"Are you for America, or are you for these terrorist groups overseas?" Republican Mike Rogers demanded of his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, during Wednesday night's Michigan Senate debate.
El-Sayed called the attack shameful and invoked the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom. Alas, a question that should have invited a simple, unequivocal answer had once again become an argument about anti-Muslim prejudice.
The exchange exposed a problem with Republican attacks on El-Sayed. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called the Democratic candidate a "jihadist," and at one point deliberately called him "Mohamed" instead of Abdul. By treating a Muslim candidate as a suspected terrorist sympathizer, they are making it easier for progressives to avoid a legitimate and uncomfortable question. Why do some on the American left appear more willing to excuse Islamist extremism than comparable extremism on the right?
Some progressives who fiercely oppose Christian nationalism at home appear willing to rationalize Islamist movements abroad when those movements are fighting Israel or resisting American influence. Religious fundamentalism that would be condemned as authoritarian in an American Christian context can become, in an Islamist context, an expression of anti-colonial resistance. The question is why the same professed commitment to secularism and individual freedom sometimes seems to disappear when the religious extremists are on the other side of a geopolitical conflict.
And yet, by turning that legitimate question into a referendum on whether a Muslim candidate is secretly a jihadist, Republicans muddy the waters of a debate that deserves considerably more intellectual seriousness than they have so far afforded it.
The Muslim Brotherhood Question
Rogers has pointed to a 2012 letter signed by El-Sayed and 45 other Egyptian Americans supporting Egypt's newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi—a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood—as a signal that El-Sayed supports the organization.
The signatories urged Morsi to remove supporters of the ousted dictatorship from positions of influence. For critics, the letter suggests that El-Sayed was prepared to lend political support to a Brotherhood-led government despite concerns about the movement's Islamist ambitions.
Of course, supporting an elected president during Egypt's turbulent transition and endorsing the ideology of the organization behind him could be considered distinct facts. As of now, there is no evidence of El-Sayed having pledged allegiance, specifically, to the Muslim Brotherhood.
These aren't new allegations, and the fact that El-Sayed did not directly disavow the organization, although he has repeatedly denied having ties to it, until late last week does seem confounding.
Republicans raised questions about El-Sayed's alleged Brotherhood connections during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
On October 17, when a man at a town hall asked whether he would disavow the Brotherhood, El-Sayed finally supplied an emphatic public answer: "Sure, yeah, absolutely."
He then challenged the premise of the question, arguing that his Muslim faith was being used to cast doubt on his allegiance to the Constitution.
After years of accusations, an unequivocal public disavowal came just weeks before Election Day.
Still, let us leave the question of El-Sayed's personal loyalties where the evidence leaves it and consider the political argument getting lost in the commotion.
The Left's Islamist Blind Spot
The broader question that deserves to be analyzed is whether progressives apply their principles consistently when Islamist movements oppose American or Israeli foreign policy.
Hamas makes for the perfect example. Its October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel involved the deliberate killing and abduction of civilians. Yet some activists on the Western left have portrayed the attacks primarily through the language of anti-colonial resistance, minimizing the organization's Islamist ideology and its responsibility for atrocities.
Would those same activists show comparable indulgence toward a far-right Christian movement that murdered civilians in pursuit of its political goals?
Opposition to Israeli policy, of course, does not amount to support for Hamas. Many progressives have condemned both Hamas and Israel's conduct in Gaza. But shared hostility toward Western governments cannot excuse the conduct of movements whose religious authoritarianism conflicts with the liberal values progressives otherwise defend.
This isn’t an abstract concern. At Columbia University in 2024, student activists organized a "Resistance 101" event featuring Charlotte Kates of Samidoun and Khaled Barakat, a figure associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Kates publicly defended Hamas fighters. Meanwhile, New York's Within Our Lifetime movement has defended October 7 as Palestinian resistance and organized protests outside an exhibition commemorating victims of the Nova music festival massacre.
And then there is El-Sayed's own association with Hasan Piker, the progressive streamer who declared Hamas "1,000 times better" than Israel and once said America "deserved 9/11," a remark for which he later apologized. El-Sayed nevertheless campaigned alongside Piker at Michigan college rallies, apparently considering his enormous progressive audience worth the association.
El-Sayed has since distanced himself from Piker's inflammatory statements and said he would not campaign with him again. But why was someone who spoke so indulgently about Hamas considered an acceptable political partner in the first place?
The question is not whether progressives must agree with everyone they share a stage with. It is why the ideological boundaries they enforce so vigorously against Christian nationalism become remarkably negotiable when the extremism comes from those who share their opposition to Israel.
The Cost of Calling Everyone a Jihadist
Republicans weaken their case when they substitute insinuations about El-Sayed's religion for evidence about his political views.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee's Jihad Jeopardy campaign illustrates the problem perfectly. It combines El-Sayed's own statements with allegations involving relatives and associates, blurring the distinction between a candidate's record and guilt by association.
El-Sayed should answer questions about his past positions on Islamist movements and, at the same time, Rogers should substantiate his allegations.
It is the political equivalent of the boy who cried wolf: the more often Republicans raise the alarm without evidence, the easier it becomes to ignore them when a legitimate concern arises. And the more they portray El-Sayed as a jihadist, the easier they make it for progressives to avoid serious questions about their own tolerance of Islamism.