Chuck Schumer Surrenders to Abdul El-Sayed

The sight of Senator Charles Schumer, a grandee of the Senate and the highest-ranking Jew in American politics, stumping for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to join him in the upper chamber, captures the Democrats’ burgeoning dilemma. Not only did Mr. Schumer endorse the losing candidate, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, but Dr. El-Sayed has already vowed to oppose the New Yorker for leader if Democrats reclaim the world’s greatest deliberative body.Mr. Schumer knows in which direction the wind is blowing. On Thursday, C-Span captured him declaring that “Dr. El-Sayed has brought in new energy and new talent into the Democratic Party but also in Michigan itself.” This from a solon who frequently puns on his surname to insist that he is a “shomer,” or guardian, of the Jews. Dr. El-Sayed is tightly linked to the podcaster Hasan Piker, who has called Jews “inbred” and who celebrated 9/11 and Hamas.Dr. El-Sayed for his part has acknowledged that he “struggles” with the concept of Israel, which he regularly accuses of genocide, as a Jewish state. He calls for ending all military aid to Israel, and described an attempted terror attack on a Jewish preschool at Detroit as an instance of “hurt people hurt people.” It eventually came out that the terrorist had thick familial ties to Hezbollah. Dr. El-Sayed’s mother worked for a charity prosecuted for terrorism.Mr. Schumer is hardly alone among the Democrats in capitulating to the emerging leftist bloc. Senator Elissa Slotkin, another Jewish lawmaker of the moderate variety, backed neither Dr. El-Sayed nor Ms. Stevens before the vote. Now, she, too, backs Dr. El-Sayed. In July, Ms. Slotkin joined more than 20 other Democrats on two resolutions to block arms sales to Israel. Meaning that the center of gravity is lurching leftward.Some Wolverine Staters beg to differ. An open letter penned by Jewish Democrats and Independents reckons that “all of us have felt threatened and alienated by the politics and allies embraced by Abdul El-Sayed, which has included demonization of Jews, equivocation on terrorism, exclusion of Jewish Americans from public life, and expression of implacable hatred of the world’s only Jewish nation.” Jewish Democrats have held a fundraiser for Mr. Rogers. That same letter reckons that if Dr. El-Sayed wins the “far-left and anti-Jewish elements in the Democratic party would become dominant.” Mr. Schumer, though, reckons that Dr. El-Sayed “makes an effort to fight antisemitism even though his views on Israel are much different than mine.” Dr. El-Sayed has, for his part, vowed that “my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.” A different view is offered by Rabbi Asher Lopatin of Detroit, who tells the Washington Post: “How can a leader like Schumer not even talk about concerns that he has? It’s been very disappointing, to say the very least. I think it’s been infuriating for Jews here.” Rabbi Lopatin vows to “do whatever I can to make sure this candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, does not win” and declares that “we cannot let him anywhere near the U.S. Senate.”What a rebuke to Mr. Schumer from the doughty rabbi. We grasp that there is a pull of partisan politics and that the battle for the Senate will be conducted at a fever pitch. The road to control could well run through Michigan. That means the biggest story in politics right now is the ascendant hard left in the Democratic Party. Mr. Schumer, it appears, is most on guard against a primary challenge from, say, the likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Chuck Schumer Surrenders to Abdul El-Sayed

Chuck Schumer Surrenders to Abdul El-Sayed

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