by liberal japonicus
Thought we needed an (h)open thread about the midterms. I did like the Guardian graphics, which are here. Comments, observations, and praises to whatever deity manages karmic retribution.
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
A little over 40 years ago, California was pretty heavily Republican. And had been for generations. Then, California Republicans went pretty heavily reactionary, with a strong dose of xenophobia.** They have basically been an irrelevance since, but have been unwilling/unable to change. It feels like Republicans nationally are on a similar trajectory.
** Being anti-Hispanic, in a state that (as you can tell from the names of cities, rivers, mountain ranges, etc.) has deep Hispanic roots, was exceptionally dumb. But then, Steven Miller is that way, dispite being a resident of Santa Monica. How tone deaf can you be?
California’s Proposition 187 came in the same moment as the Contract with America, and the nationalization of the GOP platform. In a sense the California GOP lashed itself to the electoral college and traded state influence for (ethno-)national(ist) ambitions.
We may be hitting another moment something like that now or in the near future. I think the 1994 moment has stretched itself past the breaking point.
But assuming that Matthews suggestion that Sayed is somehow angling for a position on the Foreign Affairs Committee[sic] because of his religion, we see that it is based on an implicit assumption by Matthews that he wants some job to talk about Palestinians because Sayed supports the Palestinian cause, and he’s a Muslim. Kinda racist if you think about it, though I’m sure it is clickbait to UK viewers who know even less about US politics than Matthews.
….
Getting the UKians all riled up because a Muslim was poised to be a Senator
LOL as a Londoner perfectly happy to have a Muslim mayor, not to mention there are 25 elected Muslim MPs (obviously not including the approximately 17 who are in the House of Lords, our second chamber).
As for the assumption that AES is angling for a place on a foreign relations committee because of his religion, racist or not I don’t see Matthews making it. There are various mentions online of AES wanting such a place, but no convincing citations that I see so I don’t know where Matthews got it, whatever assumption he is or is not making.
What is interesting in the piece is the clip included of an interview with Kim Darroch, ex-UK Ambassador to the US who had to resign (unbacked by BoJo) after some of his frank opinions of Trump were leaked. You can see from his comments on the AES/Matthews incident (approximately 2 minutes at the beginning of the clip) that it is not just ill-informed Brits who thought poorly of it. Don’t forget that unlike in the US our ambassadors are not political appointees, but career diplomats who are remarkably well-informed about the countries to which they are appointed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Darroch
Where I wholeheartedly agree with lj is when he says “he’d make a bigger difference grilling RFK Jr. and anyone that turd has appointed at HHS”. Amen. Any dickishness he does in fact possess would be extremely well employed in such cases. Here’s hoping….
By which I mean a moment that shapes a new political era and a new set of collective concerns and ways of talking about them. I don’t know that we are hitting another moment of nationally focused movement politics like the one we are coming out of. I certainly hope not, anyway.
I also wonder if we are at an inflection point where the “old” concerns are replaced by new concerns.
Just like there’s no longer debate over “free silver”. I’d have thought that “tariffs” would be in that category, but then Trump. Oh well. Maybe the new concerns are related to how to deal with LLMs.
One of my hopes is that biotechnology advances sufficiently that women can be in full, internal, conscious control over their own fertility. Seems difficult, but possible, just a question of how long it takes.
As for the assumption that AES is angling for a place on a foreign relations committee because of his religion, racist or not I don’t see Matthews making it. There are various mentions online of AES wanting such a place, but no convincing citations that I see so I don’t know where Matthews got it, whatever assumption he is or is not making.
Did you read the Matthews’ piece that I linked to? Maybe he didn’t go in with that assumption, but that is the defense he uses.
I realize it is quaint, but I still expect journalists to not simply ‘just ask questions’, but to actually see where these various mentions are coming from. By your standard, Matthews would have been ok asking AES about Sharia law, support of the Muslim Brotherhood or being a jihadist. Hey, there are mentions and he’s just asking questions!
I also wonder about Sky News (UK) putting their US correspondent on AES. I don’t want to confuse Sky News with the Australian outfit with the same name, but it is clear from Matthews’ piece that he thinks that Sayed will wield some outsized influence across the world when his campaign has been pretty much laser focussed on addressing the needs of the people of Michigan. His ‘global’ focus has been pointing out that no country should get unconditional foreign aid because (wait for it) that money would be better served supporting Americans.
