The Washington Post is reporting that some Trump voters in Dearborn, Michigan, see Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as an “America First” candidate, a claim that drew swift ridicule from conservatives online. The Gateway Pundit framed the story as an example of writer Walter Kirn’s argument, highlighted by the outlet a day earlier, that everything that happens right before an election is a psyop.
The Post promoted the story on X, saying many Trump 2024 voters in Dearborn describe El-Sayed that way because of his opposition to unconditional military aid to Israel and his focus on the domestic economy.
According to the Post’s story, Dearborn is the first Arab American-majority city, and El-Sayed himself recently embraced the America First label in a campaign ad that ran on Fox News and Newsmax. The paper quoted Michigan voter Mustapha El-Jaroudi, 27, who said, “Mike Rogers will put Israel first.” El-Jaroudi, who the Post said voted for Trump twice, now calls the president “a con artist” who betrayed his campaign refrain of “no new wars.”
The Gateway Pundit questioned whether anyone would believe the claim, arguing that El-Sayed mostly talks about the Middle East and that the Post built its story around a single voter in an effort to help him across the finish line.
Critics on X piled on. Commentator Kurt Schlichter wrote, “There are literally no MAGA voters who feel that way,” while another user called it “amazingly bad propaganda.” A third wrote, “Nobody believes this.”
The Gateway Pundit argued that with the election in its final stretch, the left is throwing everything it can at voters regardless of how ridiculous it sounds.
