Over the past two decades plus I have traveled around the country and around the world to provide humanitarian and legal support and advocacy to those in crisis. From serving Katrina victims way back in 2005, to subsequent years of building schools in Mali, documenting occupation in Palestine, serving as a first responder to earthquake victims in Turkey, raising funds for a maternal care hospital in Guatemala, to providing legal aid to fire victims in Lahaina and Los Angeles—each of these journeys has reminded me of the same truth: the greatest privilege of my career as a human rights lawyer is not just in the cases I have won in courtrooms. It is the moments when I have been able to show up—physically, personally, with my hands and my voice and whatever resources I could carry—for people in crisis.

That calling does not get quieter with time. It gets louder.

And today, children in Syria cry out for support in the form of needing hearing aids. I am doing my best to respond to that call—as a human rights lawyer, as an activist, and as a father who sees these children as my own. I am asking you to proverbially come with me and make this trip a success. Here’s how.

Let’s Address This.

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The Children We Are Going to Help

For this mission, our goal is to serve at least 100 children by providing hearing aids, medical support, and the resources they need to be ready for the next school year.

I am traveling to Syria with an extremely reputable non-profit known as SEMA, the Syrian Expatriate Medical Association. SEMA has been on the ground in Syria since 2013. In this valiant, sustained humanitarian work, SEMA’s medical missions have reached hundreds of thousands of Syrians across regions with populations of more than five million people. They have built emergency care facilities, ICUs, and the largest surgical hospital in the city of Idlib—a hospital constructed specifically to serve the millions of Syrians most directly devastated by the war. SEMA is not a new org chasing a flash of visibility. It offers decades of unglamorous, essential, life-saving work done by people who refuse to look away.

SEMA has already provided more than 1,300 custom hearing aids to children in Northern Syria. We want to help 100 more children. A hearing aid is life changing. It means a child can hear its mother’s voice. Or, walk into their classroom in September and hear their name called for the first time. Can hear their friends laughing. It means they can finally participate in the world around them.

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The Goal: $25,000. 100 Children. One School Year Changed Forever.

Here is what we need and what it will do: $25,000 will fund hearing aids, medical assessments, and support services for at least 100 children in Northern Syria—getting them ready for the next school year so that their hearing loss does not define their academic future or their social lives.

This is not a theoretical donation to a distant bureaucracy. Every dollar raised goes directly through SEMA. This is a direct investment in children who will receive hearing aids before the school year begins—children whose names we will know, whose faces I will see, whose progress SEMA will document and share.

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Why This Mission Is Personal

This part is uncomfortable, but if you know anything about my writing and advocacy, I never shy from uncomfortable conversations as that’s where accountability begins.

The children we are going to help in Syria are living with the consequences of a war that has been funded—in significant part—by American tax dollars. The weapons that destroyed their hearing, collapsed their homes, and shattered their communities—did not just pop into existence. Too often they were manufactured, sold, and supplied through systems that the US government funded and enabled for years. Georgetown University documents that quantity as billions in US arms sent to Syria.

I am not saying this to create guilt, but because I believe that human rights require honesty. If we believe in justice, we must reckon honestly with what has been done in our name, and then do something about it when we can. Going to Syria is my way of doing something about it. With the understanding that we cannot undo the past, but we can choose what we do next.

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Closing Thoughts

Over the years, this community—the readers of Let’s Address This, have shown up for every fight we have fought. You have proven to me again and again: that ordinary people, acting together, can do extraordinary things.

Now I am asking you to help me raise $25K for hearing aids to 100 children in Syria.

I will be on the ground in Syria. I will document what I see. I will bring back the stories of the children we helped—and I will share them with you, because you will have made those stories possible.

Finally—let me offer this in case anyone asks: I am not being compensated for this trip. Nor will any of the funds raised go to me. Every penny will go to SEMA and the children in need of hearing aids. I am fundraising and traveling to Syria pro bono and solely for my love of, and commitment to, service to humanity. And my readers should know that your support of Let’s Address This is a significant reason why I am able to take on these massive and critical undertakings. My eternal gratitude do all of you.

The greatest calling in my life has always been to do my best to show up when it matters. Katrina. Mali. Turkey. Palestine, Guatemala. Los Angeles. Lahaina.

Syria is next.

Come with me.

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Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and humanitarian first responder. He is the host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, justice, and the accountability that corporate media refuses to provide. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for universal human rights.

ALERT: We have expanded Let's Address This to bring human rights coverage directly to your local communities.

• If you live in Illinois, subscribe to Let's Address Illinois

• If you live in Texas, subscribe to Let's Address Texas

For us to continue to expand, we need your continued support. We have ambitions to expand to at least 5 more states in 2026. Join us as a free or paid subscriber.

Interviews & Articles from This Week

1. Monday — INTERVIEW: Amanda Hollowell for Congress in Georgia’s First District

2. Monday — INTERVIEW: Dr. Anthony Douglas on Gun Violence

3. Tuesday — INTERVIEW: Sitting Down 1 on 1 with Dr. Abdul El Sayed

4. Tuesday — ARTICLE FROM ISLAM TODAY: What is Hijab in Islam?

5. Wednesday — ARTICLE: Graham Platner Won Maine by 50 Points. The Establishment Is Furious. Good.

6. Thursday — ARTICLE FROM ISLAM TODAY: Our 1 Year Anniversary

June 11 marks our 1 year anniversary that we launched Islam Today — here’s what’s next and my ask of you to act on 1, 2, or 3 calls to action

7. Thursday — GUEST POST: A School Counselor Called Islam an Invasion, Her District Looked the Other Way

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What Is The Public Thinking?

This week, prediction markets put Democrats’ odds of winning all four core Senate seats—Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Maine—at 54%. Georgia and Michigan are the real pressure points: both are toss-up races in Trump-won states where organizing on the ground will make or break the outcome. These numbers shift week to week, and staying informed about where things stand matters.

Dad Joke of the Week

If seagulls really wanted to travel faster, they'd become e-gulls. :D #DadJokes

Today I’m turning the platform over to Let’s Address Texas State Director Saadia Mirza, who has been pushing for accountability from Aragan Middle School and CFISD leadership for over a week with no response. She’s laying out what happened, why it matters, and exactly what you can do about it. Let’s Address This.

Guest Post: Middle School Counselor Posted That She Is “Sick of America Being Invaded by Islam”

Written by Saadia Mirza

Gena Kellar is a current Middle School Guidance Counselor at Aragan Middle school in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, the third-largest school district in Texas. It serves nearly 118,000 students in a community that includes thousands of Muslim families and at least two mosques. Last week she posted an image on her Facebook page reading:

“I’m sick of being called racist because I don’t want America invaded by Islam. I want the America we had growing up, not some third world country.”

A CFISD parent reported the post to the school’s principal, Johnathan Heefner. The principal returned a voicemail saying the account and post had been deleted. That was the extent of the response. The school board and the superintendent have not meaningfully addressed the parent who raised this concern, nor meaningfully addressed the incident itself. By all accounts, Gena Kellar is still employed by the school district, and employed in a position of power over the students she despises. Below is a screenshot of the response a parent at the school district shared with us.

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This matters more because she’s a counselor

Guidance counselors are the adults a student goes to when they are being bullied or in crisis. Kellar has held positions of trust inside CFISD for years, including a former role at McFee Elementary. The Texas Educator Code of Ethics requires every educator to refrain from conduct that negatively affects the learning, mental health, or safety of a student, and to treat students without discrimination based on religion or national origin. Posting that a whole faith is an “invasion” is not adhering to those base standards of her profession. Every Muslim student in CFISD now has to wonder whether the counselor assigned to them sees their family as the invader.

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Deleting a profile or post is not the answer

Deleting a Facebook profile or post isn’t a remediation plan, it’s just damage control. If Kellar was comfortable enough to publish that image, she was comfortable enough to hold the belief, and she has been holding it while sitting across from middle schoolers, including Muslim ones, behind a closed counselor’s door. “The account in question has been deleted” is not an answer. “The counselor has been pulled from student contact while this is investigated” is.

What the parents did, and what the District did not

The parent who first received the screenshot reached out to the principal, school board and superintendent. The principal called back to say the account and post had been deleted. The board and the superintendent have not responded. This is the same district that suspends children for dress code violations in a single afternoon. The standard for adults on staff who publicly demean an entire religion appears to be different.

Parents of the CFISD system then reached out to us at Let’s Address Texas to help raise awareness of this injustice. Over the last week we have also taken action and reached out to the Principal of Aragan for a statement and for accountability. Despite multiple attempts, we have received no response as of this publishing. Now, we are using our platform to ask our neighbors across Texas and across the country to raise their voices.

Targeting children is indefensible and unacceptable, and we cannot allow it to go without meaningful acknowledgement, accountability, and remediation. Moreover, when a school district decides that anti-Muslim hate from a staff member doesn’t warrant a public response, that’s not just a Texas problem. Instead, it is a signal to every district nationwide about what they can get away with.

Action items

1. Call the CFISD Superintendent’s Office, Dr. Doug Killian, at 281-897-4077. Ask whether a counselor who described Islam as an invasion will continue counseling Muslim students? Be polite and on the record. Texas is a one party consent state, so you have permission to record your conversation with the school.

2. File an educator misconduct report with TEA at 1-800-252-9668 or the online complaint portal. The Code of Ethics is enforceable.

3. Email every CFISD school board trustee. Their contact page is here. Tell them you expect a public response, not silence.

4. Forward this to every parent you know in northwest Houston.

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We are building this platform exactly for moments like this. Where a marginalized group suffers harm and finds no media platform to help raise awareness. Our commitment to justice and human rights calls on us to demand accountability for every person in this country. If within your means, and especially if you are from or live in Texas, join us as a paid subscriber. Help us continue to build a future where every person has equal access to fairness and justice.

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Sources

Texas Education Agency: Educators’ Code of Ethics

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD Enrollment Numbers

Texas Tribune Public Schools Explorer: Cypress-Fairbanks ISD

CFISD Board of Trustees

TEA: File a Complaint About an Educator

Led by Saadia Mirza, Let’s Address Texas is your main destination for all things politics, social justice, and human rights in Texas.

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A first-time Senate candidate ran on an unapologetic platform of universal healthcare, labor rights, Indigenous sovereignty, economic justice, condemnation of genocide in Gaza, condemnation of the illegal war in Iran, and a complete refusal to take a single dollar from AIPAC or corporate PACs.

