Even Democrats Are Blasting This Michigan Candidate's 'Ogre on a Pike' Remark

The Michigan Democratic primary race has been a bit of a knock-down-drag-out fight between the two candidates, Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens.

Unlike in New York City, the "establishment" Democrats are pulling out all stops to help Stevens. She's even gotten endorsements from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Jim Clyburn (SC-06).

Now, there's more controversy over comments that El-Sayed has made about dealing with other Democrats.

He was arguing at a Zoom meeting about how they could advance their movement by him winning his race.

"Like that’s the best thing about the way they’re doing this is if I win … ‘Well, y’all came at me, so now I get to come at you.’ And you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that. Like I’m looking forward to it. And people are like, ‘We don’t primary the Senate.’ I’m like: watch me do it. Tell me why I should stop.”
El-Sayed summed up his stance as more of a winner-take-all champion than a big-tent coalition builder. “You’re gonna spend $60 million to beat me — OK, two can play at that game,” he said. “And then what happens is, ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different.”

The use of that imagery — "ogre on a pike" — understandably upset people, including other Democrats. Some thought he might be referencing Stevens, although she wasn't mentioned specifically at that point, although he's talking about winning his race.

“Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism,” Neera Tanden, a centrist Democrat and president of the Center for American Progress, posted on X. [....]
“Abdul continues with personal insults and making this race about his personal political ambitions and the other 49 states,” said Arik Wolk, spokesperson for the Stevens campaign. “Haley is focused on getting things done for Michigan, and only Michigan.”

El-Sayed later claimed he was referencing primarying Fetterman, not talking about Stevens.

Either way, the imagery from El-Sayed was vile, and spoke again to that sense of the far left wanting to take over the party.

Democratic gun control advocates also leveled El-Sayed.

Shannon Watts, founder of gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, said on X that El-Sayed “doesn’t mean Republicans.”
Another gun control activist, Fred Guttenberg, wrote: “That is what Abdul El-Sayed and his DSA movement think of Democrats and the party.” Guttenberg — whose daughter was killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting — urged Michiganders to support El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, and “show AES the loss he deserves.”

This is also kind of ridiculous because he's already thinking he's some kind of powerbroker for 2028, and he thinks he can have a hand in taking out Fetterman, when it's certainly not clear that he even will win his race against Stevens, much less the general election against Republican Mike Rogers. This isn't New York City, and the radicals are presumptuous.

Americans are much more in line with Fetterman's thoughts than they are with El-Sayed.

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