<\/p>\n
In a July 19 interview<\/span> with a leading Democratic Senate candidate in the swing state of Michigan, CNN host Jake Tapper homed in on the U.S.\u2013Israeli war on Iran \u2014 but he didn\u2019t ask the candidate\u2019s thoughts on the hundreds of Iranian and Lebanese civilians killed, nor the possibility of U.S. war crimes, and not even 18 dead U.S. soldiers. Instead, Tapper posed<\/a>: \u201cWhy were you worried about offending people who support the ayatollah?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Tapper was pressing Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official who could become the first Muslim U.S. senator, on a right-wing outlet\u2019s story<\/a> exposing that he had expressed a desire to tread carefully because of potential differences of opinion among his would-be constituents. On a leaked campaign call, El-Sayed had said after Ali Khamenei\u2019s February assassination that \u201cthere are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,\u201d referring to the southeast Michigan city that is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the country. Given the ayatollah\u2019s brutality, Tapper\u2019s question implied, how dare El-Sayed consider that possibility?<\/p>\n As Michigan\u2019s August 4 Senate primary between El-Sayed and Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens draws near, he has faced a barrage of Islamophobic attacks ranging from thinly veiled policy critiques to outright racist caricatures. The two Senate hopefuls seem to embody the forked path facing the Democratic Party<\/a> ahead of the 2028 presidential cycle, with 43-year-old Stevens representing the old guard thanks to her backing by the party establishment and the pro-Israel lobby, and 41-year-old El-Sayed representing an insurgent movement skeptical of long-standing U.S. foreign policy interests and corporate capture of American politics. With the latter vision comes a form of fearmongering that\u2019s been endemic to American politics for decades.<\/p>\n Nancy Khalil, an anthropologist who researches Muslims in America at the University of Michigan, called Tapper\u2019s interview \u201csloppy and offensive\u201d and pointed out that the anchor\u2019s questions implied an assumption that because El-Sayed is Muslim and Arab, \u201che needs to have an opinion on this, and the opinion needs to align with whatever the media wants it to be.\u201d That assumption is \u201ccompletely racist,\u201d Khalil said.<\/p>\n It was only one example in a deluge of attacks El-Sayed has faced in recent weeks that peddle in Islamophobic tropes. The pro-Israel doxxing account StopAntisemitism<\/a> shared a post<\/a> in June claiming that a hijabi woman arrested by the Trump administration for allegedly making pro-Palestine graffiti was a former staffer of El-Sayed\u2019s, prompting right-wing agitator Laura Loomer to reply<\/a>: \u201cBAN Muslims from holding office in the United States.\u201d Replies to El-Sayed\u2019s campaign account often call him a \u201cterrorist<\/a>,\u201d \u201cradical<\/a>,\u201d or \u201cjihadist<\/a>,\u201d and deploy racist<\/a> memes<\/a>, including one<\/a>, likely AI-generated, showing El-Sayed and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., wearing vests strapped with explosives and green headbands to signify Hamas. The Michigan GOP has called<\/a> El-Sayed \u201ca terrorist sympathizer,\u201d emphasizing his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.<\/p>\n The attacks aren\u2019t limited to right-wing reactionaries and obsessives on the internet. Many are issued by one of the leading groups backing El-Sayed\u2019s Democratic opponent, Stevens: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee<\/a>, which has poured nearly $30 million into the race via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. One UDP commercial alleges baselessly that El-Sayed \u201cexpressed sympathy for a terrorist,\u201d and a mailer shared with The Intercept parrots the same. Others mention his decision to stump with<\/a> political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scholars of Islamophobia and Muslim American communities told The Intercept that both parties and their allies were resorting to Islamophobic and anti-Arab tropes in a race where Israel and Palestine has remained an animating force. El-Sayed has committed to ending military aid to Israel, drawing a stark contrast to Stevens, who famously said<\/a>: \u201cIsrael comes to me in my dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n The attacks against El-Sayed reminded Hatem Bazian, a leading scholar of Islamophobia at the University of California, Berkeley, of a critical moment in 2008, when Hillary Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign was accused of leaking a photo<\/a> showing Barack Obama wearing garb of a Somalian elder during a visit to Kenya, fueling conspiracies<\/a> that Obama \u2014 who is Christian \u2014 was hiding<\/a> his Islamic faith. Whenever an actual Muslim candidate is involved, especially if they oppose the Israeli government\u2019s policies, Bazian said, their opponents try to associate them with terrorism.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the election in Michigan, we\u2019re seeing the same type of playbook being played out,\u201d Bazian said. \u201cAnd what you\u2019re also seeing is that much of the Islamophobia gets to be expressed in the corners of the web.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet some prejudice has also been expressed in real life.\u00a0<\/p>\n At a meet-and-greet in Detroit with Stevens and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a school board member said she supports Stevens because she \u201crepresents all of us, not just one race.\u201d When pressed by local reporter Sam Robinson, who recorded the viral remarks<\/a>, the Farmington school board member elaborated: \u201cThe other candidate [El-Sayed] doesn\u2019t work a room. \u2026 Don\u2019t come out speaking only Arabic, don\u2019t come out with your Arabic music on.