I limited myself to the options that were involved in toss-up races. El-Sayed leads the pack in that department, with Paxton a close second. El-Sayed gets the nod from me because he's an antisemite, socialism is perhaps the height of reality-denying retardation, and I'd rather have a split Congress than tee up the Democrats to end the filibuster, pack the court, and cement a majority in the Senate for a generation if they win the Presidency in 2028 (which they are likely to do if Republicans don't yeet JD Vance in favor of someone more mainstream). I can live with one more corrupt asshole in Congress, especially since I doubt the GOP is quite ready to learn the right lesson from a Paxton loss. (Didn't consider Vivek because I honestly couldn't give a shit who's governor in Ohio.)
Yep! You summed up my rationale. I wouldn’t mind seeing Karen Bass lose if only to be held accountable for her horrible incompetence. But then we get a full blown DSA member who is also a dope.
I am amused by the no-win scenario of the LA mayor's race, but the outcome has basically zero material impact on my life. If I don't care who's governor of Ohio, I certainly don't care who's mayor of LA. My strongest rooting interest needs to be a race that matters to me politically.
As a Michigan resident who has lived through this bizarre Senate race up close, I have decided to go with the strict framing of the survey as the one I most "hate." I do not see how an honest, decent human could experience this race and not hate Mike Rogers.
My issues are the Federal budget and civil liberties, and there is no evidence that either candidate is materially better or worse than the other.
But Mike Rogers is a particularly noxious strain of pond scum, while Abdul is entirely likeable! He is a regular Michigan guy, while Rogers is an alien swamp entity. Abdul is not a jihadist threat to our national security, and the campaign that is relying on that attack is truly hateful.
We have a Libertarian on the ballot for Senate, and I am carefully avoiding learning anything about him so as to not be disuaded from voting for him. An Abdul win is not great, but I can live with it. Liking the guy softens the blow. A Rogers win would be a humiliation for the state and I do not relish the idea of six years hating a hateful piece of shit Senator.
I can't bring myself to hate Abdul at all, while Mike Rogers only has Paxton as competition for most hatable Senate candidate.
He was never my rep (I sadly live in Haley Stevens' district) but I remember Rogers as the quintessential Iraq war hawk who was massively "bipartisan" during the worst of Hillary's tenure at State. Until shit went south, and he cashed in.
Since then, he removed himself to Florida and is making millions from the companies he will now enrichen as a Senator.
There is plenty wrong with Abdul El Sayed, but the entire Rogers campaign is about Islamaphobia over a thoroughly secular Rhodes Scholar. You may argue that he is the lesser evil, but he is far from "fine."
A regular Michigan guy who advocated for Morsi to arrest anti-Islamists in Egypt and writes scientific papers arguing that Arabs shouldn't intermarry and justified a terrorist attack on a Jewish school because the terrorist's terrorist cousin was killed by Israel. He is unAmerican scum.
If you frame it through likability, I really don’t see how Abdul can be any better. He’s an egomaniac that’s been running for high elected office for close to the last decade. The phony Obama hope-and-change facade (that’s much further to the left) is instantly wiped away the moment he’s questioned on pretty much anything.
Rogers will be a boring go-along type guy in the senate. Abdul will be a loudmouth, grandstanding hack that will begin running for president fifteen seconds after being sworn in.
I can't blame anybody for hating Rogers, or wanting AES to win because they want to reduce Trump's power. But we shouldn't be pretending AES is a benign actor here.
I don't like accusing AES of being a jihadist or a terrorist supporter, because it's hard to know what's in somebody's heart. But what I think is objectively true is that he is a terrorist sympathizer, AND that he is unwilling to denounce people who are terrorist sympathizers and supporters.
If your base of support would turn on you for an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the Islamic Republic, that should be as disqualifying as somebody who cannot unequivocally condemn the KKK or David Duke or Nick Fuentes. Somehow though, far too many Dem partisans who see themselves as morally virtuous are unwilling to acknowledge this obvious parallel.
It requires great assumptions about what is in his "heart" to make this distinction between "supporter" and "sympathizer." I believe he legitimately wants "peace" in the sense of fewer violent deaths in the Levant. His politics on the issue fall in the Overton Window in Israel, but not within the U.S. establishment.
