Damned If They Do! Damned If They Don't!

Kamala is aware and will address the elephant in the room.

Former vice president Kamala Harris is to host a forum with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Expect the rage peddling from the left, center and right.

Damned if they do, damn if they don't.

Harris is trying to reevaluate her stances. After talking to New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani as well as Florida senate candidate Angie Nixon, the former vice president now makes an attempt to talk to voters who felt she abandoned them in the 2024 election.

Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab and Muslim voting demographic voted for third party and Donald J. Trump which cost her 59,000 votes. It became an issue for the KHive stans who continue to push away voters with their dog whistle rhetoric.

Harris is dismissing the noise and trying to reposition herself as the true progressive in a potential 2028 run. 

El-Sayed has explicitly rejected the standard "progressive" or "moderate" labels often assigned by media pundits, arguing that traditional left-versus-right divisions serve as a distraction from structural issues. During his campaign, El-Sayed popularized the stance:

"The division is not between left and right. The real division exists between people who are locked out and those who are doing the locking out."

Some leftist commentators and activists criticize El-Sayed for engaging with Harris, viewing it as a compromise of progressive principles or an endorsement of establishment policies, particularly regarding foreign policy and healthcare.

Harris and El-Sayed have spoken multiple times since she endorsed the progressive Democrat after his primary victory, but this is the first time they’ll appear publicly together.

Harris and El-Sayed will attend a roundtable focused on Black maternal health on Tuesday, according to his campaign spokesperson. El-Sayed is a doctor and the former head of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County.

“Vice President Harris looks forward to returning to Michigan to help turn out the vote in this critical state,” Eduardo Negrón, Harris’ spokesperson, said in a statement. “It is critical we flip the Senate so we can bring down prices and stand up to Donald Trump’s corruption.”

Keep it moving and never be distracted.

El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative, in November. Republicans have repeatedly attacked El-Sayed, portraying him as the kind of “radical” liberal they say has taken over the Democratic Party.

The seat, currently held by retiring curmudgeon Democratic senator Gary Peters, is among the must-wins for Democrats as they try to achieve control of the Senate. The party needs to flip four GOP-held seats to take a majority, if Democrats keep the Michigan seat. If Rogers were to flip Michigan to Republicans, the Democrats’ challenge would be even greater.

Some other top-ranking Democrats have thrown their weight behind El-Sayed after a bitter primary against Rep. Haley Stevens that highlighted divisions within their party, notably on U.S. support for Israel. In August, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urged a crowd of hundreds in Detroit to unify behind Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Trump, is seen as a possible 2028 candidate. Michigan will be the fifth state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.

While in Michigan, Harris will also meet with local elected officials and the Rev. Wendell Anthony, the president of the NAACP’s Detroit branch, according to her spokesperson.