\u201d<\/p>\n The Stevens campaign has tried to distance itself from the most egregious attacks. When asked about the Smith remarks, a spokesperson for the campaign referred to a statement given to The Detroit News in which Stevens said<\/a> she did not share Smith\u2019s views and called her campaign \u201ca diverse and multicultural best of Michigan coalition\u201d She further claimed to have \u201crepeatedly stood up for and defended our vibrant Muslim American community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet Stevens\u2019s campaign has also capitalized on bigoted rhetoric used by Mike Rogers, the Republican likely to face whichever Democrat wins next month. The campaign drew from a private call<\/a> between Rogers and supporters during which he said of El-Sayed, \u201cI don\u2019t think he likes America, candidly.\u201d The Stevens campaign sent out a parody of a news release designed to look like it was from El-Sayed campaign, claiming that Rogers had endorsed El-Sayed and reproducing the Republican\u2019s quote: \u201cI think he\u2019s so radical. I think he\u2019s going to lose big parts of the west part of the state. We think we can do well in part of the southeast part of the state. I think we\u2019ll do well if he in fact is the nominee.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a statement to The Intercept, a spokesperson for CNN defended Tapper\u2019s question on El-Sayed and Khamenei\u2019s killing, which Tapper asked regardless of \u201cbackground or ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn this case, he asked Dr. El-Sayed about his comments regarding Iran\u2019s leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s death because he believed they warranted explanation as part of the public debate,\u201d the spokesperson wrote. \u201cProviding interview subjects the opportunity to address and clarify their views is a fundamental part of responsible journalism, and we reject the implication that there was any malicious intent or bias behind the question.\u201d<\/p>\n The El-Sayed campaign declined to comment on this story, but told The Intercept in April: \u201cI am not running to be \u2018the Muslim\u2019 anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am not running to be \u2018the Muslim\u2019 anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI\u2019m running to be able to serve people in my role as a U.S. senator,\u201d El-Sayed said at the time. \u201cI want people to have healthcare. I want them to be able to work a dignified job that pays a living wage. I want them to have childcare and senior care. I want them to be able to know that the things that they need in their lives are affordable. So, at the end of the day it\u2019s not about me. It\u2019s not about my faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Race and religion<\/span> aren\u2019t the only identity-related fault lines at play in the Michigan Senate race.<\/p>\n El-Sayed has \u201ca long history of disrespecting women,\u201d asserts another AIPAC-backed ad<\/a> launched in early July. According to the Detroit Free Press, a mainstream local paper that fact-checked<\/a> each of the ad\u2019s claims, the TV spot misrepresented El-Sayed\u2019s comments on figures like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whom he ran against in 2018<\/a>, by framing his critiques of Whitmer\u2019s ties to the healthcare giant Blue Cross Blue Shield<\/a> as inherently misogynistic. Whitmer, who is serving her second governor term, endorsed Stevens\u2019s Senate run on Friday with a little more than a week from the election.<\/p>\n Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, a Stevens supporter known for going after critics of Israel online, called El-Sayed\u2019s criticisms of Stevens and former opponent state Sen. Mallory McMorrow \u201csexist\u201d with little evidence beyond their respective genders \u2014 a comment that has since appeared in another<\/a> UDP ad. (Watts has said she didn\u2019t give the super PAC permission to quote her public social media comments.)<\/p>\n The new ad began its run within days of Graham Platner suspending his U.S. Senate campaign in Maine after he was accused of sexual assault<\/a>. Centrist and pro-Stevens operatives<\/a> have also tried to link El-Sayed with the Platner campaign, implying a guilt-by-association with left politics. Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich. recently told<\/a> Semafor that \u201cAbdul has a problematic record with women\u201d without providing any evidence, then repeated the claim on Tapper\u2019s show on Wednesday, parroting the Whitmer example from the AIPAC-funded commercial and saying his rhetoric carries \u201ca uniquely sexist bent<\/a>.\u201d Scholten also claimed that El-Sayed and Platner campaigned and fundraised together, though the two never<\/a> held a joint event and sent a total of two split-raise fundraising emails.<\/p>\n Khalil, the University of Michigan anthropologist, situated the ads as part of a long history of prejudiced tropes that paint Arab and Muslim men as controlling of women, and likewise stereotype Arab and Muslim women as subservient and docile.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing it come from within his own party,\u201d she said, \u201creproducing tropes that have just been around for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this month, El-Sayed called on his supporters to stop making \u201cfun of my opponent for things that have nothing to do with her policies or politics,\u201d likely a reference to superficial mockeries of Stevens\u2019s voice, calling the comments \u201cunkind and unhelpful.\u201d Some journalists<\/a> and advocates<\/a> for Palestine observing the race wondered why El-Sayed made the request when Stevens had not done the same<\/a> amid the wave of Islamophobia.<\/p>\n\n