I would be uncomfortable voting for El Sayed, but I see him as the lesser evil vs. Rogers in the context of who should represent Michigan. I intend my vote for the Libertarian candidate to register as a stronger rejection of the current politics than simply not voting.
I respect the third-party vote, and I don't even mind people voting for AES because they think Rogers winning is worse in various ways that matter to them.
But I respectfully disagree with your assessment of AES more broadly. We can't know what's in his heart, including whether he legitimately wants "peace" and fewer violent deaths in the Levant.
He's not an idiot so he's not going to say out loud that he supports terrorism, so we have to infer some things based on who he associates with, and what he refuses or hesitates to say.
What is objectively true is that he closely associates with people who do glorify and justify terrorism, and on multiple occasions, he has failed to unequivocally condemn terrorism or the terror supporters and sympathizers in his orbit.
As I see it, there are only 2 possible reasons for this:
1. He supports terrorism, is sympathetic to terrorism, or he is sympathetic to terror supporters and sympathizers.
2. He unequivocally disdains terrorism, but he won't say it because he is trying to win the support of terror supporters and sympathizers.
While there is absolutely a difference between those 2 reasons, there is no functional difference, especially as it relates to a US politician. So even if I'm being charitable and saying his reason is #2, does that tell us he has absolutely no moral red line he's willing to draw?
And again, going back to the parallel, if a candidate campaigned with David Duke and couldn't unequivocally condemn the KKK, would we even be having this conversation? Is there any chance such a candidate would win a statewide primary today?
As an undergraduate in the 1980s I was in a program that afforded the opportunity to study under a prominent scholar of what was then the "Arab-Israeli Conflict." I attended several seminars and lectures representing the spectrum of thought at that time. In 40 years, nothing has changed, and a Comments section discussion can do nothing to advance thought on an intractable conflict.
If you view it as a simple problem of righteous Jewish citizens defending themselves from unhinged invaders using "terrorism" to destroy all that is good, then there is not much more to say.
If you accept that the history of the region is complicated and that there is not a clearly obvious path to justice, then a facile condemnation of "terrorism" is less useful than you might believe, especially in light of recent events in Gaza.
Pigeonholing a Senate candidate in Michigan using an extreme partisan framework is not helpful. I agree that Abdul El Sayed should have done a much better job of navigating the ugliness of the issues, but if his name were simply Andy Simms (with the same positions) the race would have played out quite differently.
I respect Kmele pushing back against the hate language framing. My political science colleagues won’t shut up about the problem of rising political violence and how dehumanization is the precursor to legitimizing killing our political enemies. Ironically, they uniformly dehumanize Republicans while maintaining that the increase in political violence is either driven by the right (Jan 6!) or equally distributed.
I expect Abdul (my vote) to win this with Paxton a close second, but I do hope Letitia James makes a strong showing as well. If this were a ranked choice vote she would easily be my #2.
I was surprised to see Max Miller on the list, but it turned out to be a Republican from Ohio and not the English Music Hall Comedian who died in the sixties.
Paxton is a strong candidate for this poll but I went with Vivek on the logic that 1. If Texans vote for Paxton they deserve him; and 2. I used to sort of like Vivek so now I hate him even more, both for that revolting ad and the completely shameless sellout of his (alleged) Libertarian-ish principles in order to win
I want ranked choice 😂 I went Peltola since I really want that level of fuckery discouraged but reading this list man, our politics is just depressing.
Where’s the write-in option??? Though many of these people are detestable, I’m trying to focus on local. I despise my congressman, but he’s running unopposed, so I have no option to get rid of him this cycle. 🤯
I resent that there is no "All of the Above" option.
Yeah, pretty much. I picked Vivek because I live in Ohio, but that's not to say I care for any of the others.
I picked Vivek because he is an ass-bag.
However I did live in Columbus for three years. I love Columbus. I know it must look lovely right now.
But I need money for luxury shit, so I live in Monterey, again.
Antisemites go to the top of the list
And then to the reeducation camps.
#makegulagsgreatagain
I would be interested in learning about how these re-education camps will be administered, and how we set the criteria for who is forcibly detained.
