Even for a Democratic candidate, the level of deference he has received is nothing short of extraordinary.
Even for a Democratic candidate, the level of deference he has received is nothing short of extraordinary.
Y ou’re nuts if you think members of the news and entertainment businesses don’t apply a separate, sympathetic standard to Democratic candidates in tight races.
See: Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who, though he has faced some unavoidable media scrutiny, receives a degree of protective coverage we’d never see given to any Republican anywhere, no matter how much of a “squishy” moderate they might be. (Remember: Certain journalists and the whole of the left-wing commentariat recently tried to sell everyone on a communist sex pest because Republican Senator Susan Collins — yes, that Susan Collins — is too “far right” for them.)
The difference in coverage is in the big things, sure, but also the small, seemingly silly things, including the use of honorifics.
El-Sayed claims he is a “physician,” though he has never been licensed to practice medicine anywhere. He holds an M.D., so reasonable people can disagree about whether he should use the title “doctor.” Whether he can accurately call himself a “physician” is less open to debate, but it’s not like he’s out there campaigning on the lie that he served in Vietnam.
What kind of Senate hopeful would do that?
What’s funny is that while the New York Times sees fit to refer to El-Sayed as “Dr. El-Sayed,” even though we’re really stretching the bounds of the title, it regularly referred to Ben Carson, a retired brain surgeon, simply as “Mr. Carson” during the 2016 Republican primary.
The paper’s style guide explains its rules for when to apply the honorific:
Dr. should be used in all references for physicians, dentists and veterinarians whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing: Dr. Alex E. Baranek; Dr. Baranek; the doctor. (Those who practice only incidentally, or not at all, should be called Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.) Anyone else with an earned doctorate, like a Ph.D. degree, may request the title, but only if it is germane to the holder’s primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research).
Carson retired as a physician in 2013 and was, by 2016, a full-time campaigner. This likely explains the Times’ contemporaneous usage of “Mr.” versus “Dr.” But shouldn’t the same apply to El-Sayed, who, in this midterm cycle, is likewise a full-time campaigner? (To make matters slightly more confusing, the Times now refers to Carson, who currently serves as national adviser for nutrition, health, and housing, as “Dr. Carson.”)
Is it a small thing, whether El-Sayed, who is not a physician, should be called “doctor,” while a world-famous retired neurosurgeon vacillates between “Mr.” and “Dr.” depending on the Times’ seemingly inconsistent standards?
Sure, it’s a small thing. But it helps us segue to the larger issue of how the press tends to frame its coverage of the two parties, and how it influences public opinion.
Compare the coverage of El-Sayed referring to himself as a “physician” (he is not licensed to practice) with the coverage of short-lived White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia’s claim that she is an “attorney” (she never passed the bar exam). Guess which inflated résumé drew the greater attention. Here’s a hint: It was the person who resigned her post. Obviously, this is not a defense of Zacharia. It was a clean hit; an “own goal,” as they say.
But if we’re to dedicate this sort of attention to qualifications to a relatively unknown newcomer at the White House, should we not have the same energy for a man seeking a seat in the upper chamber of Congress?
Consistency is only fair.
But the press’s coverage of El-Sayed has been anything but consistent when compared with its handling of people from the other side of the aisle.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the volume of commentary suggesting that it is somehow unfair to question him about his family’s documented ties to radical organizations or about his own positions on Iran and Islamic extremist groups.
These ties include when, in 2012, El-Sayed signed onto a letter in support of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, urging the new Egyptian government “to purge the media and the police as quickly as possible.”
Earlier this year during his Senate campaign, El-Sayed’s team touted an endorsement from the lobbying arm of a pro-Palestine group with “members tied to terrorist fundraising networks.”
El-Sayed’s father-in-law served on the founding committee of the Islamic Society of North America, which was later named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas-financing case. His mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the U.S. Department of Treasury named a “global terrorist” group in 2004 for providing financial and logistical support to Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and the Taliban. Court documents reference her by name in connection with wire transfers. El-Sayed’s half sister posted on social media about the family’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood. His sister-in-law landed on the terrorism watchlist.
