“Jihadist,” “Muslim Brotherhood guy,” “on the side of the terrorists” — these are the kinds of smears Donald Trump is deploying against Abdul El-Sayed.
There’s the naked racism, of course, but also the insinuation that El-Sayed’s candidacy represents a national security crisis. “He would be the only senator that will have to go through a metal detector before he’s allowed to go into the Senate,” Trump said Sunday at a rally for El-Sayed’s opponent.
A quarter century after 9/11 and we still have to pass through metal detectors to get on a plane. Now the government wants your vote to pass through the same security theater, too.
Like Trump, Washington’s case against the 41-year-old populist candidate for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat doesn’t bother with policy or positions. It just says how dangerous he is to “national security” — and by extension, how unqualified you are to understand the dangers.
“Abdul El-Sayed’s radical ideology is a threat to our national security,” El-Sayed’s opponent, former Congressman Mike Rogers, said. Rogers is a former FBI agent and served as the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
The casual racism isn’t new, but the attempt to dignify it with security-speak is. It’s absurd on two levels. First, the rhetoric I’ve quoted isn’t saying any of El-Sayed’s policies or positions are dangerous; they’re saying he himself is, as if he’s going to take to the floor of Congress wearing a suicide vest. Second, it takes what is supposed to be an exercise of popular will and turns it into a “national security” matter that is technical in nature.
Imagine applying literally any other type of technical standard to a politician is and the absurdity becomes apparent. ‘Abdul El-Sayed’ — not his policies but the man himself — ‘is a threat to municipal wastewater management.’ ‘He’s a destabilizing influence on air traffic control.’ ‘He’s an existential threat to the nation’s bridge integrity.’
Saying a political candidate is a threat to national security is just as silly; but because it’s language we’re so used to hearing from Washington, the insanity of it barely registers. Washington loves the national security frame because it doesn’t stir up much interest among ordinary people, unlike issues like affordability and healthcare — the centerpiece of El-Sayed’s campaign. It’s a ploy to shift the debate from concerns that the public has to that of think tank “experts” and the professional commentators.
In one of the funnier demonstrations of this, the Washington Times recently published a letter to the editor from a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer raising the question surely on the mind of Michigan voters: can El-Sayed pass a background investigation for a security clearance?
Per the letter:
“I question whether he could pass even a basic security clearance review, let alone get within a mile of the kind of classified material to which Mike Rogers had accessed in the U.S. House.”
Set aside for a moment the creepiness of the idea that elected officials should need approval from the national security bureaucracy to know things, which isn’t a thing (yet). Imagine any other type of certification or credential being applied to an election. For example: ‘I question whether Abdul El-Sayed could pass a forklift operator certification, let alone get within a mile of the heavy machinery to which Mike Rogers had access.’
It’s laughable. And yet, it’s the go-to attack from not only El-Sayed’s opponent, but the President and other top officials, including sitting senators.
“Chuck Schumer could place Abdul El-Sayed on the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Senator Ted Cruz said recently, going on to warn of the grave danger to our beloved troops:
“He would have access to the very highest level of classified materials. And I believe, if that were to happen, there would be an unacceptably high risk that American servicemen and women, their lives would be endangered, and that our covert intelligence assets, their lives would be in danger because [there’s] every reason to believe Abdul El-Sayed would share that classified information with Muslim Brotherhood terrorists.”
Covert intelligence assets. Access to the very highest level. Classified information. Is this an election or a Tom Clancy novel?
In other words, you can’t vote for this guy not because of his policy positions or how he might vote in Congress but because he might divulge state secrets to an organization that he has consistently denounced. Oh, the horror (just in time for Halloween)!
Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, says much the same, warning of the “serious national security questions” raised by El-Sayed’s character:
“Abdul El-Sayed’s ties to this group raise serious national security questions. As senators, we have access to some of our nation’s most sensitive, classified information, and I have serious concerns about the security risks posed by anyone associated with such a group serving in the Senate.”
I could go on and on like this but you get the idea. It’s spitting in the face of not just El-Sayed but anyone who thinks they’re capable of choosing who to vote for without the help of mommy and daddy in D.C.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