The establishment said he was unelectable. Corporate media said he was irredeemable. Democratic insiders clutched their pearls. Republican Senator Susan Collins expressed the gravest of concerns. David Brooks of the New York Times called him a “degenerate.”

And Graham Platner won the Democratic primary by more than 50 points.

He is already polling nearly 10 points ahead of Susan Collins in the general election.

Turns out progressive, worker-focused policies work. Turns out Mainers—like most Americans—are capable of distinguishing between a candidate who made mistakes, owned them, apologized, and did better, and the sea of politicians who have done far worse and never apologized for anything.

What this story is really about, though, is not just Maine. It is about the grotesque double standard being applied to Graham Platner—and what that double standard reveals about who corporate media protects and who it targets. Let’s Address This.

PART ONE: The Double Standard That Exposes Everything

Let us do a simple comparison. Three men. Three Senate races. Three very different standards of media scrutiny.

Graham Platner—Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine—made inappropriate comments in the past. He has owned those comments completely and without equivocation. He has apologized. He has promised to do better. And the Black and Indigenous people of Maine, the communities most directly affected by questions of his character and commitment, have spoken—alongside his wife Amy—and attested that he has done better. He has demonstrated growth. He is running on a platform that threatens every entrenched interest in American politics.

Alexander Vindman—running for Senate in Florida—has publicly declared on a podcast that there is “inherent trained racism against Jewish people in Muslim communities” that is “encouraged” and “nurtured.” This is not a past mistake he has apologized for. He said it recently. He has not retracted it. He has not apologized. He continues to deny that Israel’s genocide on Palestinians is a genocide—in direct contradiction of the UN, the ICC, the ICJ, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, and Israeli genocide scholars. He is a genocide denier and an anti-Muslim bigot, and he is completely unrepentant about both.

Ken Paxton—running for Senate in Texas—is among the most comprehensively corrupt politicians in America. His record of documented misconduct, abuse of power, and ethical violations would require an entire separate article to catalogue fully. He has not apologized for any of it. He remains entirely unrepentant and is running as a proud standard-bearer of the MAGA movement.

Now: which of these three candidates has corporate media designated as irredeemable and demanded drop out of his race?

Graham Platner.

Not the genocide denier. Not the anti-Muslim bigot. Not the most corrupt attorney general in modern American history. The candidate who apologized, grew, and is fighting for universal healthcare and Indigenous sovereignty.

I want you to sit with that for a moment—because it is not an accident and it is not a coincidence.

Vindman and Paxton, for all their differences in party affiliation, share one essential quality: they are status quo politicians. Neither one is a structural threat to the billionaire class, the military industrial complex, the health insurance industry, or the political establishment. Vindman rejects universal healthcare. Paxton serves the donor class that has always owned Texas politics. Both are in denial of, and support, Israel’s genocide on Gaza. Neither one is a change agent.

Graham Platner is. And that makes him the one candidate in this comparison who actually threatens the people who own corporate media.

The attacks on him are not merely about his past mistakes. They are about his future potential to disrupt the system that funds the outlets attacking him. The billionaire class does not spend money attacking politicians who are not a threat. Platner’s landslide primary victory is proof that they are right to be afraid.

But this double standard is just one part of the all-out assault you will see on Graham Platner in these coming months through the November general election.

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PART TWO: Susan Collins and the Spectacular Hypocrisy

Susan Collins issued a public statement declaring that the allegations against Graham Platner are “extremely troubling and serious” and that he “owes the people of Maine a detailed answer.”

He has answered. Repeatedly. Fully. Without equivocation.

But since Senator Collins wants to establish a standard of public accountability for personal conduct—a standard I am delighted to apply consistently—let us apply it.

Would Susan Collins like to answer why she has repeatedly supported and defended Donald Trump—a man who has been found civilly liable for rape, who has been credibly accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, who bragged on tape about sexually assaulting women, and who appears in the Epstein Files at least 1 million times that we know of?

Would Susan Collins like to answer why she voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite the credible, detailed, and corroborated sexual assault allegations against him—and despite the fact that her stated justification for the vote, that Kavanaugh would protect Roe v. Wade, was exposed as either naïve or dishonest within months of his confirmation?

Would Susan Collins like to answer why even now she won’t admit she regrets confirming Kavanaugh, despite seeing the horrific aftermath of his rulings to overturn Roe and devastating tens of millions of women?

Every MAGA accusation is a confession. The same Republicans who spent years defending Trump’s documented sexual misconduct, who voted to confirm a credibly accused Supreme Court Justice, and who have stood silently as their party has systematically dismantled women’s rights at every level of government—are now clutching pearls at a Democratic candidate who is running to oppose each of those injustices.

And it is not just Republicans. Corporate Democrats—the same people who rallied behind Andrew Cuomo despite his documented, multiple, substantiated cases of sexual abuse—are now clutching pearls about Platner. These are not people applying a consistent moral standard. These are people applying a political one. Cuomo was useful to the establishment. Platner threatens it. That is the only variable that changed.

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PART THREE: The Legacy Media Pile-On—And Why It Failed

The corporate media’s treatment of Graham Platner has been a case study in exactly the kind of journalism that has driven American trust in media to its historic low 28%.

David Brooks of the New York Times called Platner a “degenerate.” This is the same David Brooks who wrote an entire column advocating for moving on from the Epstein files—without disclosing that he himself appears in those files. The man lecturing the public about degeneracy while hoping people forget that he left his wife for his own assistant 23 years his younger. He is a cautionary tale about the access journalism that passes for opinion in legacy media.

David Frum of The Atlantic condemned Platner as unforgivable. This is the same David Frum who served as a Bush administration propagandist and helped manufacture the lies that justified the Iraq War—a war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, destabilized an entire region, and produced generational trauma whose consequences we are still living with today. A man who helped sell illegal war crimes to the American public should be in a Hague courtroom, not an Atlantic editorial chair—and he has absolutely no standing to tell anyone what is and is not forgivable.

And then there is what the legacy media did not cover. None of these outlets mentioned that independent journalists in Maine like Shay Stewart-Bouley—better known as Black Girl in Maine, who has followed Platner’s work closely and with the kind of ground-level scrutiny that actually matters. She has documented his genuine commitment to uplifting women and Black and brown communities. Yet, national outlets ignore her voice despite her on the ground knowledge and experience.

[Side note, you should absolutely subscribe to ’s journalism.]

None of the national legacy outlets asked the Black and Indigenous people of Maine what they think of the man running to represent them? None of them covered his platform in any substantive depth—the universal healthcare, the labor rights, the Indigenous sovereignty, the rejection of AIPAC money, the condemnation of genocide.

Because none of that fits the story they were trying to tell.

And here is the verdict on that story, delivered by the people of Maine: Platner won by more than 50 points.

That is not a narrow squeaker that could be attributed to name recognition or ballot positioning. That is a landslide repudiation of the media narrative. Mainers watched the pile-on, read the headlines, saw the establishment consensus—and voted for Platner anyway. Because they know him. Because they have watched him show up. Because they trust what the Black and Indigenous communities in their state are saying about him far more than they trust David Brooks.

The people of Maine proved something important on primary night: you cannot manufacture consensus for the establishment’s preferred outcome when voters have access to other sources of information. The legacy media’s monopoly on the political narrative is broken. And the 28% trust number is not a crisis for journalism—it is a verdict on what journalism has become.

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Why We Elevated Platner—And Why We Will Hold Him Accountable

Let’s Address This covered Graham Platner early—before the landslide, before the polling showing him up on Collins, before the national attention. Below is my Summer 2025 interview with him. We covered him because of what he ran on: universal healthcare, economic justice, Indigenous sovereignty, rejection of corporate and AIPAC money, and the courage to name genocide as genocide when every other politician was running from the word.

Those are the values we believe in. Those are the values that working families in Maine and across this country are demanding. And those values, it turns out, win elections—by 50 points.

But I want to be clear about something. Our support for Graham Platner is not unconditional cheerleading. It is principled alignment—which means it comes with principled accountability.

We will hold him to the standard of justice he has campaigned on. We will call him out if he takes corporate money. We will name it if he goes silent on genocide. We will write about it if he fails the Indigenous communities whose sovereignty he has promised to champion. We will not trade in access journalism for any candidate—not even the ones we want to win.

I asked him directly about the alleged Nazi tattoo, and will state for the record that I believe him that he is anti-fascist and anti-Nazi. That beyond his word, we have independent verification because he went through multiple physical examinations by the military, who check for and deny applicants with hate symbols—and accepted him. And yet additional verification because he went through checks with the State Department who check for hate symbols before giving him high security clearance—and he received that clearance. I would not support a candidate to the US Senate who I believed was anything but anti-fascist. That is my binding promise to the millions of monthly readers to Let’s Address This.

That is the promise of independent media. That is what your subscription to Let’s Address This funds. Not a platform for any particular candidate or party—but a platform for the values of human rights, economic justice, and the accountability that corporate media is constitutionally incapable of providing.

Closing Thoughts

None of the attacks on Platner in the primary were about universal healthcare. None of them were about protecting labor rights. None of them acknowledged what Indigenous Mainers and Black Mainers have said about this man. None of them engaged with what it would mean—for Maine, for the Senate, for the country—to have a senator who refuses AIPAC money and calls genocide by its name.

And the general election attacks on him will be the aforementioned on steroids. Don’t fall for it.

The establishment is not afraid of his past mistakes. They are afraid of his future votes. And they should be. Because if and when Graham Platner wins in November—and the polling suggests he can—the Senate will have a member who answers to the people of Maine, not the billionaires who own the outlets that tried to destroy him.

Platner will win in November if he stays true to the values of fighting for working Mainers, as that is what won him this primary. That is something no outside force—no corporate media pile-on, no establishment Democrat clutching pearls, no Susan Collins press release—has any control over.

And that is exactly why they are so afraid.

If you believe in the kind of independent, people-funded journalism that covered Platner before the establishment wanted you to—and that will hold him accountable after the balloons come down—become a paid subscriber to Let’s Address This today. This work only exists because of you.

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Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered journalism that corporate media refuses to deliver.