Maybe Matthews latched on to Sayed because it is a lot more convenient to travel around Michigan than it would be to try and follow Talarico, who I would argue is a lot more of a bellwether to try and understand US politics. It’s all good and well that you are comfortable with Muslims, but those mouses don’t click themselves and it feels like that was more of an aim than getting some clarity about Sayed’s positions for the folks back home.
“I think the 1994 moment [Prop 187] has stretched itself past the breaking point.”
I’ve been thinking for years that surely they would figure out that it wasn’t working and never would. Since it keeps not working, and leaving them, as I said, an irrelevance in state politics.
Time to step back and find a different approach. But so far, they show no signs of doing so. Purity ponies are not exclusive to the left.
lj, I am completely confused, for several reasons! I did read the piece, at least 3 times to be sure of what I was saying, and I could never find any hint that “he didn’t go in with that assumption, but that is the defense he uses”.
So now, reading what you say, I looked at your link to the piece again and it looks like most of it (the second half at least) has been cut off – it is no longer there! Unless I am going nuts…Do you have access to the original?
And again, I am very confused by your saying “By your standard, Matthews would have been ok asking AES about Sharia law, support of the Muslim Brotherhood or being a jihadist.” That would absolutely not have been OK with me, unless there was any respectable evidence for his having a history for support of those things, which there is not. In fact, I loved his takedown of “Tommy” who tried the Muslim Brotherhood tactic on him, and said so here.
Why wouldn’t Sky News put their US correspondent on AES? His was one of the most newsworthy races in this country, his and Talarico’s. And of course, Amy Acton’s after that ad. In his case it was his progressivism (not generally much hated here, certainly not among the media I read and watch, or by me) which was interesting. In the UK, for example, Medicare for All is a very popular concept, and many people here find the American attitude towards it very strange indeed. Nor is AES’s attitude towards Israel and Palestine particularly exceptional here. A UK media organisation being interested in it, in the American context, does not seem to imply that AES would “wield some outsize interest across the world”. We expect people running for political office in the UK, or the US or Europe etc, to have views on world political issues. In fact, the Vance and DOGE approach of a kind of isolationalism is considered to be a very strange and dangerous phenomenon in the mainstream here.
And it’s not a question of me, or us, “being comfortable with Muslims”. The fact that we have a considerable number of Muslim politicians, about whom there is no more controversy than many other politicians (always allowing for the prejudices of mad Reformers et al) makes the suggestion that a Muslim becoming senator would rile up the UKians or be tremendous clickbait here really odd. If it was clickbait here, it was because of the insulting way (and its implication) in which a candidate was treating a journalist from a major UK media organisation.
Honestly, I am truly confused. It almost seems like we are talking different languages. Can you explain or make sense of any of this?
Here is the link again
https://news.sky.com/story/james-matthews-abdul-el-sayeds-response-to-me-felt-like-a-misstep-after-stressful-contest-13608148
Since I’m not sure why you aren’t seeing it, I’ll put it below with my comments
James Matthews: Abdul El-Sayed’s response to me felt like a misstep after stressful contest
The rest of the world is hard-wired into the consequences of the senator-elect for Michigan’s elevation to Congress and the power he’ll exercise.
So it is just this senator? Not the other Dems who were elected? Why is it the Michigan senator elect that he needs to ask about consequences?
All news is local now. I suppose that’s one lesson from my encounter with Abdul El-Sayed.
As viral videos go, it’s found its audience – eight million and counting, last time I checked.
More, certainly, than his measure of Sky News: “Like, five people watch it…”
America’s story belongs to all of us, and the newly minted senator-elect for Michigan is a main character in it.
Matthews didn’t like the jibe about Sky’s audience, but are there really 8 million people looking for Sky News’ take on the US elections? And if there are tons of international viewers looking to Sky News to explain the US elections, how many of them are voting in the US?
The rest of the world is hard-wired into the consequences of his elevation to Congress and the power he’ll exercise.
El-Sayed wants to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It shapes US foreign policy and there are few corners of the world untouched by its influence.