In 1989, El-Sayed’s father allegedly attended a “remembrance ceremony” for Ayatollah Ali Khomeini.
These associations are in addition to statements El-Sayed has made that have tended toward apologia for terrorist groups or declared adversaries of the United States.
When asked directly about such organizations, he frequently declines to answer, choosing instead to shift his focus to his deep, deep dislike of U.S. foreign policy and Israel.
“I’ve always said I’ll condemn Hamas and what they do in the same way that I’ll condemn some of the human rights abuses that we see on the part of the IDF,” he once remarked. Asked whether he believes Iran, a designated state sponsor of terrorism, poses a greater threat than Israel, a U.S. ally, El-Sayed declined to answer, stating only that both countries “have proven dangerous in their own way.” Elsewhere, he has dubbed the Israeli government as evil as Hamas.
Asked no fewer than three times whether Israel has a right to exist, he declined a direct answer, saying instead: “Nobody’s ever asked me whether or not I believe Palestine has a right to exist.”
After Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in 2026, El-Sayed told staffers he did not want to comment publicly because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” according to leaked audio.
This tracks with him repeatedly declining to condemn Khamenei or the Iranian regime in general when pressed, choosing instead to redirect the conversation to his myopic focus on Israel and its “genocide” in Gaza (for context, he accused Israel of “genocide” before it had even launched its ground war).
Perhaps most damning was in March 2026 when, after a gunman tried to murder children at Temple Israel’s preschool in suburban Detroit, El-Sayed said “hurt people hurt people” while referencing the attacker’s family losses in Lebanon. He “apologized” later, saying it wasn’t the right moment to provide “context.”
At what point are we allowed to notice that his associations and statements tend in one very specific direction? It seems like we can do this responsibly. Many in the press say otherwise.
It’s dirty pool, they say. It’s phobic.
“With El-Sayed’s Victory Comes a Wave of Islamophobia,” mourned the New York Times, opining in a separate piece that renewed attention to his “ethnicity, religion and family” have come in the form of “ugly attacks and pointed questions.”
Speaking of pointed questions, when contacted for comment by the Times to respond to questions about his 2012 Muslim Brotherhood letter, the El-Sayed campaign offered a “no comment.”
At CNN, it’s more of the same: “The GOP’s ugly response to Abdul El-Sayed.”
The Associated Press wailed that, “As Abdul El-Sayed breaks a barrier, anti-Muslim vitriol surges on multiple fronts,” complaining that a historic first for a Muslim Democratic Senate nominee has been tempered by “persisting and widespread anti-Muslim sentiment.”
At the Detroit Metro Times, reporter Steve Neavling boasted last week that the paper would no longer seek comment from El-Sayed’s Republican opponent Mike Rogers, citing the GOP candidate’s “repeated lies and bigoted attacks . . . targeting Abdul El-Sayed’s Muslim faith.”
It’s incredible that we have a U.S. Senate candidate who declines to answer straightforward questions about the ayatollah in favor of criticism of Israel, and whose family has documented associations with organizations and individuals linked to extremist groups, and we have members of the press telling us to leave the nice man alone.
It’s incredible on its face that any journalist would not want detailed answers, but it’s doubly incredible considering how the broader press treats Republicans whenever even the most indirect connection to bad people or organizations is revealed.
It has been 24 years since Republican Representative Steve Scalise delivered an address about tax policy to a group tangentially connected to racist crank David Duke, and the Louisiana representative is still answering for it.
We have fact-checkers accusing Republicans of promoting explicitly pro-Nazi iconography (it was an American bald eagle). We have members of the press pushing conspiracy theories alleging CPAC intentionally designed its set in the shape of an obscure Nazi rune. We had essentially the entire news media apparatus citing Elon Musk’s weird salute as proof he’s a Nazi sympathizer or collaborator.
Yet the minute the breadcrumbs lead to a Democrat in a tough race, we’re told we need to slow down, be fair, and cool it with the phobia.
But sometimes people actually tell you outright who they are. Sometimes “Kill the Boer” means exactly that, the New York Times’ attempts to soften the phrase with “context” notwithstanding.