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This week I traveled to Motor City, Detroit, Michigan, to sit down with Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate, Dr. Abdul El Sayed. We sat, one on one, so I could ask him about the toughest criticisms against him and how he keeps fighting forward. We discuss, among other things:

• Trump won Michigan in 2024. Can Abdul beat MAGA extremist Mike Rogers in a general election?

• Abdul is the only candidate in this race fighting for universal healthcare. Is universal healthcare realistic?

• And on a positive note — what does the UAW endorsement mean to him, the son of an immigrant who arrived in this country to work in an auto manufacturing plant?

Check out our interview below, and be sure to subscribe so I can continue to travel around the country to document and share these critical stories in our fight against fascism.

I have known Dr. Abdul El Sayed for the better part of a decade. Throughout the years I’ve known him, one word comes to mind—consistency.

• His consistency in keeping working people as his North Star.

• His consistency in championing universal healthcare as a human right.

• His consistency in betting on the people of Michigan against those who seek to divide.

I encourage you to check out his campaign and get involved, so we can elect a true advocate for working people — one who has led by example for decades.

Get involved in his campaign

Finally, my gratitude to for hosting a forum that invited a number of candidates for office in Michigan. Stay tuned for my forthcoming interviews with the Democratic presumptive nominee for Michigan Attorney General, Eli Savit, Democratic Candidate for US Congress Donovan McKinney (MI-13), and Democratic Candidate for US Congress William Lawrence (MI-7).

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the courage that this moment demands. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.

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This week I sat down with Amanda Hollowell, who made the top two in an eight-way primary and is now heading to the runoff on June 16th for Georgia’s 1st Congressional District — without party backing, against an opponent with a million dollars in the bank. She’s running on what voters are actually saying at the door: affordability and corruption, the concerns she hears most from constituents. Along with housing, healthcare, minimum wage, prescription costs for seniors — Amanda knows organized people beat organized money, and she’s ready to prove it.

I also spoke with Dr. Anthony Douglas, a surgical resident in Chicago and one of the architects of the RIFL Act — landmark legislation that would hold gun manufacturers financially accountable for the public costs of gun violence and fund the prevention strategies we know work. We have the votes. One corporate Democrat is blocking it from reaching the floor.

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The Qasim Rashid podcast has surpassed 283,000 downloads! Thank you for your support.

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ALERT: We have expanded Let's Address This to bring human rights coverage directly to your local communities.

• If you live in Illinois, subscribe to Let's Address Illinois

• If you live in Texas, subscribe to Let's Address Texas

For us to continue to expand, we need your continued support. We have ambitions to expand to at least 5 more states in 2026. Join us as a free or paid subscriber.

Interviews from This Week

1. Monday — INTERVIEW: Randy Villegas Running for Congress in California’s 22nd District

2. Monday — INTERVIEW: Michael Blake for the Bronx in New York Congressional District 15

3. Tuesday — ARTICLE: 105 Years After the Tulsa Race Massacre

4. Wednesday — ARTICLE: Why Did Dr. King Say White Moderates Are Worse Than The KKK?

5. Thursday — ARTICLE: Georgia Can Make History on June 16

6. Friday — ARTICLE: Debunking Every Argument You Hear Against Universal Healthcare

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What Is The Public Thinking?

This week, this prediction market puts Democrats' odds of winning all four core Senate seats — Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Maine — at 50%. That's an 18-point drop from last week, and the steepest single-week decline we've seen. This is a gut-check moment. Georgia and Michigan are the pressure points: both are toss-up races in Trump-won states. The work matters more now, not less.

Dad Joke of the Week

Last week Russel Crowe and Sheryl Crow came to my house. I had to call the police to report the attempted murder. #DadJokes

(Note, this dad joke has levels to it so give yourself a minute to see if you get it:)

This week, Ken Jones, a retired San Francisco firefighter, died from lung cancer after Blue Shield denied his treatment claims. He is just one of 68,000 Americans who suffer and die annually because of our exploitative for profit healthcare model.

On May 20, 1962, JFK delivered an impassioned speech at Madison Square Garden in favor of universal healthcare. Then, decades later in 2006, nearly 7 in 10 Americans believed the government should fund healthcare. And now, a new Gallop Poll reports that 62% of Americans believe in guaranteed universal healthcare. And despite this decades-long support, not a single Presidential candidate this cycle had the courage to run on this wildly popular platform. In the past I’ve written in detail about America’s Violent Health System, and likewise, shared a deeply personal story about When Insurance Rejects Life Saving Care about our daughter Hannah Noor.

In response, I’ve received overwhelming empathy and compassion from conservatives and liberals alike, Republicans and Democrats, from those who self-identify as “Ultra MAGA” to those who label themselves as “Bernie Social Democrats.” Americans get it. Healthcare needs to be a human right.

Sadly, politicians—Republicans and too many Democrats alike—don’t get it. They worship at the altar of corporate donations. The health insurance industry annually spends a harrowing $700,000,000 on lobbying politicians to do their bidding. And that doesn’t even include what they spend on Super PACs to block out candidates who dare run on a platform of guaranteed universal healthcare. Those same healthcare corporations then engage in a mass media blitz of misinformation and disinformation to convince people to vote against their own self-interests. In reality, guaranteed universal healthcare is a proven model adopted by every single developed nation on Earth (and many lower income developing nations). And while I do not have $700,000,000 to counter the lobbying propaganda health insurance corporations infuse into our politics, I do have access to the facts that health insurance corporations hope the American people don’t realize.

Below I address five of the main arguments against universal healthcare in the United States and debunk these misconceptions with facts. After reading for yourself, I hope you feel compelled to share this far and wide with your networks. We can achieve healthcare as a human right in this country, but it requires us activating, organizing, and educating ourselves to successfully achieve this needed change. Let’s Address This.

Argument 1: We Can’t Afford Universal Healthcare

The opposite is true. Dozens of studies prove that universal healthcare will save Americans billions of dollars annually. In fact, 22 studies reviewed all concluded that universal healthcare would save approximately $450 billion a year. And this is a universal conclusion. For example, “Even the Mercatus Center, a right-wing think tank, recently found about $2 trillion in net savings over 10 years from a single-payer Medicare for All system. Most importantly, everyone in America would have high-quality health care coverage.”

Moreover, we cannot forget that right now approximately 73 million Americans are on Medicaid, 68 million Americans are on Medicare, and 10 million Americans are on Tricare. That means that of our nation’s 335 million people, approximately 151 million are already on a universal (or near universal) healthcare model. And guess what? These programs each cost significantly less than the exploitative for-profit healthcare model. The overhead on these programs is 2-3%, while the overhead on for profit healthcare is 20%, plus a near unlimited mark up on prescription drugs. In this we have a side by side comparison of access to the exact same doctors and medications, except one has a nominal mark up and the other has a 10X markup. It doesn’t take an MBA in finance to understand that the same product or service without the massive markup is the smarter path to take. The only thing we cannot afford is for the current exploitative for profit model to continue.

Argument 2: If Costs Go Down, So Does Quality of Care

This is simply not true. It is important to understand why costs decrease, because contrary to the myth, every single one of the above studies found that quality of care would not decrease with universal healthcare. Costs under a universal healthcare model decrease instead because we stop wasteful spending. As consumer rights activist and scholar Diane Archer further explains in a point I reference above:

Medicare for All is far less costly than our current system largely because it reduces administrative costs. With one public plan negotiating rates with health care providers, billing becomes quite simple. We do away with three-quarters of the estimated $812 billion the U.S. now spends on health care administration. Administrative costs are so high because thousands of insurance companies individually negotiate benefit rules and rates with thousands of hospitals and doctors. On top of that, they rely on different billing procedures — and this puts a costly burden on providers.

Under a universal healthcare model the doctors that exist now would still exist. The medicine that exists now would still exist. The only thing that wouldn’t exist are the ridiculous and pointless administrative costs from for profit insurance corporations. Universal healthcare does not cut out healthcare itself, it cuts out the pointless middle man insurance corporation, and that is what save costs. In fact, speaking of high quality of care, a Yale study found that if we had universal healthcare during the pandemic, we would have saved more than 335,000 lives.

Argument 3: Universal Healthcare Puts Millions Out of Work

What would happen to the roughly 1.8 million Americans who work in medical billing? This is a great question and has a robust answer that I break down in three parts.

First, remember that about 40% of these jobs are already in the Medicaid and Medicare and Tricare industries—which is essentially universal healthcare for a portion of society. Therefore, we’re talk about roughly 1 million jobs, which admittedly is still a large number. What to do with those?

Well, hence the second point. Expanding Medicare to accommodate another 175 million people will necessarily require medical billing professionals and administrators to do those jobs. Therefore, the question is not about eliminating jobs, but about transitioning workers from the for profit exploitative system, to a non for profit system that prioritizes access to healthcare. Likewise, remember that ending the for profit system saves us at least $450 billion annually. These resources give us options. For example, these are excellent resources that could be spent on a lengthy 2-year salary severance to those in medical billing who do lose their jobs, plus adequate funding and training to allow them to become proficient in a new job. Indeed, at $70 billion annually, four-year-public college costs a fraction of what would be saved by shifting from an exploitative for profit model, to a universal healthcare model. We cannot afford not to make the shift.

Finally, let us agree that maintaining an industry despite the harm an industry is causing is not a great argument. As The Lancet documents, the current for profit exploitative model enables 68,000 annual preventable deaths. The current for profit exploitative model results in the lowest life expectancy in the developed world, and declining, the highest infant mortality in the developed world, and increasing, and the highest maternal mortality in the developed world, and increasing. The current for profit exploitative model results in 500,000 medical bankruptcies every single year. Are 680,000 preventable deaths and 5 million medical bankruptcies over the past decade, and the daunting reality of another 680,000 preventable deaths and 500,000 medical bankruptcies over the next decade, really worth maintaining an industry that enables these atrocities—especially when better alternatives exist?

Argument 4: Universal Healthcare Means Tax Hikes

Universal healthcare means more money in your pocket. Insurance corporations want working people to pretend the exorbitant fees they charge for limited coverage does not come out of the same paycheck from which our taxes are withdrawn.

Studies show that Americans spend at least 18.7% of their income on healthcare costs. But even this is not a true picture because those who are lower income pay a disproportionately higher amount of their income to cover their healthcare costs. The Rand study on this subject reports:

Households in the bottom fifth of income groups pay an average of 33.9% of their income toward health care, while families in the highest-income group pay 16% of their income toward health care. The analysis finds that households in the middle three income tiers pay between 19.8% and 23.2% of their income toward health care.

