The New Red-Green Scare: How El-Sayed’s Victory Became Part of the War on Dissent

In the Weekly Roundup, Brad Onishi examines how the American Right and MAGA are reacting to Abdul El-Sayed's victory in Michigan by calling him anti-American, communist, socialist, and more. As Brad explains, these rhetorical choices are strategies that correspond to a larger effort by the Trump administration to criminalize dissent. Brad traces the code words used by the American Right against Sayed, Mamdani, and others to NSPM7 and Project Esther.

This is about more than one Senate race in Michigan. It’s about who gets to define what counts as “American,” what kinds of political disagreement are considered legitimate, and what happens when the language of political opposition becomes the language of political persecution.

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