As I pointed out, I can’t find anything about AES saying he wants to sit on the Foreign RELATIONS committee. But Matthews has a fascination with him, as evidenced by the fact that he is the only candidate he has written about as a candidate
https://news.sky.com/author/james-matthews-508
with titles like
Could El-Sayed learn from fellow Democrats?
and
Why some Democrats won’t welcome El-Sayed’s win
I suppose he could make the case that Haley Stevens, who was rabidly pro Israel, was a non-welcoming Dem, but I don’t think she is an example one would want to go with, given that she is persona non grata (Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel was quoted saying Stevens “is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future”) Yet Matthews argues that Stevens represented the ‘Centrist, traditional wing of the Democratic party. Not anymore apparently.
The responsibilities of America’s legislators extend far beyond the borders of the United States.
At any given time, what this country does next has global consequences.
As such, we are entitled to ask questions of a man whose decisions will affect us all.
In any country, it can be difficult gaining access to local politicians. It’s true to say there are no votes in foreign media and so party handlers tend to restrict access. The UK, incidentally, is no different.
Again, if the responsibilities are so great, why doesn’t he talk to Nancy Lacore, the vice-admiral fired by Hegseth who flipped her House seat, or Keisha Lance Bottoms, first African American woman elected governor, going to the seat occupied by Maddox and Talmadge as well as a few other ardent segregationists, or Talarico, Hinojosa, or anyone else in Texas. Why are AES’s responsibilities more weighty than anyone else’s?
So it has been a challenge for Sky News to reach El-Sayed. Imagine our surprise, then, when we were filming outside a Detroit polling centre and he turned up unannounced.
As hard as we’d tried to find him, he eventually found us. Not that he was too pleased.
I didn’t have the chance to ask him any questions before he began to quiz me. Why should he speak to a UK outlet, he asked, when there were no votes in it?
He wasn’t saying anything that he and his team wouldn’t have discussed privately. It’s political strategy 101 – always be targeting the local audience.
There is the potential mix-up between UK and Australia Sky News, and if I were AES, I would be on the lookout for ambushes. Perhaps they just happened to be at that Detroit polling station, but it was while the polls were closing. If these questions were so damn important, why didn’t he say ‘I know you are busy, would it be possible to get a chance to talk with you after the election’. It’s like going back in a kitchen and asking the chef while he’s cooking to justify how he is seasoning the fish dish.
But what ensued, in public, wasn’t pretty. For a politician typically sure-footed in his dealings with the media, it felt like a misstep.
It has been a stressful contest in Michigan and all participants can be forgiven for having had their eyes on the prize.
The targeting of Abdul El-Sayed, from Donald Trump down, has debased the political process. Islamophobia is a fixture, now, in US politics in a way it never was until recently.
In the wake of the midterms, there’s much talk about a new way of doing politics, of rinsing it clean from the toxicity that now comes as standard.
With El-Sayed’s electoral success comes a duty to engage. With the pressure off, perhaps that can involve the international audience, too. It is invested, after all.
Acknowledging the Islamophobia in the election doesn’t then give you a pass to ask whatever questions you want to know. As I noted, Matthews didn’t even get the name of the committee right and I bet has no idea how the Senate assignments work. But an unreferenced El-Sayed wants to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee is enough for Matthews to be “entitled” to ask questions.
Much has been made of the response AES made to ‘Tommy’, at a campaign event, asking if he supported the Muslim Brotherhood. As it turns out, Tommy was Thomas Teepell, an operations director for Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley. I wonder how many other encounters on the campaign trail have been like that. The video starts up mid-encounter, with AES saying ‘are you registered to vote in Michigan?’ with a tone that clearly suggests there were previous questions. AES also tells Matthews to “stop chasing me around’ and Matthews replies ‘I’m not chasing you around’. Now maybe AES is wrong, and someone who kept track of the Sky News chyrons might be able to prove that, but I wonder if Matthews replied he wasn’t chasing AES around, he was just reporting on his campaign. However, I don’t see any times he talked to Rogers or called out the Islamophobia inherent there.
I must be getting ill, lj, because this makes no sense to me. Matthews says “I didn’t have the chance to ask him any questions”. I just watched the AES/Matthews clip again, and that’s absolutely true. So what are these questions, or assumptions that you originally implied were racist? If he was going to ask about AES’s opinions on various international issues, why shouldn’t he?