Here’s why these numbers matter. There does not exist a universal healthcare model that increases taxes by 33.9%, or 23.2%, or even 18.7%. It simply does not exist. Even if income taxes dramatically increase from 24% to 34%, that is still a net savings of 8.7%-23.9% on overall take home pay. University of California, Berkeley professors of economics Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman illustrate this well:

Take the case of a secretary earning $50,000 in wage and currently contributing $15,000 through her employer to an insurance company. With universal health insurance, her wage would rise to $65,000 – her full labor compensation. With an income tax of 6% – which, if applied to a base large enough, would be enough to fund universal health insurance – she would have to pay about $4,000 more in tax. But the net gain would be enormous: $11,000. Instead of taking home $50,000, the secretary would take home $61,000.

And moreover, this new model would ensure she pays no more deductibles, co-pays, or additional out of pocket costs. Why? Because the universal healthcare model is designed to maximize access to healthcare, not maximize profits for billion dollar corporations.

Argument 5: Universal Healthcare Causes Long Wait Lines

For primary physician appointments, Americans already wait longer under our exploitative for profit model than do people in nations with universal healthcare. Frankly, I marvel at this allegation as I reflect over the fact that it took us more than two years to get our daughter the critical life saving medication she needed, only because our exploitative for profit health insurance company refused to accept our doctor’s medical instruction. In reality, wait times in the United States are shorter only for elective surgery, but for primary care or for critical care, the United States is the worst out of any nation with universal healthcare.

Moreover, think about how illogical the claim is that universal healthcare results in wait times that hurt our health. If that were true, why does every developed nation have a higher life expectancy than does the United States? Why do each of them have lower maternal mortality than does the United States? Why do each of them have lower infant mortality than does the United States? Why why do none of them have medical bankruptcy, while we have 500,000 annually? None of this is by accident. It is due to the obvious fact that when healthcare access is dependent on ensuring people are healthy, rather than on seeing people as piggy banks, healthcare is administered faster.

And for those who claim that universal healthcare is economically unsustainable, and point to the struggles of the British National Health System (NHS), I remind them that any system that is not properly funded will collapse. A recent detailed analysis by the New England Journal of Medicine reports that the main reason why the NHS is struggling has nothing to do with access or quality of care, but instead that, “The primary contributor is long-term underinvestment in health services.” Again, this is not accident, but a choice by right wing politicians.

Right wing politicians in the UK are working hard to convince the British public that America’s for profit model is the promised land in healthcare access. Our neighbors across the pond should know they’re being sold rubbish (as I’m told they say over yonder) and not to believe a word of such corporate funded propaganda.

Bonus Argument: Why Should I Pay For Other People’s Healthcare?

How do you think health insurance works? Once you figure that out, you’ll realize that you’re already paying for other people’s healthcare, as they are paying for yours. You’ll also realize that having a larger pool of money from which to cover costs for everyone actually saves you money. And finally, you’ll realize that because more than 75 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, every time they can’t pay a bill, for profit insurance companies raise your rates to make up the difference. So when people don’t have healthcare, it costs you. Therefore, even if all you care about is yourself, you should want everyone to have healthcare because it will lower your costs as well.

Conclusion

As I posted on BlueSky some time ago, “If the killing of the UnitedHealth CEO has taught us one thing, its that we're maybe not as divided as we think. When 90% of people empathize with the people the CEO exploited more than with the CEO, it should tell our politicians something. Stop bowing to billionaires & actually work for the people.”

Any 2028 candidate who does not champion universal healthcare is a non-starter. I will not vote for someone who kills my neighbors for “shareholder value.”

Because there is no argument to oppose universal healthcare except one—it makes billionaires even wealthier. It’s pure exploitation. The facts are clear. Universal healthcare costs less, renders the same high quality care, will save at least 68,000 lives annually, prevents 500,000 medical bankruptcies, ignites job creation, increases life expectancy, decreases infant and maternal mortality, and eliminates for profit health insurance lobbying, which is a major source of exploitative lobbying to America’s politicians. Literally the only people who believe we need to spend hundreds of billions on administrative costs are insurance executives who need that money for their precious private jets and yachts. I think I can speak for at least 99% of Americans when I say, America will be better off with more healthcare access and few private jets for billionaires.

Despite how divided we seem as a nation, Republicans and Democrats alike are united in the need for healthcare as a human right, and we should remember that next time wealthy elites try to position us against one another.

P.S. If I missed an argument, share it in the comments and I’ll consider a future part two piece diving into them.

On one side: Nabilah Parkes—a grassroots organizer, former state senator, and fighter who has spent her career standing unambiguously on the side of working people, immigrants, and human dignity. If elected, she will proceed to the November general election to make history as Georgia’s first Muslim Lieutenant Governor. At a moment when anti-Muslim hate crimes are at record highs and when Muslim Americans are being targeted by their own government, representation from leaders like Nabilah is not just symbolic, but structurally vital.

On the other side: Josh McLaurin—the establishment favorite, the centrist white male Democrat who is getting the institutional endorsements, and whose record, when examined honestly, reveals exactly the kind of complicit and cowardly politician we cannot afford at this moment in history.

I want to talk about that record. Because the Democratic establishment is once again doing what it always does—anointing the “safe” candidate, the “electable” candidate, the candidate they think won’t scare anyone—while the actual fighters who will truly show up for working people are outspent and undersupported.

We are facing fascism. Not a policy disagreement. Not a rough patch in the political cycle. Fascism. And the response to fascism cannot be a Democrat who jokes around on the Senate floor, praises fake electors on Fox News, and who votes to shield Monsanto from cancer victims.

We need fighters. Nabilah Parkes is one such fighter. Let’s Address This.

We Already Know What Centrist Democrats Do When Elected—They’ve Told Us

Before I get to McLaurin’s specific record, let me situate this race in the broader pattern of establishment Democratic betrayal. I’ve written about this before and it bears repeating, because Georgia voters deserve to know what they are buying when they vote for the “safe” centrist choice. It is this white moderate, about whom Dr. King warned:

The Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’;

Centrist, corporate Democrats are the modern day white moderates Dr. King warned us about. And they continue to fail to meet the moment. This is not a pattern that requires speculation. It is documented. It is repeating. And it will repeat again in Georgia if we hand the Lieutenant Governor’s office to another centrist, corporate Democrat who has already shown us—through his own votes, his own words, and his choices—exactly who he is.

Let me pull out the receipts on Josh McLaurin’s record that the establishment does not want voters to see. Let’s read it together.

McLaurin Voted to Shield Monsanto from Cancer Victims

In March 2025, Josh McLaurin voted yes on SB 144—legislation that effectively protects pesticide and herbicide manufacturers like Bayer/Monsanto from lawsuits brought by Georgians harmed by products like Roundup, when those products carry EPA-approved labels.

Let us be clear about what that means in practice. A Georgia jury had just awarded $2.1 billion to a man who said Roundup caused his cancer. Bayer/Monsanto faced tens of thousands of additional claims from people nationwide alleging the same. And Josh McLaurin voted to make it harder for those people—working Georgians, cancer victims, families—to hold one of the most powerful chemical corporations in the world accountable.

The vote was 42–12. McLaurin was on the wrong side.

Let me repeat, McLaurin is telling voters he sides with corporations over working people. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time and don’t expect them to change. Josh McLaurin siding with corporate protection over human dignity is summed up in one word: disqualifying.

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McLaurin Voted for a Bill That Criminalizes Palestinian Solidarity

In 2024, McLaurin voted yes on HB 30—Georgia’s so-called “antisemitism” bill that was pushed by Benjamin Netanyahu himself. He voted for it despite clear and documented warnings from civil liberties advocates that the legislation would be weaponized against legitimate political speech.

The Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta and the Say No to HB 30 Coalition were explicit: the bill would “exacerbate anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia” and “criminalizes the movement for a free Palestine”. Civil liberties organizations across Georgia raised the alarm. Members of his own party objected. As I’ve written before, the definition of antisemitism this bill and others like it espouse do little to stop antisemitism, and do much to criminalize free speech and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government.

McLaurin voted yes anyway.

I have written extensively about the difference between combating genuine antisemitism—which I have spent my career doing—and weaponizing the accusation of antisemitism to silence political speech and Palestinian solidarity. HB 30 is the latter. It is a tool designed to conflate legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy with hatred of Jewish people.

McLaurin voted for it. Nabilah Parkes did not.

McLaurin Praised a MAGA Fake Elector on Fox News

In August 2023, while Fani Willis was conducting one of the most consequential investigations in Georgia’s history—examining the fake elector scheme designed to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results—Josh McLaurin went on Fox News to praise Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones.

His quote, delivered on Fox while Jones was under active investigation for his role in the scheme: “My experience with Lieutenant Governor Jones has just been serving in the Senate, where he has been straightforward in his communication and willingness to work with members of the minority party.”

Let that land. Burt Jones was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed documents falsely claiming Trump won Georgia. He participated in a coordinated effort to keep a defeated president in power by deceiving the United States Congress. And Josh McLaurin’s response—at the precise moment a Democratic prosecutor was holding Jones accountable—was to go on Fox News and vouch for his character.

When Democrats needed to draw a hard line against the attempted theft of Georgia’s election, McLaurin drew a character reference instead. Again, when people show you who they are…

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McLaurin Refused to Cosponsor Nabilah Parkes’ ICE Warrant Bill

In January 2026, Senator Nabilah Parkes introduced SB 391—legislation that would prohibit federal, state, or local government employees from conducting immigration enforcement in sensitive locations without a judicial warrant. Those protected locations included schools, hospitals, places of worship, public libraries, and domestic violence shelters. This was policy under the Biden administration, and the Trump regime has repealed this long-standing rule.

Senator Parkes personally asked Josh McLaurin to cosponsor the bill.

He declined.

This is not a procedural footnote. This is a moral statement. At a moment when ICE is conducting operations near schools, churches, and hospitals—terrorizing immigrant communities and making children afraid to go to class—McLaurin refused to put his name on legislation requiring federal agents to obtain a judge’s signature before entering those spaces.

This is just another indefensible red flag and warning of how he would govern if elected. It is not a flag we can afford to ignore.

