Jesse Watters can’t seem to stop admiring Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. The Fox News host loves to talk about how Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the Senate is “in great shape” and how “Abdul . . . beat the machine” — meaning the party establishment’s candidate, Rep. Haley Stevens — in a hard-fought primary. During an interview in August, Watters clearly enjoyed El-Sayed’s jokes and blunt speech, which included calling his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, a “beta,” and asking the host if he was circumcised when Watters tried to corner him on gender-affirming surgery for minors. The next day, Watters made no bones about El-Sayed’s appeal. “I like him,” he said. “I don’t want to like him. I like him for some stupid reason.”
But the reason was obvious. The doctor-turned-politician has an aggressive bro style that appeals to someone like Watters. Quick-witted with bulldog energy, El-Sayed never backs down from a fight. But despite Watters’ admiration, Fox News has become obsessed with taking El-Sayed down. It’s not because he’s Muslim, though Republicans are ratcheting up the racism in their efforts to derail his campaign. It’s because he is a model for how Democrats can escape their reputations for being weak and feckless.
They are handling it the same as they always do by being brain-dead mouth breathing racist shitbags
Turdpublicans are bullies. Of course they can’t handle it when someone punches them in the nose.
To be honest democrats are shitting themselves as well
Well, we need a lot more quick witted democrats because the majority of them are like deer in headlights.
They’re still shocked that the GOP won’t play nice.
Mamdani too, they don’t know how to counter it because they’re used to people being cautious after they speak, because they’re fucking insane. They mistake that for backing down.
Trump would love to admire his cock through an oddly worded monologue
This is the same reason why they’re so obsessed with Hasan. The right has benefited from a perception that men, or at least “real” men, don’t have a place on the left. It’s been a highly effective strategy that shifts things away from the actual issues and onto meaningless aesthetics, and which is partially responsible for the political gender gap, particularly among young men who are more impressionable in that way. Having at least a handful of men who can challenge that perception (provided it doesn’t fall into actual toxicity) is, from a purely pragmatic perspective, strategically invaluable.
The right understands the potential impact of such aesthetics better than many on the left do, and so they’re desperate to discredit such figures, and especially, to try to get liberals and leftists to denounce them, because the goal is to reinforce this narrative that men have no place on the left. Of course we shouldn’t let their narratives dictate our actions, but we should at least be aware of them and try to avoid playing into them. Know the enemy.
Of course we shouldn’t let their narratives dictate our actions, but we should at least be aware of them and try to avoid playing into them. Know the enemy.
In this case I think you’re correct, but in general we’ve spent way too long letting them dictate the terms of engagement
They’re going to attack our people, whether we give them opportunities or not. I think we need to worry less about playing into them, instead we need to bulldoze through their attacks like the petty insults they are
But I’m this case I fully agree - we need to stop taking the bait when they demand we disavow this guy or that group. It’s a loaded question… If you refuse to “disavow”, it sounds to the low info voter like you tacitly support someone who sounds bad and scary. If you do, it implies there’s some relationship there that you’re betraying. You can’t answer loaded questions,
We need to do more like El-Sayed did… Turn it back on them as the stupid question it is…“I haven’t heard you disavow the Muslim brotherhood, why are you asking me? We all know why you’re asking me, come on, say it”
Fucking Cinema right there
We need to do more of that… When you’re asked a loaded question, the only answer is make them look stupid for asking.
Ask why some twitch streamer matters. Ask them how many hours a day they’re on twitch. Demand to go through the audience one by one and avow or disavow each person together. Pick some of Trump’s biggest mistakes and ask them to disavow his choices. Bring up his friendship with Epstein. Ask if they’d commit to impeaching Trump if a video of him with a child comes to light
We need to stop letting them control the narrative, and better yet, create our own
Bro style? He’s a reserved person of color who knows any aggression will get him called a terrorist. The MF is so cool and collected it blows my mind. Standing up for yourself, caring about others, and not getting pulled into immature name calling isn’t being a bro. People forget what a real grown ass man looks like.
not getting pulled into immature name calling
He called his opponent a beta multiple times on his Fox News interview.
