Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic primary in Michigan marks a major turning point for the party, for American politics more broadly, and for American Jews.
The anti-establishment positioning of El-Sayed and other candidates backed by Zohran Mamdani’s party, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), is built around bold proposals such as Medicare for All and the abolition of ICE – but also around a strong and persistent focus on Israel.
This approach both reflects and intensifies political polarization, using Israel as an easy way to distinguish themselves from incumbents and the Democratic establishment, which they portray as benefiting from the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
The DSA and the Democratic Party’s Left wing have skillfully built their message around real and troubling issues: the influence of money in American politics, US military intervention abroad while social problems worsen at home, and American support for governments with troubling human rights records.
Yet they simplify these complex concerns by identifying a single overarching scapegoat: Israel – or, more precisely, America’s support for Israel.
Their objective is not merely to criticize Israeli government policy or to advocate conditioning US aid on changes in that policy. Rather, it is to challenge the very principle of American support for Israel, a state whose legitimacy some openly question, while others go so far as to blame US support for Israel for America’s own social problems.
For the majority of American Jews – who are attached to Israel’s existence, critical of its current government, and Democratic voters – the radicalism of this approach has come as a profound shock. But that shock is precisely the point.
The party’s Left wing uses it to demonstrate its determination to overturn the status quo and challenge the Democratic establishment, thereby helping its candidates unseat more moderate incumbents.
In this sense, the strategy is the exact mirror image of what occurred on the Republican Right with the Tea Party in 2009-2010 and later with the MAGA movement beginning in 2015.
These movements did not merely advocate policies further to the Right than those of the Republican Party. They sought to challenge the legitimacy of the party itself in a sweeping anti-establishment revolt that ultimately transformed it beyond recognition compared with what it had been through the early 2010s.
Modeling after Trump's success
In 2012, in the aftermath of the Tea Party wave, Republican nominee Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama, who won reelection with relative ease. That defeat initially led many Republicans to advocate a more inclusive approach, particularly on immigration.
US President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement did exactly the opposite, and Trump crushed his more traditional rivals in the 2016 Republican primaries. At the time, many predicted Hillary Clinton would defeat him.
Instead, despite losing the popular vote, he won the presidency by bringing new voters into the Republican coalition. Better or worse – depending on one’s perspective – Trump increased his total vote from 63 million in 2016 to 77 million in 2024, fundamentally reshaping the Republican electorate.
The Democratic Party’s Left wing is pursuing essentially the same gamble today. It aims to attract new voters and build a new winning coalition modeled on Trump’s success.
It is also betting that widespread public frustration with a political system perceived as incapable of addressing access to healthcare, education, and the rising cost of living will drive voters toward more radical solutions.
Michigan is not the United States as a whole.
Yet El-Sayed’s short victory, following similar successes by like-minded candidates in New York and Colorado, is a powerful symbol of the Democratic Party’s internal divisions in an increasingly polarized America, where a growing share of citizens on both the Left and the Right are embracing political radicalism, that could be extremely toxic and even dangerous for American Jews, all too often seen as proxies for a demonized State of Israel in an alarming level of antisemitism.
Born and raised in France, the writer is the correspondent of French Jewish radio, Radio J, and of the French paper librejournal.fr in the US, where he has been living for 16 years. He is also a contributor to the European review K. He also holds US and Israeli citizenships. His opinions are his only.