I limited myself to the options that were involved in toss-up races. El-Sayed leads the pack in that department, with Paxton a close second. El-Sayed gets the nod from me because he's an antisemite, socialism is perhaps the height of reality-denying retardation, and I'd rather have a split Congress than tee up the Democrats to end the filibuster, pack the court, and cement a majority in the Senate for a generation if they win the Presidency in 2028 (which they are likely to do if Republicans don't yeet JD Vance in favor of someone more mainstream). I can live with one more corrupt asshole in Congress, especially since I doubt the GOP is quite ready to learn the right lesson from a Paxton loss. (Didn't consider Vivek because I honestly couldn't give a shit who's governor in Ohio.)
Yep! You summed up my rationale. I wouldn’t mind seeing Karen Bass lose if only to be held accountable for her horrible incompetence. But then we get a full blown DSA member who is also a dope.
I am amused by the no-win scenario of the LA mayor's race, but the outcome has basically zero material impact on my life. If I don't care who's governor of Ohio, I certainly don't care who's mayor of LA. My strongest rooting interest needs to be a race that matters to me politically.
Paxton vs. Bo French is a tough one.
It’s AES for me for practical reasons with a close second being Darline Graham because I don’t like having my intelligence insulted.
AES but it would be objectively hilarious if Darializa lost
As a Michigan resident who has lived through this bizarre Senate race up close, I have decided to go with the strict framing of the survey as the one I most "hate." I do not see how an honest, decent human could experience this race and not hate Mike Rogers.
My issues are the Federal budget and civil liberties, and there is no evidence that either candidate is materially better or worse than the other.
But Mike Rogers is a particularly noxious strain of pond scum, while Abdul is entirely likeable! He is a regular Michigan guy, while Rogers is an alien swamp entity. Abdul is not a jihadist threat to our national security, and the campaign that is relying on that attack is truly hateful.
We have a Libertarian on the ballot for Senate, and I am carefully avoiding learning anything about him so as to not be disuaded from voting for him. An Abdul win is not great, but I can live with it. Liking the guy softens the blow. A Rogers win would be a humiliation for the state and I do not relish the idea of six years hating a hateful piece of shit Senator.
I can't bring myself to hate Abdul at all, while Mike Rogers only has Paxton as competition for most hatable Senate candidate.
Rogers was my rep for years. He's fine. He probably won't win, but I hope he does. He's miles better than scrappy doo (el-Sayed).
He was never my rep (I sadly live in Haley Stevens' district) but I remember Rogers as the quintessential Iraq war hawk who was massively "bipartisan" during the worst of Hillary's tenure at State. Until shit went south, and he cashed in.
Since then, he removed himself to Florida and is making millions from the companies he will now enrichen as a Senator.
There is plenty wrong with Abdul El Sayed, but the entire Rogers campaign is about Islamaphobia over a thoroughly secular Rhodes Scholar. You may argue that he is the lesser evil, but he is far from "fine."
A regular Michigan guy who advocated for Morsi to arrest anti-Islamists in Egypt and writes scientific papers arguing that Arabs shouldn't intermarry and justified a terrorist attack on a Jewish school because the terrorist's terrorist cousin was killed by Israel. He is unAmerican scum.
If you frame it through likability, I really don’t see how Abdul can be any better. He’s an egomaniac that’s been running for high elected office for close to the last decade. The phony Obama hope-and-change facade (that’s much further to the left) is instantly wiped away the moment he’s questioned on pretty much anything.
Rogers will be a boring go-along type guy in the senate. Abdul will be a loudmouth, grandstanding hack that will begin running for president fifteen seconds after being sworn in.
I can't blame anybody for hating Rogers, or wanting AES to win because they want to reduce Trump's power. But we shouldn't be pretending AES is a benign actor here.
I don't like accusing AES of being a jihadist or a terrorist supporter, because it's hard to know what's in somebody's heart. But what I think is objectively true is that he is a terrorist sympathizer, AND that he is unwilling to denounce people who are terrorist sympathizers and supporters.
