Even During a Must-Win Midterms Year, the Democratic Party Continues to Be Its Own Worst Enemy

3 min readOh, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the wee donkey, now every political figure in Michigan gets to pretend to be stupid until the party's senatorial primary on August 4.The two candidates—progressive Abdul El-Sayed and representative Haley Stevens, the establishment choice—took turns saying idiotic things over the weekend. First, Stevens contributed this gem to the ongoing dialogue,"Those cool kids on the Internet doing the cool kid chatter. Some of 'em might be the coastal elites, making fun of how I talk. . . . They're making fun of Michigan. They're thinking they're better than us. . . . Their jokes, and their criticism, only make me fight harder."Nothing like hearing a Democratic candidate spouting some culture war straight off the Fox News stable floor. You are not Michigan, lady. And Michigan has almost 3,300 miles of coastline. Knock this shit off, please.Not to be outdone, talking to donors, El-Sayed led with his damn chin. From Politico:“If I win ... well y’all came at me so now I get to come at you, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that,” he said, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by Politico. “Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different."Be real, pal. If you get elected, you are going to be a backbench Democratic senator. Whatever you may think of progressive Democratic politics, you folks aren't going to have enough power to exact revenge on the lunchroom staff, let alone on your fellow senators. Also, if you get elected, Job One is going to be repairing the damage done by the current conservative movement. Conventional Democrats wasted no time performing for the elite political media, which hates them.“Violent, vulgar threats have no place in a democratic electoral contest,” said Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.). “With political violence on the rise, we need to be doing everything we can to lower the temperature — not raise it. It’s the American people who suffer most when we degrade the political process this way.” Some took El-Sayed’s remarks as an attack on the party. Shannon Watts, founder of gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, said on X that El-Sayed “doesn’t mean Republicans.” Another gun control activist, Fred Guttenberg, wrote: “That is what Abdul El-Sayed and his DSA movement think of Democrats and the party.” Guttenberg—whose daughter was killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting—urged Michiganders to support El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, and “show AES the loss he deserves.”One more time!“Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism,” Neera Tanden, a centrist Democrat and president of the Center for American Progress, posted on X. Melissa Byrne, a former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called the remark an “unforced error” that is “really bad and beneath the progressive project.” She later deleted the post.And of course, El-Sayed's indelicate metaphor, and the reaction to it, gave the Republicans a chance to pretend they learned English 20 minutes ago.Republicans, too, jumped on the comment, with some leaning into stereotypes of El-Sayed’s religion as a Muslim. “Michigan Islamist discusses beheading his opponents,” said Steve Guest, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz, on X.(Brother Guest last appeared on the national stage when he was defending the Tailgunner's scarper to Cancun during the worst winter storm in Texas in decades.)Whoever wins this race, if he or she manage to avoid stepping on rakes all the way through to the general election, has one job and one job only: to repair the damage done to the republic over the last decade, to do it relentlessly and ruthlessly, and to shore up and reform the institutions of government so a similar pack of bastards can't gather in those institutions again.Jesus, eyes on the prize, people.