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Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, is right in the middle of a self-inflicted crisis after cozying up to far-left influencer Hasan Piker — and Michigan Rabbi Asher Lopatin didn’t mince words calling that alliance poisonous for the party. Conservatives have watched this unfold with grim satisfaction: when a candidate flirts with extremists and then tries to gaslight voters about it, the voters notice and the party pays the price.
Hasan Piker’s public rhetoric has been incendiary, and his recent remarks about Jewish Americans and Israel have set off alarm bells across the political spectrum, giving Republicans an easy and legitimate line of attack. This isn’t about policing online culture so much as holding a candidate accountable for the company he keeps — especially when that company traffics in rhetoric many see as antisemitic and dangerously out of step with mainstream American values.
Religious leaders in Michigan, including several rabbis and community figures, have expressed real concern that El-Sayed’s reluctance to fully and forcefully disown those associations signals contempt rather than care for Jewish safety and civic harmony. That frustration is not fringe — it’s a substantive rift within the Democratic coalition that threatens to bleed votes at a moment when unity should be the priority.
Republican opponents are already exploiting the fissures, portraying El-Sayed as a nominee who cannot or will not stand up to the extremes in his orbit, and the strategy is working: swing voters recoil at candidates tied to incendiary online personalities. If the Democrats want to regain credibility in places like Michigan, they’ll need to stop elevating radical influencers who help their opponents define the party as unserious and hostile to mainstream Americans.
El-Sayed has attempted to tamp down the controversy, but distancing statements that wobble and equivocate don’t rebuild trust — decisive action does. Democrats who still believe winning requires appealing to the broad center should insist their nominees prioritize American unity and the safety of all communities over clout-chasing with fringe celebrities; otherwise the party will continue to hand contests to principled conservatives who stand for real national strength and common-sense values.