The Islamophobia AES faced is one of the most shocking elements of the MAGA attacks on him – why on earth should a responsible and fairminded journalist (I was not previously acquainted with Matthews’s journalism, but that seems to fit him here) not mention this? Do you mean that the fact that AES is a Muslim must be the only reason a foreign journalist might want to question him about his attitudes on foreign policy?? Perhaps if AES had let him ask questions, it would also have come out that AES favours American aid to Ukraine in that conflict (he does, apparently). That would certainly be very popular with a UK audience, and no doubt many others. But we had no chance to find out what his views on that were, or on any other issues. And the only previous clip I ever found of “history” between them was Matthews trying to buttonhole AES some time before to ask his reaction to Trump’s comment that he was “full of shit”. Actually, I hate those kind of questions from journalists, but since they all ask them I can’t find anything particularly to reproach, and it certainly was an excellent example of the demonisation that AES has faced from his opponents.
Of course “Tommy” was a plant. That was why it was so satisfying as we watched AES make him look like such a bigoted fool. But as far as I can see, at no point did Matthews do or say anything of the sort. I don’t understand at all what this is about. And several other races were covered by UK journalists – I don’t watch Sky, I watch the BBC and C4, so I can’t give other examples of their coverage of other races. But the lefty, ex-Corbynite friend I have been talking to about this does watch Sky, and she is a demon news-consumer, so I assume their coverage overall has been pretty good. Her reaction to the whole thing has been much like mine: happy he won, hoping dickishness will be no impediment to doing good stuff for the people of Michigan and the US.
I am utterly losing the thread of your argument. It may be me, perhaps I am coming down with flu or sudden dementia. Good night!
I’ll try to give another shot at explaining this, but this will be the last.
Just as ‘Tommy’ had a lot of assumptions that were unrevealed until he asked his question, I’d argue that Matthews had a lot of assumptions that have not been revealed cause he didn’t get to ask his questions, but they can be intuited when he (and note, he is the author of the link I gave you) explained why he was asking the questions (which he does not list). He says (and he claims to be speaking for the rest of the world as he says ‘we’) he is ‘entitled’ to ask questions. But his assumption that AES wants to be on the Foreign Relations committee is without any evidence and I’m sure someone would have pulled it up if it were the case. So what are the questions that have to asked BEFORE he was elected. Did Matthews need to weigh in before the polls closed so as to possibly influence the election, or was he just ‘asking questions’?
You claim that other people have said that AES wants to be on the Foreign Relations Committee, but if you think about it, why would a pol who has been pretty sure footed about this step away from his signature issue of Medicare for all and want to somehow weigh in on foreign affairs? His comments about foreign aid are that he wants to restrict all UNCONDITIONAL foreign aid. While that is a pretty big step, it is not related to his religion or his view of foreign relations, it is embedded in a criticism that is supposed to resonate with Michigan voters.
If these questions were so pressing that they had to be asked BEFORE he was elected, why didn’t Matthews say ‘here’s what I would have asked him’ so other journalists could have picked them up?
If you want to see how Sky has leaned into it, there’s a video on the same page where they interview a former ambassador to explain why what AES did was ‘simply unacceptable’.
https://news.sky.com/share/13608131
AES is cocky and represents that generation that is plugged into podcasts and short videos, like Mamdani. His interview with Pod Save America is cocky
https://youtu.be/MDsup-hOdbU?si=3EWQdeFitmbkRsRC&t=1464
and it seems to be of a piece with him telling Matthews to get lost. But if you can’t acknowledge that Matthews seems just as guilty of chasing clicks as any Tiktok influencer out there (oh, it’s 8 million views, it must be important!!), I’m not sure how I can explain it to you.
Was going to let this particular topic pass, but then I went and found the earlier exchange between Matthews and AES.
I really don’t think that the AES v Matthews exchange that’s getting all the attention merits the amount of noise that it is generating. AES was short with him. That’s worth about one cycle as far as I’m concerned. It’s sticking around because it serves the usual suspects to keep running it up the algorithms.
Matthews’ previous encounter with AES, catching him as he was trying to get somewhere else, had him reporting typical trump insults aimed at AES (“a gift to the Republicans,” “a piece of shit”) and asking AES to respond. Helluva introduction, that. If that were my first impression of him and I ran into him a second time trying to ambush me in a parking lot, I’d be pretty irritated too, and probably think he was tabloid trash looking to score points.
Not defending the response or condemning it. It happened. It doesn’t seem particularly consequential in the scheme of things, and the reaction to it seems to be out of proportion to that, kinda like “the Dean Scream” was.