The Trump License Plate: When Clowning Around Is All You Have

Finally, I share this example to demonstrate McLaurin’s unseriousness. Twice—in 2024 and again in 2026—McLaurin introduced an amendment that would have renamed Georgia’s “America First” license plate the “Donald J. Trump First” license plate. He called it a “joke”. A stunt to expose Republican hypocrisy.

The first time, it failed 26–29. The second time, 24–32.

At a time when Georgians needed their state senators fighting for affordability, voting rights, healthcare access, and the protection of immigrant communities—McLaurin was engineering pranks on the Senate floor that almost backfired spectacularly.

This is not the energy of a leader who understands what we are up against. This is the energy of someone who is not taking the threat seriously enough to stop performing for it. But again, none of this should be a surprise to anyone. Centrism is not a governing philosophy. It is a permission structure for inaction dressed up as pragmatism. And at a moment when the machinery of fascism is actively dismantling democratic institutions, the environment, healthcare access, and immigrant rights—inaction is not neutral. It is complicity.

This is not a purity test. It is an integrity test.

I want to be clear about something—because the establishment always responds to calls for accountability with the same dismissal: “You’re applying a purity test. Nobody is perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

That framing is designed to immunize bad records from scrutiny and excuse centrists from their failures. Here’s the thing—I am not asking for purity. I am asking for integrity. And in a primary election, we must prioritize integrity over complicity.

Integrity means not voting to shield Monsanto from cancer victims while claiming to fight for working people. Integrity means not praising fake electors on Fox News while claiming to defend democracy. Integrity means not refusing to cosponsor a bill protecting immigrants in churches and hospitals—while claiming to stand against ICE overreach. Integrity means not running a stunt that almost put Trump’s name on a Georgia license plate while claiming to fight Trumpism.

These are not purity tests. These are the basic threshold questions of whether a candidate’s words match their actions. And on that threshold, Josh McLaurin’s record is indefensible.

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Nabilah Parkes: What Integrity Actually Looks Like

If you’ve followed my writing for any period of time you know this truth: I never cite a problem without also offering an answer. Senator Nabilah Parkes is that answer, and it isn’t even close.

I have followed Senator Nabilah Parkes’ career for nearly a decade. In that time, she has never wavered. She has never performed progressive values while voting for corporate interests. She has never praised the people she was supposed to be holding accountable.

She fought valiantly to elect Kamala Harris in 2024, doing the grassroots organizing work that wins elections in Georgia. She has been unambiguous about the humanity of both Palestinian and Jewish people—condemning the genocide in Gaza with the same moral clarity with which she condemns antisemitism. She understands, as I do, that these are not competing commitments. They are the same commitment: to human dignity, without exception and without caveat.

At a time of relentless attacks on women’s health and safety, Senator Parkes has stood as a relentless shield. While Josh McLaurin was shielding Monsanto from cancer victims and joking around with Trump license plates, Nabilah Parkes was doing the unglamorous, essential work of making Georgia more affordable for the people who actually live here. She introduced legislation to eliminate Georgia’s tax on menstrual products and fought to remove taxes on diapers and formula. She fought to restore Georgia’s back-to-school sales tax holiday so parents could afford pencils and notebooks without choosing between school supplies and groceries. And she rallied both Democrats and Republicans to support these critical pieces of legislation. Senator Parkes took on the insurance industry directly—introducing legislation to prohibit insurance companies from using credit scores and ZIP codes to set home and auto insurance rates, practices that systematically overcharge working-class and minority communities for no reason other than where they live and how much they earn.

And while too many centrist politicians excuse the explosion of data centers, Senator Parkes proposed ending special corporate subsidies for data centers and insurance companies, redirecting those resources into real property tax relief for homeowners and renters who are being priced out of their own state. That is what it looks like when a legislator is right on the issues and ahead of the curve.

If elected Lieutenant Governor, she will make history—not just as the first Muslim to hold that office in Georgia, but as proof that you do not have to choose between electability and integrity, between political viability and moral courage.

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Georgia Knows How To Show Up

The runoff is June 16th. Georgia voters have always shown up to do the hard things, despite the odds. This is another such moment. We have no time for hesitation, no room for complacency, and no margin for the kind of institutional inertia that has handed us centrist Democrats who govern for corporations instead of communities.

The establishment will outspend Parkes. The institutional endorsements will go to McLaurin. The “safe choice” narrative will dominate corporate media coverage.

None of that matters if Georgians show up.

Vote for Nabilah Parkes on June 16th. Share this article with every Georgian you know. Make noise. Make calls. And demand that the Democratic Party learn—once and for all—that the path forward runs through fighters for working families, not appeasers who shield Monsanto from cancer victims and decline to protect immigrants in hospitals and houses of worship.

Georgia deserves a Lieutenant Governor with integrity—that is Nabilah Islam Parkes.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered politics that corporate media ignores. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.

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His “crime” was organizing peaceful, nonviolent protests, marches, and sit-ins against the brutality of legalized segregation. He was not throwing bricks. He was not inciting violence. He was doing precisely what every civics textbook tells us citizens we are supposed to do: peacefully assemble and demand that the government live up to its own stated values.

For that, Dr. King was locked in a cell.

He was finally bailed out eight days later—on April 20th—by the United Auto Workers, who posted $160,000 bail. In those eight days, confined to a Birmingham jail cell, Dr. King wrote one of the most important documents in American history.

Every person committed to justice should read it in full. But today, I want to focus on the passage that cuts most deeply—because it was not written about the Klan. It was written about the people who, while claiming to be on Dr. King’s side, were his greatest stumbling block. Let’s Address This.

The Warning That Was Never About the Enemy

Dr. King wrote:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Read those words again. Slowly. Because Dr. King was not describing the enemy. He was describing the ally who refuses to act like one. He was describing the person who agrees with the goal but objects to the urgency. Who believes in justice in theory but demands cowardly patience in practice. Who is more committed to maintaining the comfort of the powerful than to delivering the rights of the powerless.

He was describing, in 1963, the exact political creature that is failing us in 2026.

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The White Moderate Is Not a Relic of History, Meet Your Current Governors

The MAGA movement is the modern heir of the White Citizens’ Council and the Ku Klux Klan—open fascism, open racism, the naked exercise of power on behalf of white supremacy dressed in the language of Christian nationalism. Dr. King would have recognized it immediately. He named it in advance.

But it is the corporate wing of the Democratic Party—the moderate, the careful, the “pragmatic” center—that represents today’s white moderate. And the examples before us are not abstract. They have names and recent headlines.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill campaigned on protecting all residents of New Jersey from ICE overreach and defending due process. She promised to stand between her constituents and the federal government’s most brutal immigration enforcement machinery. Then, when the moment arrived—when ICE conducted operations at the Delaney facility that violated the civil rights of the very people she pledged to protect—she stood with ICE. Not with the people. With ICE. The promise evaporated the moment it required actual courage to keep.

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger ran as a champion of working families and immigrants. She won—with the votes of exactly those people. Just months into her first term she has already set records by vetoing more than 20 bills, including landmark legislation to protect collective bargaining rights. She vetoed critical, life saving legislation to stop ICE from trampling due process in Virginia. The people who knocked on doors for her, who trusted her with their votes, and their futures, now watch her govern for someone else entirely.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer built her brand on standing with working people over corporations. Today she stands with billionaires like Sam Altman to build massive data centers that devastate working and low-income communities—prioritizing corporate interests over the neighborhoods and families whose votes put her in office. Imagine building water poisoning data centers in a state like Michigan, still reeling from the Flint water crisis?

Colorado Governor Jared Polis pardoned election fraud felon Tina Peters—a woman who knowingly attempted to overturn the 2020 election results. The governor of a Democratic state used his power to provide relief to someone who tried to nullify the votes of his own constituents and undermine our entire republic. Indefensible does not begin to cover it.

And let me add what connects all four of these Democrats beyond their domestic betrayals: every single one of them has remained cowardly silent on the genocide in Gaza. Every one.

The same pattern of convenient moral blindness that Dr. King identified in the white moderates of 1963—agreement with the goal in theory, silence when it costs something in practice—is on full display as tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians are killed with American weapons while these governors say nothing.

Now here is what makes this even more infuriating: New Jersey, Virginia, and Colorado each have Democratic trifectas. Michigan has had full Democratic control for two of the last four years. Voters gave these governors power. They gave them a mandate. They gave them the legislative majorities to actually do something. And still—with all of that—centrist corporate Democrats continued to fail to meet the moment, choosing comfort over courage at every turn. How can you convince voters to come out in large numbers to ensure Democratic majorities, when the corporate Democrats in power take those majorities and spit in the faces of voters?

Dr. King did not lie. The white moderate is the greatest stumbling block to progress. Not because they are outwardly evil like the KKK, but because they are cowardly comfortable—and comfort, when wielded in the face of injustice, functions as a weapon of oppression just as surely as a billy club. Again, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

This Is Not a Purity Test, It Is an Integrity Test

I want to preempt the inevitable deflection—because the establishment always responds to accountability with the same tired dismissal: “You’re applying a purity test. Nobody is perfect. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

That framing is designed to immunize bad records from scrutiny and excuse centrists from their failures. I am not asking for perfection. I am asking for integrity.

Integrity means not setting a record of vetoing legislation that was passed by a democratic mandate of the people you were elected to serve. Integrity means not standing with ICE as it tramples the Constitution in your state and tortures your citizens. Integrity means not pardoning election fraud felons. Integrity means not remaining silent on genocide while claiming to be a champion of human rights. Integrity means not selling out working class people to billionaires and poisonous data centers.

These are not purity tests. These are the basic threshold questions of whether a candidate’s words match their actions—whether the promises made on the campaign trail bear any relationship to the governance delivered from the office.

And Dr. King’s framework gives us the precise language for what these Democrats are choosing instead: a negative peace—the absence of tension, the maintenance of order, the careful avoidance of anything that might cost them a donor relationship or a favorable headline—over a positive peace, which is the presence of actual justice for actual people.

Dr. King told us in 1963 that the white moderate’s devotion to negative peace was more dangerous than the Klan’s open hostility. The Klan, at least, was open about what it was. The white moderate hides behind the language of caution, pragmatism, and inevitability—and uses that language to ensure that justice is always deferred to a more convenient season.

There is no more convenient season coming. There never is. Justice deferred is justice denied. And we cannot afford to keep learning that lesson the hard way.