He definitely has a bro persona that he puts on to cater to certain audiences, which is good, a politician should be able to communicate with different groups on their level. Democrats do have a problem meeting young men / bros where they’re at. If him calling Mike Rogers a cuck gets more disaffected young men to vote for him instead of the Republicans I’m all for it
Bro has pretty much become a derogatory term on the left, but a ton of young men identify with that sort of culture and we can’t just call them all misogynists and cede them to the right if we want to win.
Yeah… intelligence and the truth scare the dogshit out of them. They’re good at name calling. That’s about their entire strategy. They really like name calling other people what they’re really doing. Trump says “dem election fraud” when in fact it’s his election fraud. Congress calls dem presidencies corrupt and full of fraud and instead it’s the republicans who have almost, ALMOST… overturned the American government.
Watch out though - those sorry redcoats resort to violence, because after all, America is ALMOST trump’s “mob” - and that’s how animals “rule”.
Republicans only know how to run against neoliberals…
If a candidate just wants to talk about progressive policy, they can’t counter it. Because virtually every American wants progressive policy
Because Republicans have become incredibly lazy and just resort to name calling. They say, “this guys a socialist” and socialists are like ya I am and the Rs have no response because they can’t define socialism and have no firm policy on anything thanks to Trumpism.
It’s very interesting to see their complete lack of answers when getting into a discussion about socialism with modern Republicans/MAGA. It’s always “socialism bad”, and when you ask why it’s all fear mongering crap. Trying to get them to explain why capitalism is better, if you can get a real answer at all, always results in them talking about things that inevitably came from public research, grants, etc. and were then co-opted by private businesses to make a profit.
Their go-to is usually the Internet. They never seem to know it was developed by DARPA and the NSF for military and scientific/academic communication and collaboration. That 99% of the internet operates om open source software.
Another go-to is how “great” healthcare is even in it’s bastardized form in the US, government death panels, etc. And never understanding that even private healthcare is socialism. Everything paying the insurance company premiums ends up paying for everyone else’s care, except a handful of assholes in the middle steal millions for themselves while denying legitimate claims (literal profit-driven death panels).
It’s always “socialism bad”, and when you ask why it’s all fear mongering crap.
Because that’s all they have. If the repugs actually started talking about the policies they want to implement half of their voter base would shit bricks and switch sides. So instead they create invisible boogymen and have their propaganda outlets shove that shit down their throats 24/7.
Which is exactly why the conservatives are trying to make this election about things like “men in women’s sports”.
Republicans only know how to run against neoliberals…
True for the party in general now, and MAGA specifically can’t debate against anyone with an actual opinion. As soon as they try, they expose the fact that all of their opinions are based on racism (disguised poorly if at all) or simply being contrarian to whatever their “enemies” want. If their enemies want it, it MUST be bad. They are completely unable to actually provide any reasons for their beliefs being better for people/society, or why other opinions are worse that don’t come back to those racism or “just because”.
A Democrat that doesn’t immediately fold on culture war issues. “Holy shit what do we do?? We had no plan for this!”
I keep seeing him addressed as “Dr.” What does he have a doctorate in? Just curious
Edit. He’s an epidemiologist. Hells yeah, man!
Roosevelt energy. Forward and unafraid + progressive pretty clearly wins in the US, historically. Seeing it again a century-ish later isn’t surprising but it does give a tiny spark of hope.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who noticed this. Him and Mamdani are brave people despite the bigotry. Their fighting prowess (which corporate Dems lack and it’s by intention from them) is what’s very needed to push against fascism.
If Democrats won’t fight for themselves, how can they be expected to fight for us? Time to follow Mamdani and grow a spine!
Dude is so spicy. I’ve never seen a candidate clap back as hard as he does.