didn’t preside over the senate during Netanyahu’s 2024 speech before congress he is correct. But she met with him privately at the white house immediately after the speech and that means El-Sayed was not telling the truth.

But if he can be thought of as the Arab Obama we need look no further than Barack Obama himself, the ultimate neo-liberal and imperialist who successfully marketed himself as a progressive. The two men recently had a “warm and inspiring conversation” and El-Sayed expressed hope that Obama would campaign with him.

His victory was not lost on the Democratic Party establishment which quickly learned to correct course and join the guy they couldn’t beat. Of course Kamala Harris endorsed him and Obama called him. The establishment now realizes that tons of AIPAC cash and endless prostrating towards Tel Aviv are losing propositions. El-Sayed is the democrats’ nominee for a U.S. Senate seat and leader Chuck Schumer may have endorsed Stevens but is now behind El-Sayed. The democrats and their oligarchs aren’t stupid. They know they must recalibrate their message. They are still neo-liberal and are still imperialists and they know that their voters are not. El-Sayed is forcing a course correction of narrative and not different politics.

Perhaps the critiques should be directed more towards people who think of themselves as leftists and not at politicians who behave in the ways they always have. If it can be said that Obama fooled millions of democrats, these same people apparently like being fooled because they are swooning over El-Sayed with selective amnesia.

We should not shrink our political vision because politicians want us to. Our job is to make demands at every stage of the political process. Every candidate must get a thorough vetting, especially from Black voters, who must free themselves from feeling as though they are locked into a hopeless death spiral with democrats and instead see themselves as free people who can assert rights of self-determination and make aspiring candidates think twice about selling themselves as something they are not. Politics in the U.S. can make fools of us all if we are not careful.

Bernie Sanders endorsed El-Sayed, and our late Black Agenda Report co-founder Bruce Dixon coined the phrase “sheep dog” to describe Sanders. “Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two party box.” The justified revulsion over Israel’s genocide and AIPAC’s political power should not lead to a Muslim senator who talks a good game to keep the sheep in line but who in the end cannot stand up to scrutiny or to the beliefs he claims to hold.

There is still time to turn the corner. El-Sayed needs a high turnout in a swing state in order to win. It is vital that he be told he cannot claim to oppose “forever wars” and also support the war in Ukraine, especially if he also says he wants Medicare for All. Michigan voters have a duty to themselves not to be herded by another charismatic and well marketed personality when they actually need real political leadership.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on X/Twitter, and Telegram. She can be reached via email at margaret dot kimberley at blackagendareport dot com.