The Path Forward: 40+ Primaries. 2028 Is Looming & The Time Is Now

While we must continue to pressure these cowardly white moderates to finally grow a spine and do what is right, we must also look towards the future. Right now, we still have more than 40 primary elections yet to conclude before the midterms, including several runoff elections. We will have more than 50 such elections in 2028 before the presidential election. This is not a moment for despair. It is a moment for organized, strategic, relentless action.

Every one of these primaries is an opportunity. An opportunity to ask the question Dr. King implicitly demanded we ask of every person seeking our votes: are you devoted to order, or to justice? Are you committed to the negative peace of managed decline, or to the positive peace of actual transformation? Will you stand with the people when it costs something—or will you fold the moment the donor calls?

These are not unfair questions. They are the only questions that matter right now.

The corporate wing of the Democratic Party has had decades to prove that its version of pragmatism leads somewhere worth going. The evidence is in. It does not. Instead, it leads to betrayed promises, vetoed legislation, pardoned election fraudsters, complicit silence on genocide—and a return of Trump style fascism. All the while, the people who worked, donated, and voted for these politicians are left to absorb the consequences alone. We must demand better.

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Conclusion

Dr. King added in his letter,

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

How sad that 63 years later we are still left hoping the white moderate would understand? Yet it seems they refuse. In 2026, we do not need more politicians who agree with the goal but object to the urgency. We do not need more politicians who will fight for justice at a time of their choosing, on a timetable that never serves the marginalized and never quite arrives. We do not need more of the white moderates that Dr. King warned us about. We do not need fecklessness. We need fighters.

We need Black, brown, and white, young and old, men and women, wealthy and working class—all aligned and fighting with the fierce urgency of now. We need people-funded, morally consistent, constitutionally grounded candidates who understand that the tension created by demanding justice is not the problem—it is the medicine. That exposing injustice, as Dr. King wrote, “like a boil opened to the natural medicines of air and light, is the only path to actually healing it.”

Some 63 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his letter from a Birmingham jail cell and told us exactly what would block our path to freedom. He did not mince words. He did not hedge. He named it with the same precision and moral clarity that got him arrested.

We owe it to his memory—and to the people depending on us right now—to listen.

Stop electing feckless politicians who enjoy their complicity in fascism. Start electing courageous, people-funded public servants who are willing to do what the moment demands. The season has never been more convenient than right now. And the boil has never been more visible.

Open it.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the courage that this moment demands. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.

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Did you know that the first time terrorists used planes to attack Americans wasn’t on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbor? It was during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 when white supremacists flew “a dozen planes to drop turpentine or nitroglycerin bombs & men shot from planes.”

May 31 and June 1 marked the 105-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. It’s a massacre that stands as one of the most horrific acts of racial violence in American history, and also one of the most underreported and underrecognized.

Today, 105 years later, the Tulsa Race Massacre has resulted in zero consequences for the culprits who ignited the massacre. Sadly, this lack of accountability for racial violence has been the norm for the entirety of American history. It is no wonder that today, every intelligence agency points to white supremacy terrorism as the greatest threat to American national security today.

Indeed, it is truly a contemporary disgrace that in June of 2023, an Oklahoma judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit seeking accountability for the Tulsa Race Massacre. Let’s Address This.

What Happened That Day?

The Tulsa Massacre murdered as many as 300 Black people, destroyed 35 Black owned city blocks, hospitalized 800 Black people, interned 8,000 Black people in homeless shelters, and displaced more than 10,000 Black people. Yet, not a single culprit was brought to justice, no reparations were ever paid, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court horrifyingly rejected all civil suits and protected all insurance companies from having to pay out claims. Ms. Viola Fletcher testified before Congress:

“I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home,” Fletcher said. “[I] still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. [I] still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. [I] still hear airplanes flying overhead, I hear the screams. [I] have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.”

Malcolm X famously remarked, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” After the massacre, local and national media did exactly that by immediately whitewashing the attack. Despite the estimated 300 Black Americans killed, the Tulsa World led with “Two Whites Dead in Race Riot” and “Many More Whites Are Shot,”— completely erasing the mass destruction of Black people and Black livelihoods.

Likewise, in an early version of “All Lives Matter,” The Los Angeles Express and The San Diego Union ran headlines completely erasing the targeted attacks on Black Americans—instead only speaking about the estimated number of those killed.

Not to be outdone, the New York Times made it seem like an equal number of white and Black Americans were killed in the massacre—when in reality fewer than 10 white Americans died. And today, in an ongoing reminder of the injustices committed during this massacre, the GOP insists on whitewashing this history and censoring study of atrocities like the Tulsa Race Massacre.

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The Department of Justice Review

It wasn’t until January 10, 2025, in the final days of the Biden Administration, that the Department of Justice finally published its review of the Tulsa Race Massacre. It is easy, and correct, to condemn the Oklahoma State Government for ignoring this atrocity. But what excuse did the Federal Government have to ignore this injustice for over a century? The DOJ Report attests:

The report documenting the department’s findings on the Tulsa Race Massacre, examines events that occurred between on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when white Tulsans mounted a concerted effort to destroy a vibrant Black community, remembered today as Black Wall Street. During the massacre, hundreds of Black residents were murdered, their businesses and homes burned to the ground and their money and personal property stolen. Survivors were left without resources or recourse. In the aftermath, the City of Tulsa resisted offers of meaningful help to the victims and utterly failed to provide necessary aid or assistance, and efforts to seek justice through the courts foundered.

And then perhaps most tragically it concludes:

Despite the gravity of the department’s findings, it is clear that no avenue of prosecution now exists for crimes that occurred during the massacre

If nothing else, let this serve as another reminder of why justice cannot wait. Why we must not let politicians convince us that progress to protect human rights must be delayed until some more favorable time. Those suffering now deserve relief now, and those standing in the way must be removed from positions of power—now.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the bottom line. America cannot fulfill its founding promise of equal justice for all without meaningful accountability for those who violate that equal justice. Acknowledgement, reparations for the victims and their families, and an apology for Tulsa are a step towards justice. To date, America has delivered none of the above.

True reform will require a complete reimagining of public safety to counter the systemic violence against BIPOC communities. We cannot afford another century of apathy. If we are sincere about accountability for historical atrocities like the Tulsa Race Massacre, we must also be committed to meaningfully curb the tide of systemic racist violence, end white supremacy, and build a more perfect union that truly offers equal justice for all.

In closing, think about this.

Ms. Viola Fletcher was born only 1 year after Harriett Tubman died, who herself was four years old when Thomas Jefferson died. That is how stark today’s connection is to the founding of this country. This isn't ancient history. This is contemporary reality. And that is why it is all the more critical we act quickly to ensure justice for Tulsa and the dozens of other anti-Black massacres that have gone unpunished throughout American history.

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Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered politics that corporate media ignores. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union

On Episode 225 of The Qasim Rashid Show:

Randy Villegas is a professor, auto repair shop owner, and son of immigrants from Michoacán and Guerrero, running for Congress in California's 22nd district — one of the top flip opportunities in the country. Randy grew up on Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC — the same programs being gutted by this administration to give tax breaks to billionaires — and he's running because the Central Valley produces billions in wealth every year while remaining one of the poorest districts in America. This primary is June 2.

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An ordained reverend, son of Jamaican immigrants, and former New York State Assembly member — Michael Blake is running to unseat Ritchie Torres in the only congressional district in New York that is entirely within the Bronx.

Michael Blake is for ending the genocide in Gaza. For protecting immigrants and repealing the Laken Riley Act. For universal healthcare, canceling student debt, and taking corporate money out of politics.

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When he was running for mayor, reporters asked whether he would travel to Israel if elected? He said he was focused on New York City and affordability for all New Yorkers. The media laughed. He won—by a historic margin—and his approval on inauguration day was +38.

Now he is mayor, and reporters are asking whether he will attend the Israel Day Parade? He says again he is focused on New York City and affordability for all New Yorkers. The media is once again predicting his political demise. His approval rating is now at +48.

The entire framing of this made up controversy is backwards. Corporate media is asking the wrong question, and the right one is one they don’t have the courage to ask. What exactly is that question? Let’s Address This.

The Question No One in Corporate Media Is Asking

The question every elected official, every member of the media, every person who cares about human rights should be asking is: Why would any elected official committed to justice and human decency attend a parade featuring officials who openly celebrate racism, dehumanization, and genocide?

Think I’m being hyperbolic? Call me CVS because I’m about to issue you some receipts. Let me introduce you to the Knesset delegation sent to represent Israel at this year’s parade:

• Amir Ohana, the Knesset Speaker who is heading the entire Israeli delegation, has publicly claimed that Muslims are prone to “cultural murderousness.” He has called for the complete annexation of the West Bank as “the one and only way” to peace. He has declared that Gaza “will be a better place without the devil”—referring to Palestinian civilians. He is leading the delegation to the Israel Day Parade.

• Amichai Eliyahu, Israel’s Heritage Minister and member of the far-right Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit, has stated that Israel should use a nuclear bomb on Gaza. He has said publicly that “all of Gaza will be Jewish.” He has called for the complete occupation of Gaza after the war and the rebuilding of settlements. He has called for executing Palestinian prisoners. As starvation rose across Gaza, he declared Israel is “driving out” Gazans. His prime minister had to publicly warn him to stop talking.

• Yitzhak Wasserlauf, also a member of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party, whose presence at a Ben-Gurion memorial was described by Ben-Gurion’s own grandson as “disrespectful” to the founder of Israel’s legacy.

• Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Diaspora Minister—the official literally tasked with representing Israel to Jewish communities abroad—has made an obscene gesture toward protesters at the very parade he is now returning to attend. He has been called someone who “doesn’t understand Jewish Diaspora” by a senior U.S. official. He has invited politicians from European far-right parties to Israel. He was ordered to apologize for inviting British far-right agitator Tommy Robinson to Jerusalem. He has met with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

As if these calls to violence are not revolting enough, I’m nowhere near done. Then there are the other members of this delegation whose documented statements include:

• Ariel Kallner declared “Gazans are plump and healthy; it’s all nonsense”—as international aid organizations documented mass starvation—and added “whoever remains in the north, we will truly starve them.” The same official who in October 2023 called for “a Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ‘48.”

