John Lee

For the last couple of days, I have heard from Jewish family, friends, and acquaintances that they are not going to vote for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the general election. Instead, they are either not going to vote in the Senate race at all or are even considering voting for MAGA, neo-con, Floridian carpetbagger, Islamophobe, and empty suit Mike Rogers. This behavior is absolutely sickening to me. So-called lifelong Democrats are refusing to vote for their party's candidate because of a misguided view of Dr. El-Sayed's actual beliefs. The fact that so-called Democrats are willing to jeopardize this important Senate seat because Dr. El-Sayed believes Israel is committing genocide (they are), is an apartheid state (it is), and does not want to continue sending bombs to a country committing war crimes (with more than 1,200 Palestinians killed since the "cease-fire" alone) is abhorrent. Because of ONE issue, you are willing to: 1. Allow Donald Trump another senator to insulate him during what are supposedly the last two years of his presidency, when control of the Senate could determine what happens after his term ends. Do you fucking remember January 6? Do you think Trump lacks the capacity for a sequel to that insurrection? Do you think Senate control might be important when the current president is trying to secure a slush fund for the last batch of people who violently stormed the Capitol? 2. Increase the likelihood that Trump will appoint one or two more Supreme Court justices, decisions that could affect your children and grandchildren for decades to come. 3. Further weaken women's ability to control their own bodies. 4. Allow the GOP to inflict further damage on the environment. 5. Allow masked, untrained circus freaks to murder nurses and war veterans in the streets because they are protecting their fellow citizens from a deportation Gestapo. 6. Further weaken public health by removing meaningful checks and balances on someone like RFK Jr., who oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, amid measles outbreaks and an explosive diarrhea virus caused by the actions of Trump donors, with no repercussions in exchange for another bag of money dropped at Trump's feet. I could go on and on about what it would mean for this country if Democrats lost the Senate because you selfishly sat out this election after deciding to put a foreign country above your own. For years, leftists with my political views have cast votes for people we believed were horrible candidates with terrible ideas. Going all the way back to Bill Clinton, who transformed the modern Democratic Party from the party of FDR into GOP Lite by selling out organized labor to corporate interests. Then there was his wife, whom I bit my tongue so hard for that it probably bled when I voted for her in 2016 after my candidate, Bernie Sanders, lost the primary. I voted for what I viewed as the lesser of two evils because the alternative was even worse. The alternative who is still in office and who you are about to enable with another congressional foot soldier. I could go on and on about the Democrats I have reluctantly voted for—Elissa Slotkin, Noah Arbit, and Haley Stevens after AIPAC decimated Andy Levin, a Jew and former synagogue president, because he actually valued Palestinian lives. I voted for them because, in my view, even a flawed Democrat was preferable to the Republican alternative. But now, for once in your lives, YOU may have to vote for someone with whom that don't agree on every issue. Instead of taking one for the team the way progressives and Democratic Socialists have done election after election, you say you're going to take your ball and go home. It's despicable. And if you follow through with this plan, it's unforgivable. You can hang your Ruth Bader Ginsburg dolls in your great rooms as decoration and place your "In This House We Believe" signs in your yard, but they don't truly mean shit. They're lip service to the cause. Refusing to vote for Dr. El-Sayed—or supporting Mike Rogers instead—is a shanda. It tells me that you don't truly care about the poor, the marginalized, your LGBTQ friends and neighbors, or universal health care as a human right. What you truly care about is a tiny country 6,000 miles away. And what exactly would satisfy you about Dr. El-Sayed's views on Israel? If he offered some mealy-mouthed answer claiming he believes in a two-state solution? I'm sorry, but Dr. El-Sayed didn't destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. That process was orchestrated by Netanyahu, the Likud Party, and successive Israeli governments over the last 30 years. There is no realistic potential for a two-state solution because the Israeli government has spent decades making it impossible. That's why Netanyahu encouraged Qatar to fund Hamas and allowed it to accumulate resources that were ultimately used to carry out the October 7 attacks. And if you hate Netanyahu, remember that his predecessor and likely successor, Naftali Bennett, has also opposed a two-state solution. There is no major Jewish Israeli political party that genuinely supports Palestinian autonomy. Yet, apparently, some of you would be satisfied if Dr. El-Sayed simply lied about the viability of this false hope. People have asked me how I can support Abdul El-Sayed—how I can work for his campaign as an influencer and collaborate with others in the online community to help elect him to the Senate. They ask how I can do it while being Jewish. I'm not doing it despite being Jewish. I'm doing it because I am Jewish. For more than 10 years, I attended Temple Israel. Sunday school. Hebrew school. Monday school. Over and over again, I was taught one lesson: "Never Again." I was never taught that "Never Again" applied only to Jews. I was taught that it applied to every oppressed people. That's why I don't want my tax dollars used to kill children. That's why I don't want to see infants starve. And that is part of why I support Dr. El-Sayed and will do everything in my power over the next 89 days to help elect him. You don't have to agree with me about Israel or with Dr. El-Sayed's position. If you don't want to fill in the oval next to his name on Election Day, then at least vote a straight Democratic ticket. It's what I have done for years in service of candidates I strongly disagreed with, often with a foul taste in my mouth. Now it is your turn. If not, then let your mishpuchah spend their days in a fascist state run by a sociopath who tells you that you're only truly Jewish if you vote for HIM. The true anti-Semite who constantly conflates Judaism and Zionism. For 10 years, Jewish Democrats have warned that Donald Trump and his minions are an existential threat to our democracy. And they were correct. If you are complicit in allowing Mike Rogers to get elected to the Senate, YOU yourselves have become the existential threat. You still have 89 days to do the right thing (Spike Lee TM.)