I have long found Abdul El-Sayed to be one of the more interesting voices in politics.
I sometimes fret that, in an age of algorithms, people are becoming more algorithmic. As Arundhati Roy warns, in addition to the danger of bots replacing us, there is the danger that we will “turn into Chatbots. Maybe then there will be a transfer of souls. Then Chatbots will appear to be Real Souls and Real Souls will be Chatbots pretending.” In politics, the chatbot is a figure whose entire set of views is calculable from knowing any one view. Some call this coherence; I call it boring.
El-Sayed is not like this. Every time we speak, I am surprised. He is a true-believing progressive, but he lands in places you wouldn’t expect. We once had a conversation about the importance of patriotism that I won’t ever forget, and that distinguishes him heavily from his fellow progressives who seem to struggle to praise America.
He can also surprise you when talking about Trump voters. Unlike so many resistance liberals who cannot repress their loathing of Trump voters, forgetting that the whole point of politics is to win some of the people you have lost back to your side, El-Sayed has spoken about radical empathy for those voters and his desire to “win the peace” in America, not the war of all against all.
A public health doctor by training, he brings a lens to diagnosing our body politic that often strikes me as fresh and worth grappling with, whatever your own perspective.
Now that El-Sayed is running in one of the most controversial and closely watched Senate races in the country, in the state of Michigan, a growing number of Americans are getting to know him and his thinking. He is also making influential enemies.
I spoke to him yesterday between campaign stops. We talked about what he believes his race is a referendum on, what it’s like running against not only Congresswoman Haley Stevens but the mega-donors backing her, why moderation is a doomed tactic in his view, and why Gaza resonates with voters a world away on the Great Lakes.
The full video of our conversation is below. Click “Transcript” above for the text.
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