• Yitzhak Kroizer stated that “even if collateral damage includes children or women, it doesn’t matter to me”—and “there are no innocent civilians, no innocent children in Jenin.” (These are war crimes by the way).

• Meirav Ben Ari declared “the children in Gaza have brought this upon themselves.”

Imagine if these statements were made about any other marginalized community. Who in their right mind would tolerate them as a mere difference of opinion?

What elected official—what person of conscience—should be expected to share a stage, a platform, and a photo op with people who have uttered such horrors? What human rights advocate, what public servant, what mayor of Earth’s most diverse city should be required to stand alongside officials who have called for war crimes on civilians, bragged about starving people, and declared that dead children brought it on themselves?

The question is not why Mamdani stayed away.

The question is why the media and those in power are silent about the politicians showing up to lock arms with these violent extremists? Sadly, no one in corporate media is willing to ask that question. And we are all worse off for it.

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Who Mamdani Actually Is to New York’s Jewish Community

The legacy media narrative being constructed around Mamdani’s absence is one of the most dishonest narratives in recent New York political history—and the Jewish Forward is calling it out directly.

Writing in the Forward, Libby Lenkinski—who attended Mamdani’s Shavuot gathering honoring Ruth Messinger—describes what the media is consistently missing:

When the mayor roared ‘chag sameach!’ into the room, smiling broadly, it did not feel performative to many of us because many of us actually know him. Personally. Through him showing up in Jewish spaces across New York over these past few years. I have run into Mamdani on Yom Kippur. At Oct. 7 vigils. At Passover events.

Lenkinski asks the question directly:

Why are we hearing so much more about the Jews who object to Mamdani’s policies than the many of us who embrace them? Last week’s gathering included progressive Jews, anti-occupation Jews, Israeli expats, liberal rabbis, artists, nonprofit workers, old-school establishment figures and more. Are our reasons for joyfully engaging with Mamdani so much less interesting than the boycotters’ reasons for questioning him?

And she makes the point that should reframe this entire conversation:

Almost 40% of American Jews believe Israel committed a genocide in Gaza. Is a mayor who has opened the door to those viewpoints—when those of us who hold them have often been excluded from official spaces—neglecting the Jewish community, or just engaging with it in a different way?

This is the truth the media refuses to tell. Mamdani does not represent a fringe view of the Jewish community. He represents the view of 4 in 10 American Jews—a view that has historically been silenced, marginalized, and excluded from official spaces. He has opened those doors.

And beyond his personal relationships, his governance tells the real story.

Under Mayor Mamdani, New York City has invested in a more than 800% increase in resources to fight hate crimes amid rising antisemitism. He has appointed Jewish leaders like Phylisa Wisdom to lead citywide efforts to confront hate and protect Jewish New Yorkers. The NYPD likewise reports that overall violent crime is at historic lows in the first quarter of his tenure.

This is what protecting Jewish New Yorkers and protecting all New Yorkers actually looks like—just as Mamdani promised on the campaign trail. Not a photo op at a parade featuring officials who praise the starvation of civilians. Actual policy. Actual investment. Actual results. And this begs another important question—who is actually behind the national rise in antisemitism?

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Who Is Actually Driving Antisemitism in America?

And since the media wants to frame Mamdani’s absence as a Jewish community issue, let us talk about who is actually threatening Jewish Americans—because the data is unambiguous and it demolishes the premise of this entire controversy.

I have written in detail about the ADL’s own dataset of antisemitic incidents in the United States. Since 2002, the ADL has documented 40,180 cases of antisemitism in America. Of those, the number attributable to “Islamist” ideology is two. Not two percent. Two incidents. The number attributable to “Leftist” ideology is one.

Effectively 100% of documented antisemitic attacks in the United States come from right-wing extremists, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists.

Now look at the officials attending this parade. Amichai Chikli—the man who made an obscene gesture at protesters and invited Tommy Robinson to Jerusalem—invited politicians from European far-right parties to Israel. He met with Laura Loomer. The parade is featuring officials ideologically aligned with the very movement responsible for nearly every documented antisemitic attack in America.

Is it any surprise that those same right wing extremists are projecting their own hate on Mayor Zohran Mamdani—the Muslim mayor of New York City who invested 800% more in fighting hate crimes and antisemitism and shows up at Yom Kippur and October 7 vigils?

The people actually aligned with the forces threatening Jewish Americans are being celebrated at the parade he declined to attend.

This inversion of reality is not accidental. It is the product of a media ecosystem that, as the Forward’s Lenkinski writes, has become:

Invested in telling a story about Jews and public life that leaves very little room for complexity, coexistence, contradiction or ordinary human interaction. A story in which Jews are perpetually under threat from everyone around them. A story in which Muslim politicians and Jewish communities are naturally destined for conflict.

Reality, as the data shows, tells a very different picture. It is indefensible that corporate media continues to ignore that reality, as once again, it harms us all.

On Free Speech and What Mamdani Is Actually Doing

Finally, I want to address one more layer of this—because the argument proffered against Mayor Mamdani is not just factually wrong. It is philosophically incoherent.

No one is accusing Mayor Mamdani of calling for these Israeli officials to be censored. He has not. No one is accusing him of calling for them to be banned from the parade. He has not. He is not even protesting their presence or demanding they be silenced.

He is simply declining to stand next to them.

Free speech means tolerating even speech you find repugnant. It does not mean being required to personally associate with, endorse, or attend events featuring people who brag about starving children and calling for nuclear weapons on civilian populations. These are two entirely different things—and the conflation of them is either confused or dishonest.

Mayor Mamdani is exercising the same right that every American has: the right to choose who he stands with and what he lends his presence and his platform to.

That is not intolerance. That is integrity.

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Mamdani Is What Moral Consistency Actually Looks Like

Finally, in closing, the vast majority of New Yorkers see this integrity. Mayor Mamdani’s +48 approval is not an accident. It is the verdict of a city that has watched this mayor show up for all New Yorkers, including Jewish New Yorkers—consistently and authentically. It is that consistency—that refusal to perform solidarity while abandoning its substance—that makes the intolerant so furious.

And it is that consistency that should inspire the rest of us to demand more of every leader we support. So rather than asking why Mayor Mamdani refuses to stand with politicians who violently dehumanize millions of people, ask the real question: why are certain politicians willing to do so?

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the journalism that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union

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• The systems failing women and girls around the world

• Numerous Congressional candidates like Claire Valdez (NY-7) and Paul Nolley (IL-16) running to protecting universal human rights and fighting the rise of fascism

• The Taliban legalizing child marriage while the US refuses to ban it

• The hard truth that women are not safe around men

• Why Alexander Vindman is not the hero Florida needs but Angie Nixon is

Let’s Address This.

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Interviews from This Week

1. Monday — Interview with Claire Valdez Running in NY-7

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2. Monday — Interview with Paul Nolley Running in IL-16

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3. Tuesday — The Taliban Legalizes Child Marriage—The USA Won’t Ban It

4. Wednesday — Alexander Vindman Is Not the Hero Florida Needs. He Is the Problem Florida Has.

5. Friday — Women Are Not Safe Around Men

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What Is The Public Thinking?

This week, what is the public thinking about the U.S. Senate races this November? Right now, the public believes there is a 68% chance that Democrats will win all four core Senate seats—up five points from last week. That kind of momentum is solid, it means our work is making a difference. But 68% is not a guarantee.

Dad Joke of the Week

I have immense respect for how Nuns dress but I could never follow in kind because I tend to avoid anything that's habit-forming. :D #DadJokes

As a human rights lawyer I have represented survivors of domestic and sexual violence for more than 15 years. And in those years, I have learned a hard truth. One that will make some men uncomfortable. This is good. Discomfort is the beginning of accountability.

Women are not safe around men. Period.

This is not a generalization born of bias. Nor an emotional reaction. But a documented, data-driven, legally and empirically supported fact that our society has spent generations refusing to confront with the seriousness it demands.

Women are simply not safe around men.

I have written before about the need for male accountability. I have said plainly that you do not get a cookie for not being a rapist—that basic human decency is the floor, not an achievement. Today I want to go further. I want to lay out the full scope of this crisis, dismantle the myths that protect it, and propose the concrete solutions that could actually end it.

Because this is not sustainable. And the cost of our collective inaction is being paid, every single day, in the bodies, safety, and freedom of women and girls.

Let’s Address This.

The Scope of the Crisis

According to the World Health Organization, one in three women, at minimum, report experiencing sexual assault or rape by men.

At minimum. Because we know—as every researcher, every survivor advocate, and every prosecutor knows—that reporting rates are always lower than actual rates. Shame, fear of retaliation, distrust of a legal system built and run predominantly by men, and the statistical reality that 98% of men who commit rape will never spend a single day in prison—per RAINN—all ensure that the true number is higher than what we can measure. The criminal justice system, designed by men and historically operated to protect men from consequences, has functioned precisely as designed.

So when I say one in three women, understand that this is a conservative floor. The ceiling is almost certainly worse. And worse, the threat is not coming from strangers. It is coming from men who women trust.

Congress passed the Laken Riley Act after an undocumented immigrant killed Laken Riley. That fear of the unknown assailant motivated Congress to violate our Constitution, suspend due process for immigrants, and demonize anyone who opposed as a threat to women’s safety. But the data shows that not only does such a piece of legislation not actually make women safer—by ignoring where the greatest threat to women exists—it likely puts women in even more danger.

Take the aforementioned example of Timothy Hudson. The family reports that they saw no signs of danger or aggression from Hudson to Kepnar. Yet, Kepnar suffered a horrific rape and murder while with someone that she considered family, and both of their families considered a trusted male. And while this is an anecdote, the data backs it up.

According to the Violence Policy Center’s (“VPC”) landmark study When Men Murder Women—analyzing the most recent FBI data available—more than 2,400 females were killed by males in 2023. Of these, 89.9% of women who were murdered knew their killer. Read that again. Nine out of ten women murdered by men were killed by someone they knew. Of the victims who knew their offenders, 57.1% were wives or other intimate acquaintances of their killers. Nearly nine times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers.

The threat is not the stranger. The threat is the husband. The boyfriend. The colleague. The family member. The friend. The man she trusted.

Black women are disproportionately impacted by this lethal violence. In 2023, Black females were murdered by males at a rate of 3.1 per 100,000—two and a half times the rate of 1.2 per 100,000 for white females. Any honest conversation about gender-based violence must reckon with the ways race compounds vulnerability and the ways our systems have historically failed Black women most catastrophically of all.

