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., Mich.). He assured voters that he was really referring to the head of Sen. John Fetterman (D., N.J.) 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.
This all reminds me of an old “joke”, which is not really a joke: “There are two kinds of Muslims, radicals and moderates. The radicals want to cut your head off. The moderates on the other hand, knly want the radicals to cut your head off.”
Jon…Letterman is pa senator and Christian. Do better
Destroy fascist democrats…..now
Much harder in the 1940s…that was nazis
You often have minor typos I dismiss to rushing ideas out, but NJ and Jewish? Both wrong. Are you being lazy and letting AI write your stuff? Only reason I can think of for this major error unworthy of your substance. Stop it.
Sad to say, but I agree.
The DNC has sold its soul for power. The price? To accept money, violence, and hate.
It’s the pathetic lack of historical perspective that contributes to Sayed’s appeal to those who see him as a savior when, in reality, he and others of his ilk have moved into the west to conquer and subsume, thus fulfilling the Islamist goal of conversion and world domination.
So, what’s new? Democrats have expressed the same attitudes for decades and now it’s an issue? The good side is that they have become louder and braver and more militant. How is that good? Because they will push too far, feeling immune to retaliation. Then they will experience the consequences of the rebound. And they will be astonished at the response they provoked. Their doctrines will be buried for a hundred years.
Democrats opened their tent, and looneylefties marched in and took over. I hope Sen Fetterman takes this threat seriously, and switches parties.
Leftwing Fascists are the greatest threat to the American democratic republic in history. The intolerant Muslims have made a pact with the intolerant National Socialists to destroy Western Civilization, and the urinalists in the media cheer them on, or choose to simply ignore their violent rhetoric. Unless these threats to America are addressed clearly, forcefully and directly by top Democrats, they will continue to grow more powerful by the day. Sadly, Democrats are largely in agreement, like Cortez and Omar and Jayapal and Mamdani and Tlaib, or cowardly, like Schumer and Jeffries and Pelosi and Warner.
A matter of time until it goes to the field, it’s what they want. Give it to them.
There’s only one response to these anti-American radicals, it should be the last thing they ever hear.
“There’s only one response to these anti-American radicals, it should be the last thing they ever hear.”
Agree. I strongly suspect that Feminine hygiene reservoirs like the karpet koph in question will only ever understand one kind of response – when what they propose rhetorically is actually visited on them, physically and personally. For those who object to my characterization, I will happily rescind it when others who might feel impugned by it begin to vocally and publicly speak out against the actual offenders like Abdul El Sayed; not until that happens.
I’m guessing that no Democrat Senator or congress has spoken up against putting Fetterman on a pike nor will they remove their endorsement of this anti-Semitic Islamist. Why? Because this is what the Democrats have become.
Why should they. The DNC supports this.
Fetterman is from PA not NJ.
Fetterman isn’t Jewish, is he?
No, he is not.
No, Sen. Fetterman is not Jewish; he’s a Christian.