Abdul El-Sayed: Fear Not … I Was Only Talking About Putting Fetterman’s Head on a Pike

Nothing says commitment to reform like heads on pikes. Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has attracted national attention with his violent rhetoric about “choking out” opponents and his campaigning with virulent anti-Semites like Hasan Piker. However, his comment about hoisting opponents’ heads like an “ogre on a pike” was raised during last night’s debate with Rep. Haley Stevens (D., MI.). He assured voters that he was really referring to the head of Sen. John Fetterman (D., PA.) in defending his remark. Somehow, alluding to the beheading of a staunch defender of Israel was presented as far more reasonable than mass beheadings. That is what passes for a moderate in this age of rage.

Previously, El-Sayed declared, “Ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message.” That comment was widely interpreted as referring to Stevens, and he was pushed to reaffirm it with Stevens standing right next to him on the stage. That was not a good look, and El-Sayed offered his pike pivot.

He insisted, “I was referring to a guy named John Fetterman,” who El-Sayed suggested was elected as a liberal candidate before “completely throwing those values in the mud.”

So it will be Fetterman’s head, and everyone can calm down.

There is, of course, violent rhetoric on both sides of the aisle. When Steven Bannon spoke of putting the heads of Dr. Anthony Fauci and then FBI Director Christopher Wray, he was suspended on X.

However, there is an increasing level of violent rhetoric coming from the left and an increasing level of political violence.

It was a scene that has recurred throughout history, as establishment leaders are overtaken by the very mobs they sought to use for their own purposes. Of course, the pike was the enduring symbol of the Jacobins during “the Terror” of the French Revolution. It is now an image being picked up, with the guillotine, by the New Jacobins.

In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive pattern of prior establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they would be overlooked.

For years, Jeffries has joined other Democrats in fueling the rage on the left in the hopes of becoming the next House Speaker. Whether calling for supporters to “fight in the streets,” denouncing the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” or posting an image of himself brandishing a baseball bat, Jeffries sought to portray himself as a class warrior worthy of the mob’s support.

Other Democratic leaders followed suit — especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It was Schumer who yelled threats at conservative Supreme Court justices in front of the court. A deranged man triggered by such rhetoric in the media later attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Schumer and others portrayed their opponents as Nazis who threaten the very existence of democracy, and they stoked class conflict to inspire resentment for the wealthy.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now Minnesota’s attorney general — celebrated that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump and his supporters.

Pandering to the mob will not help. These establishment figures, including Hakeem Jeffries, are already being targeted by the rising DSA movement. Likewise, Buttigieg, Khanna, and others hope that they can offer up the Supreme Court to the radicals to prove their bona fides. It will not work. The posturing as class warriors will not satisfy these extremists for long, as many clamor for radical changes, including trashing the Constitution and our core institutions.

The Michigan primary is an example of how the mob gravitates to the most extreme figures in a race to the bottom. El-Sayed is the rock bottom of rage.

N.B.: The initial draft of blog referenced Fetterman as Jewish, which was corrected shortly after the posting. He has never listed a religious preference. I apologize for the error.