My, how times change. Six years ago, Democrats rushed to adopt the radical policies of "defund the police" in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis. At that time, the Black Lives Matter movement had reached its apogee in radical politics, with Democrats at all levels rushing to bend the knee to BLM and the nihilistic progressives, oftentimes literally:
This moment didn't last too long, however. A massive crime wave exploded in every city that actually attempted to defund the police, and even in those cities where politics forced police to retreat. It turned out that most of the normies want policing and incarceration rather than chaos and anarchy. Democrats began to retreat from their anti-policing positions toward the end of the Biden Regency, when voters made clear that crime had become a high priority in their electoral considerations.
Some Democrats later claimed never to have supported defunding the police at all. That's what Abdul El-Sayed claims now in his campaign to win the Democrats' nomination to the US Senate in Michigan. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski begs to differ. A few days ago, the K-File reporter did a deep dive into El-Sayed's public commentary in 2020 and 2021 and found that the progressive Democrat stood at the vanguard of the Defund the Police movement, until the politics got too uncomfortable:
Michigan Democratic Senate front-runner Abdul El-Sayed has faced criticism for previous comments he made about defunding the police. In recent interviews, El-Sayed has insisted he “never, never called for defunding” the police. Last week in an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt, he said he deleted old tweets supporting the movement because they were taken “out of context,” calling them “clickbait in DC.”
But interviews from 2020 show El-Sayed repeatedly endorsed defunding the police, according to a CNN KFile review of his media appearances. “We do need to defund the police,” El-Sayed said in a 2020 radio interview while specifically discussing how the slogan could undermine criminal justice reform efforts.
El-Sayed’s interviews from 2020 and 2021 show him embracing the “defund the police” movement — not just uttering the phrase but supporting the key principle of reinvesting funds from the police into other public-sector spaces such as mental health and anti-poverty efforts.
His comments came during the height of the defund movement’s popularity following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. While the movement gained traction among progressives, it remained politically unpopular with the broader public.
Not long before Kaczynski began his research, it became apparent that El-Sayed had deleted his Twitter postings during this period. El-Sayed claimed that he didn't want his posts "to be taken out of context" when asked whether those posts related to his support for Defund the Police. Even when CNN's Kasie Hunt tried asking him directly about his position, El-Sayed deflected:
“I think this debate about 2020 and the ways that tweets are going to play are really nice on CNN if you want to get clicks,” he added. “They’re not that effective, and nobody really asks me about them on the streets or in communities in Michigan. So, if you want to talk about housing or health care or corporate dominance in our politics, I think those are a lot more legitimate questions that people are actually asking me about what they want their next senator to do in the state of Michigan, rather than for clickbait in DC.”
Ahem. Does El-Sayed realize that the job for which he's running is in DC rather than Michigan? "Their next senator" is not going to "do" anything "in the state of Michigan." US Senators do not have the authority to take any actions in their home states, except for constituent services. That's not how Congress or the Constitution works. Their next senator will instead vote on public policy in DC that will have impacts all over the country. Perhaps El_Sayed should study American civics more closely before running for public office, especially at the federal level.
Even apart from that, this is a dodge. El-Sayed speaks about 2020 as though it was fin de siecle, not just six years ago. El-Sayed held public office at that time; it was not a period of "reckless youth." It was just six years ago, and the radical nature of Defund the Police – not to mention its disastrous outcomes – remains very much relevant to El-Sayed's temperament and judgment for higher office.
Just the fact that El-Sayed feels the need to temporize and prevaricate when asked about his past positions speaks volumes about his current orientation. All he'd need to say is, "I did support those positions, but they turned out to be unworkable and terrible policies, and here's what I think should happen now," while laying out some ideas for reform in law enforcement. El-Sayed won't say that, though, because he's still the same nihilistic radical he was in 2020, only with a little more discipline in his statements.
El-Sayed will face off against Haley Stevens tomorrow night in a debate, the first since Mallory McMorrow withdrew from the primary. That sets up an even-up fight between the DSA-style radical and a more establishment candidate in the Michigan race. Will Stevens draw these distinctions herself in the debate? Stevens has called to defund ICE in this session of Congress, so it may be less distinct than Michigan Democrats will like in the general election against Mike Rogers.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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