If your base of support would turn on you for an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and the Islamic Republic, that should be as disqualifying as somebody who cannot unequivocally condemn the KKK or David Duke or Nick Fuentes. Somehow though, far too many Dem partisans who see themselves as morally virtuous are unwilling to acknowledge this obvious parallel.
It requires great assumptions about what is in his "heart" to make this distinction between "supporter" and "sympathizer." I believe he legitimately wants "peace" in the sense of fewer violent deaths in the Levant. His politics on the issue fall in the Overton Window in Israel, but not within the U.S. establishment.
I would be uncomfortable voting for El Sayed, but I see him as the lesser evil vs. Rogers in the context of who should represent Michigan. I intend my vote for the Libertarian candidate to register as a stronger rejection of the current politics than simply not voting.
I respect the third-party vote, and I don't even mind people voting for AES because they think Rogers winning is worse in various ways that matter to them.
But I respectfully disagree with your assessment of AES more broadly. We can't know what's in his heart, including whether he legitimately wants "peace" and fewer violent deaths in the Levant.
He's not an idiot so he's not going to say out loud that he supports terrorism, so we have to infer some things based on who he associates with, and what he refuses or hesitates to say.
What is objectively true is that he closely associates with people who do glorify and justify terrorism, and on multiple occasions, he has failed to unequivocally condemn terrorism or the terror supporters and sympathizers in his orbit.
As I see it, there are only 2 possible reasons for this:
1. He supports terrorism, is sympathetic to terrorism, or he is sympathetic to terror supporters and sympathizers.
2. He unequivocally disdains terrorism, but he won't say it because he is trying to win the support of terror supporters and sympathizers.
While there is absolutely a difference between those 2 reasons, there is no functional difference, especially as it relates to a US politician. So even if I'm being charitable and saying his reason is #2, does that tell us he has absolutely no moral red line he's willing to draw?
And again, going back to the parallel, if a candidate campaigned with David Duke and couldn't unequivocally condemn the KKK, would we even be having this conversation? Is there any chance such a candidate would win a statewide primary today?
As an undergraduate in the 1980s I was in a program that afforded the opportunity to study under a prominent scholar of what was then the "Arab-Israeli Conflict." I attended several seminars and lectures representing the spectrum of thought at that time. In 40 years, nothing has changed, and a Comments section discussion can do nothing to advance thought on an intractable conflict.
If you view it as a simple problem of righteous Jewish citizens defending themselves from unhinged invaders using "terrorism" to destroy all that is good, then there is not much more to say.
If you accept that the history of the region is complicated and that there is not a clearly obvious path to justice, then a facile condemnation of "terrorism" is less useful than you might believe, especially in light of recent events in Gaza.
Pigeonholing a Senate candidate in Michigan using an extreme partisan framework is not helpful. I agree that Abdul El Sayed should have done a much better job of navigating the ugliness of the issues, but if his name were simply Andy Simms (with the same positions) the race would have played out quite differently.
This was way more difficult than the actual ballot in my district.
Chevalier was robbed!
I respect Kmele pushing back against the hate language framing. My political science colleagues won’t shut up about the problem of rising political violence and how dehumanization is the precursor to legitimizing killing our political enemies. Ironically, they uniformly dehumanize Republicans while maintaining that the increase in political violence is either driven by the right (Jan 6!) or equally distributed.
I expect Abdul (my vote) to win this with Paxton a close second, but I do hope Letitia James makes a strong showing as well. If this were a ranked choice vote she would easily be my #2.
I was surprised to see Max Miller on the list, but it turned out to be a Republican from Ohio and not the English Music Hall Comedian who died in the sixties.
Paxton is a strong candidate for this poll but I went with Vivek on the logic that 1. If Texans vote for Paxton they deserve him; and 2. I used to sort of like Vivek so now I hate him even more, both for that revolting ad and the completely shameless sellout of his (alleged) Libertarian-ish principles in order to win
Chevalier is the most insane AES is the worst. Paxton most odious so many good choices
I want ranked choice 😂 I went Peltola since I really want that level of fuckery discouraged but reading this list man, our politics is just depressing.
Where’s the write-in option??? Though many of these people are detestable, I’m trying to focus on local. I despise my congressman, but he’s running unopposed, so I have no option to get rid of him this cycle. 🤯