Bold Strategy: A US Senate Candidate in Michigan Comes Out Against Football for its 'Toxic Masculinity' and Says 'Fireworks Suck'

I know virtually nothing about Michigan politics. And generally speaking, I care even less. I'm from Massachusetts, where we haven't had a contested election of any office in my lifetime. Ours are more like coronations, but with months of unnecessary campaign ads that clog up your YouTube feed like turds that won't flush. So I'm certainly not following elections halfway across the country. 

That is, with the exception of this speech by a candidate who just lost her primary. This is pure gold. As she code-switches to an exaggerated Midwestern Mom accent to seem relatable to her audience, you can practically hear the SNL announcer saying, "With your host … Melissa McCarthyyyyy!!!"

Somehow, this compelling, competent, statesmanlike politician lost her bid for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in the great state of Michigan to a former Columbia professor and medical doctor, Abdul El-Sayed. 

El-Sayed won by a razor-thin margin of roughly 1%. And enters the general election against former Republican congressman Mike Rogers with very high stakes, indeed. No less a matter than which party controls the Senate may very well be determined by this race. 

And with so much hanging in the balance, both sides are hoping to seize the early momentum. And so far the focus is on two critical issues that directly affect the lives of all Americans: 

Football and fireworks. 

It seems that El-Sayed has come out against both. Which in a state where the No. 1 issue is beating Ohio State:

… where the Lions have been in the NFL for 90 years, and everyone likes fireworks - because who doesn't - these promise to be wedge issues. 

And yet the good doctor has, in fact, injected them (no pun intended, but there it is) into the campaign:

Here's more of his quote:

"There are serious consequences, after all, to society telling men they're defined by their ability to knock another human down. … We're learning a lot more about the consequences of repetitive, low-grade head trauma, the kind you get on the football field, play in and play out. … 

Football is very much associated with a particular masculine and oftentimes toxically masculine culture. So much of it was about how you have to get back up and play for your team. You're not allowed to show pain or vulnerability. … I still enjoy watching football, even if with some guilt associated with it."

Then with regards to fireworks, Dr. El-Sayed had this to say:

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…  quality, the chemicals used in fireworks, their potential to trigger PTSD in veterans, and the risks they pose to children and pets."

I'm not going to debate these stances with El-Sayed or any of his supporters. Not because I can't, but because there's no need to. Just like there's no need for him to start removing these videos where he proposes getting rid of fireworks. 

These aren't 80/20 or even 90/10 issues. They're at most 97/3 issues, and probably less in a Midwestern state like Michigan, where football is king and patriotism is a secular religion. If he wants to take the minority position of a tiny fringe of people who hate football and the way we've been celebrating the 4th of July for 250 years, good on him. He should have the courage of his convictions. Own them. Embrace them. State your case and let the electorate decide. That's what democracy is all about. 

Of course his opponent saw the giant opening this afforded him, and ran right through the hole. To which now El-Sayed is challenging him to a duel. Not pistols at dawn, like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. But on the football field:

How he proposes to play football 1-on-1, he doesn't make clear. I mean, even Michigan Man Tom Brady couldn't, in Gisele's words, "throw the ball and catch the fucking ball" all by himself. What chance do a couple of politicians have? And if they bring a team, who gets to play? If one guy shows up with his his campaign staff and the other shows up with a bunch of Wolverines, it'll be deadlier than Burr vs Hamilton. 

Still, I don't hate the idea. The direction the country has been heading in, maybe deciding elections on the football field instead of the ballot box is an idea whose time has come. It'll make it more of a Trial By Combat scenario instead of debates or who has a better political machine. 

But that shouldn't distract us from the fact that a candidate for the United States Senate, the upper chamber of our Legislative Branch, is badmouthing football and fireworks on the 4th of July. Whatever else his stances are on other issues, those are hard to look past. Those are what candidates like to call Kitchen Table issues when they're pandering to the middle class voters as hard as they can. 

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I don't have to do this, because goes without saying, but I will. 

On the first subject, Teddy Roosevelt, who conducted summit meetings in the Oval Office with college presidents looking to ban the sport wrote to his son saying, “I am delighted to have you play football." Adding, "I believe in rough games and in rough, manly sports. I do not feel any particular sympathy for the person who gets battered about a good deal — so long as it is not fatal.” And he succeeded in saving football, believing it was important to American manhood.

On the second, John Adams wrote to his wife, Pride of Weymouth, MA Abigail, to say, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” In other words, let's blow shit up for freedom.

We don't make enough men like them any more. But they haven't gone extinct. Let's pray they never do.