A New Obama? The Media Starts Selling Abdul El-Sayed

pjmedia.com ^ | 9/5/2017 | Bruce Bawer

[rktman]

On August 24, the Guardian ran an unusually long profile of one Abdul El-Sayed, a 32-year-old Muslim doctor and son of Egyptian immigrants who is already campaigning heavily for governor of Michigan, even though the election won't take place until November of next year. The headline on Drew Philp's article dubbed El-Sayed “the new Obama.”

It was the ultimate puff piece, shameless in its utter lack of objectivity and balance, and it began, as such pieces invariably do, with an anecdote calculated to win sympathy for the subject. When he was seven years old, writes Philp, El-Sayed “sat in the eye of Hurricane Andrew,” drinking juice “while swaddled under mattresses between his father and stepmother, who was holding El-Sayed’s newborn baby brother just home from the hospital.”

What does this story have to do with anything? For Philp, it is a metaphor: “At the moment,” he suggests, “American politics feels a bit like being in the eye a hurricane.” Donald Trump is ready to attack North Korea; neo-Nazis paraded in Charlottesville. “No one man can stop the hurricane,” admits Philp. “But in Michigan, a grown-up El-Sayed is now having a go, trying to keep the storm at bay.” El-Sayed, you see, seeks “not just to win, but also to change American politics itself” by becoming “the first Muslim governor in US history.”

[bgill]

Any relation to the El-Sayed who killed his coworkers at the Health Dept. in San Bernardino?

[Buckeye McFrog]

I used to live in Michigan. Muslims are a sizeable minority there, but they are a minority. Increasingly their neighbors fear them. What this guy may end up doing is maximizing white Republican turnout.

[Maverick68]

Haha...cue “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who....cat doesn’t have a snowballs chance.

[2harddrive]

DACA is DemoCACA! What about TACO: Trump’s Action for Childhood Outsiders?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks rktman.

[Fred Nerks]

camel noses under the tent