The Empire Wrecks Back

The fallout from the deliberately inflammatory Rebellion PAC ad continues, as it seems to have created a massive rift between Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and his vanquished primary opponent Haley Stevens. Stevens, whose fiancé Jason Turkish already publicly announced he was endorsing AES' Republican opponent, came out with a lengthy list of demands for El-Sayed before she'd deign to appear with him. El-Sayed, who'd already disavowed the ad and was reportedly ready to more explicitly condemn it, bristled at Stevens' ultimatums. Now the unity event is off, and Republicans are salivating at another Dems-in-disarray opportunity.

First thing is first. While I agree with those who attribute this whole cascade to the fallout from that terrible ad, that in no way excuses Stevens' wretched choices here. She's responsible for her own choices, and these choices are pure wrecking behavior. It's all the more frustrating because Stevens' initial concession and endorsement after a bitter and disappointing primary loss to AES were model behavior, and earned plenty of justified praise by appearing to prove that "blue no matter who" wasn't just a demand put upon the left by the center, but applied reciprocally as well. Even many of her critics were lauding her and holding her up as a contrast to, say, Jasmine Crockett. For her to backslide now, so late in the game, is an act of pure ego. As far as I'm concerned, she and Turkish are no better than any other Michigan "progressive" who -- whether by explicit endorsement or tacit foot-dragging -- functionally sabotages the Democratic nominee in a progressive race (yes, I continue to think that the right analogue for these people are the folks who refused to back Biden/Harris in 2024, and yes, that comparison is meant to be a supremely negative one).

At the very least, I'd hope that Stevens (and Turkish) have rendered themselves personas non grata in Democratic politics going forward. Whether that actually will happen -- who's to say (Darializa Avila Chevalier didn't even vote for Biden in 2020 and now she's headed to Congress, so, you know, memories can be short). But for my part -- and I say this as someone who probably would have voted for Stevens over AES in the primary (albeit McMorrow over both of them) -- Stevens is dead to me, and I very much hope her career is indeed over.