Opinion: Pastor Corey Brooks Says El-Sayed's Pitch to Black Voters Is 'the Same Old Liberal Condescension'
A Chicago pastor writes on Election Day that Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee treats Black voters as people who are owed, and leans on socialist ideas. The arguments and figures are his.
This is a summary of an opinion column on Fox News by Pastor Corey Brooks, writing from Chicago's South Side. The views and figures are his, not RightNewsRightNow's.
His starting point. Brooks says he has watched Michigan "with a heavy heart" as voters decide whether to send Abdul El-Sayed to the Senate. He notes El-Sayed wants Medicare for All and to abolish ICE, and has the backing of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. El-Sayed says he is a capitalist, not a socialist, and the Democratic Socialists of America have never endorsed him. Brooks says El-Sayed spoke at six DSA chapter events between 2017 and 2020 and keynoted a 2019 fundraiser, and that 50 DSA members flew in from New York to knock doors for him before the primary.
The condescension charge. Brooks says El-Sayed lost Detroit in the August primary, then visited Black churches and released an agenda with housing timelines, business loans and school repairs. He quotes El-Sayed telling faith leaders in September about "unpaid debts that have long since come due." Brooks says that language treats Black Americans as "an oppressed class" who are owed, "just like the good old White liberal used to do."
The dependency argument. Brooks argues Black Americans were the first to live under government dependency, citing the Great Society, housing projects and welfare rules that punished marriage and work. He says the share of Black children born to unmarried mothers rose from 23.6% in 1963 to 69% in 2023. He says he founded Project H.O.O.D. to counter this with job training and character building.
On DSA's platform. Brooks quotes DSA's 2026 program as calling for abolishing the Senate and Electoral College and drafting "a new constitution." He says El-Sayed has not signed on to that program, and that his own proposal is to end the filibuster, but that DSA volunteers will want something in return.
The Muslim Brotherhood question. Brooks cites a 2012 post by El-Sayed's half-sister about their mother's college activism in the Muslim Brotherhood, and says El-Sayed called it "hearsay evidence from a tweet." Brooks acknowledges that fact-checkers have not found evidence El-Sayed himself has ties and that he has disavowed the group. He argues El-Sayed uses fear of being called Islamophobic to deflect the question.
What we could not check. We have not verified the statistics, the DSA quotations or the attendance claims. The column does not include a response from El-Sayed's campaign.