On Sunday, socialists united in Michigan to convince residents of a swing state that another borderline socialist really can win a Senate seat there.
Outside, meanwhile, merch vendors served as proof positive that capitalism remains undefeated.
According to the Michigan Advance, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York were in Lansing and then Grand Rapids with Abdul El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health official who is locked in a tight race for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring Democrat Sen. Gary Peters.
Peters has endorsed U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s a liberal but still somewhere within the window of sanity. El-Sayed, meanwhile, is the type of person who not only takes endorsements from far-left streamer Hasan Piker (he of “America deserved 9/11” fame) but campaigns with him, as well.
El-Sayed, you may not be surprised, has what the Michigan Advance politely called “questions of electability” in the general. Sanders, meanwhile, framed the visit as part of a populist revolution against what he called “the billionaires.”
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Great rally. Another standing room only crowd.
The billionaires got the money. We got the momentum and the people. @AbdulElSayed is going to win. pic.twitter.com/80ZvXh6BKF
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 20, 2026
Do you think Democrats will eventually shun the socialists in the party ranks?
Yes: 50% (6 Votes)
No: 50% (6 Votes)
“The billionaires got the money. We got the momentum and the people,” Sanders said, along with a short clip from the rally.
“There is a reason why the whole country is watching this race. In fact, people all over the world are watching what’s happening here in the state of Michigan,” Sanders said at the Lansing event.
“The reason for that is, that in a time when we have more wealth and more inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country, at a time when fewer people, a handful of people, have never held so much wealth and power in the history of this country, people all over America and the world are asking: Is democracy alive and well in America?”
“Or will a handful of billionaires and their super PACs be able to buy this election?”
I was unaware that Haley Stevens was a billionaire. But you have to start somewhere, and Congress isn’t a bad place to start. Just ask Nancy Pelosi.
You know what’s a better place to start? Entrepreneurship. Which, as it turns out, even people at a rally for lazy socialists can understand:
Ppl are selling Mamdani merch in Lansing, MI ahead of El-Sayed, Bernie, AOC rally pic.twitter.com/BjkjbtWNH5
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 19, 2026
Yeah, I don’t think that those “AOC!” or “Eat the Rich” hats were freebies, like the socialists promise everything will be if you let them take over. To be fair, they were probably competitively priced, which is also what socialist goods never are.
One of the reasons for that was exploiting cheap labor from what lefties love referring to as “the global south.”
Made in Haiti. Being sold outside the Abdul / Bernie rally in Detroit Saturday. pic.twitter.com/8TEyNWfxU0
— Lon Johnson (@LonJohnson48226) July 20, 2026
That’s right, Haiti. Well, you’ve got to make a living somehow.
Funnily, El-Sayed is within the state’s top 1 percent in earnings, according to Fox News, and he supports Medicare-for-All while his wife’s psychiatry practice doesn’t actually take Medicare:
Abdul El-Sayed supports a single-payer, “Medicare for All” healthcare system that would cover every American “from cradle to grave.” His wife, psychiatrist Sarah Jukaku, doesn’t accept Medicare or any other insurance. She also appears to have scrubbed a portion of the “Frequently… pic.twitter.com/PjmEvsarXu
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) July 13, 2026
Of course, it’ll be the people outside the event who’ll learn the greatest lesson in what El-Sayed’s policies will visit upon them. They did the work, they put up the risk, and they’ll have their money confiscated by grifters.
If the people inside the event have their way, however, it’ll already be too late: They’ll be seizing the means of T-shirt production posthaste.
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