At this junction gun enthusiasts typically reply, “this is why we must arm more women.” But once again, the data tells a very different story. It shows that arming women does not make them safer. It makes them exponentially more likely to die in gun violence.

Research based on FBI data consistently shows that when a firearm is present in a domestic violence situation, a woman is 100 times more likely to be killed by that firearm than to successfully use it in self-defense. The VPC’s own research confirms that the presence of a firearm can turn domestic violence into domestic homicide. The weapon intended for protection becomes the instrument of murder—because in the vast majority of cases, the attacker is not a stranger she is prepared to shoot. He is someone she loves, someone she lives with, someone she did not see coming until it was too late.

Firearms are not the answer. Accountability, prevention, and systemic change are.

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The Problem Is Getting Worse

This is not a static crisis. It is an accelerating one.

With the global rise of right-wing extremism—in the United States, in Europe, in several South American nations, in India, across every continent—women’s rights are being stripped away with deliberate, coordinated intent. Reproductive autonomy is under assault. Legal protections are being rolled back. As I’ve written before, child marriage is a crisis in nations like Afghanistan as well as right here in the United States. The cultural permission structure for misogyny is being rebuilt in real time, from the highest offices of power downward.

And then there is the convenient scapegoating. Some men—with remarkable absence of irony or self-reflection—point to the proliferation of sex work websites as evidence that women are the problem. Millions of women on these platforms, they say, shaking their heads.

Let me offer some arithmetic.

For every one sex worker on a platform, estimates suggest at least 100 paying male subscribers are funding the industry. The demand is male. The money is male. The industry exists because men created it, men fund it, and men sustain it. If your concern is genuinely about the existence of sex work, the conversation begins—and largely ends—with male demand. The men pointing fingers at women for the existence of an industry they built and bankroll are not engaging in moral analysis. They are engaging in deflection.

This is a global phenomenon. Not a single country on Earth has achieved gender equity.

Not one. The ten worst countries in the world for women span Hindu-majority nations, atheist-majority nations, Muslim-majority nations, and Christian-majority nations. Patriarchy does not belong to any one religion, culture, or geography. It is a global infrastructure—built over millennia, maintained through law and custom and violence—that operates across every border and every faith tradition. And at the current rate, we are generations, even centuries away from gender parity.

A UN Women UK survey found that 71% of women of all ages reported experiencing sexual harassment in a public space. A survey of women in Paris found that 100% reported being sexually harassed by men in public. Almost 9 in 10 women in some cities around the world feel unsafe in public spaces.

This is not a cultural pathology of any particular group. This is the condition of being a woman on Earth in 2026.

The Solutions

I want to be precise here. Every solution I propose places the burden of change on men, governments, and institutions—not on women. Women have endured absurd lectures for generations that it is on them to solve this problem. That they must dress differently, walk differently, drink differently, trust differently. These are not solutions. These are victim management strategies. These are not sustainable. They are weak band aid solutions to massive lacerations. We need actual structural change—here’s what that structural change looks like.

1. Declare Gender-Based Violence Against Women a Federal Public Health Crisis

This designation is not merely symbolic. It unlocks funding, resources, and institutional attention at a scale that current frameworks do not permit. That funding should be directed toward thousands of new domestic violence shelters—safe, warm, welcoming, and equipped to support women and their children. The data is clear that the most dangerous moment in a domestic violence situation is when a woman attempts to leave. About 75% of domestic violence incidents occur at that moment. When a woman suffering abuse knows—with certainty—that she has a safe place waiting for her and her children (if any), that calculus changes. Lives are saved.

This declaration should also be used to elevate women to positions of leadership at every level of government and civil society. Studies consistently demonstrate that the more women leaders a nation has, the less likely that nation is to resort to violence to resolve conflicts. The Council on Foreign Relations reports:

The presence of women in positions of leadership can greatly reduce the likelihood of violent conflict emerging as well as the prospects for the peaceful resolution of existing conflicts.Research has shown that countries with greater gender equality are more likely to resolve conflicts without violence and are less likely to use military force to resolve international disputes. Conversely, countries with more significant gender gaps are more likely to be involved in inter- and intrastate conflict.

Thus, more women leading to more peace is not a coincidence. It is causation. We need more of it.

2. More Women-Only Spaces, Funded By Taxpayer Money

Women have already built private solutions—women-only gyms, women-only taxi services, the option to choose a female physician. These are good. They are also inaccessible to women who cannot afford them. The data is unambiguous that girls learn better in environments where boys are not present to harass them. A recent study found:

Girls who attend all-girls schools get better exam results than girls with similar records and backgrounds at mixed schools – and outdo boys at all-boys schools – according to research. While girls’ schools have long been known to outperform other types of school in England, the analysis by FFT Datalab found that even after adjusting for background characteristics there was an unexplained boost for pupils at girls’ schools, equivalent to 10% higher GCSE grades in 2023. In contrast, boys at all-boys schools received no exam boost compared with their peers at mixed schools.

Taxpayer money currently does not fund public schools to afford girls to such a positive environment. Public funding should therefore be available for girls-only public schools—not as a privilege available only to families who can afford private education, but as a genuine choice available to every family, in every income bracket, in every community.

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3. Universal Healthcare With Full Coverage of All Women’s Health Needs

Every health service, every reproductive care option, every menstruation product that a woman or girl needs to live with dignity and full health should be covered—completely, without copay, without political interference, without the approval of a predominantly male legislature deciding which parts of women’s bodies deserve coverage. Studies show that women with access to comprehensive healthcare have lower rates of illness, higher rates of overall health, and longer lifespans. This should not be controversial. It is arithmetic.

The United States is the only developed nation on Earth that does not guarantee healthcare as a human right. Accordingly women in America suffer the lowest life expectancy of any developed nation on Earth, suffer the highest maternal mortality of any developed nation on Earth, and as mothers suffer the highest rate of infant mortality of any developed nation on Earth. And we do so while spending double per capita of every developed nation on Earth that guarantees healthcare as a human right.

Any politician today that still opposes universal healthcare as a human right is telling you they value corporate profits more than women’s life, health, and safety.

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4. UBI, Tax Cuts, & $0 College for Women—As Restitution

For the first 198 years of this nation’s existence, women were systematically denied financial autonomy. Until 1974 when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act finally became law, women in America could not own property, could not open bank accounts, could not access credit, could not vote, and could not hold office in any meaningful way equal to men. Two centuries of deliberately enforced financial exclusion does not simply vanish when legal barriers are removed. It compounds—through inheritance, through wealth gaps, through the structural disadvantages that accumulate across generations.

The United States government owes women restitution for those 198 years. We can accomplish this in many ways. I’ll propose just one that I have reflected over. At birth, every girl is assigned an account receiving $1,000 annually, pegged to interest, accumulating until she turns 18—at which point she receives her restitution account and can roll it into a 401(k) or access it directly. This is not a radical idea. Congress nearly passed UBI under President Nixon. That proposal failed not due to concerns about cost, but due to a targeted disinformation campaign—one that, not coincidentally, centered specifically on concerns about women’s independence. Opponents cited a study claiming that giving women financial independence would destroy homes and lead to divorce. Not only was the entire study made up, the fact that the mere idea of women’s independence frightened weak men so much is perhaps the strongest argument in favor of women’s independence.

Another option—women pay no federal income taxes for the first 40 years of their adulthood. Sound radical? Why? After all, the US Government denied women financial autonomy for 198 years—why is a mere 40 years to help diminish that harm not a bare minimum? Indeed, such an act would be a compromise, but enough to ensure women could join the workforce as adults without the additional financial burden imposed upon them after centuries of financial oppression.

Third, women pay no college tuition, ever. It would be a massive step towards free public college, a wildly popular proposal, and it would prioritize the demographic most denied throughout American history.

Each of these tactics, and there are many more we can conceive, works to undo the harm men have imposed upon women for centuries, and does so while placing the responsibility on men, governments, and institutions—not on women. How do we pay for it? By taxing the major corporations, billionaires, and industries who profited massively off of women’s free labor for centuries. This is not a cost issue. The feasibility is clear. The moral case is overwhelming. The only remaining question is political will.

5. Mandatory, Age-Appropriate Consent Education for Boys—Beginning in Elementary School

This is perhaps the most important intervention on this list, because all of the structural changes above can only go so far without changing the culture that produces male violence in the first place.

Every elementary, middle, and high school in America should mandate a weekly class on consent, accountability, and healthy relationships—designed specifically for boys, beginning in the earliest grades. These classes should ensure that consent is not a concept introduced awkwardly in a one-time high school assembly. Rather, as a value woven into the fabric of how boys understand themselves and their relationships from childhood forward.

We fund driver’s education because we understand that operating dangerous machinery without training causes harm. Male entitlement, without challenge, causes harm on a scale that dwarfs traffic accidents. The investment in early, sustained, mandatory education cannot be optional. It is the foundation upon which everything else must rest.

Notice what is absent from this list. At no point have I asked women to do better. Women are not the problem. The problem is male violence, male entitlement, male silence, and the male-constructed systems that protect all three. The solutions are accordingly directed at governments, institutions, and men.

These are not high bars. They are basic requirements of a society that takes human dignity seriously.

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A Word to the Men Who Are Already Angry

I know some of you stopped reading several paragraphs ago. Others may be composing their response right now—something about false accusations, or not all men, or what about male victims.

I have addressed the “not all men” deflection before and I will address it again here: you do not get a cookie for not being a rapist. That is the floor of basic human decency, not an achievement worthy of recognition. The men who rush to announce their personal non-violence the moment this conversation begins are doing exactly what this culture trained them to do—center themselves rather than confront the problem.

And to the men who witness this violence, who know something is wrong, who have a friend or a brother or a colleague whose behavior they have excused or overlooked or rationalized away: it is your problem. It is absolutely, unequivocally, entirely your problem. Male violence does not survive without male silence. Every man who watches and says nothing is not a neutral bystander. He is a participant in a system that protects predators at the direct expense of survivors.

Get therapy. Do the internal work. Hold the men in your actual life accountable—not just the monsters in the headlines, but the ones at your dinner table, in your locker room, in your group chat. Refuse to be silent when you know something is wrong.

To the Women Reading This

You already know everything I have written here. You have been navigating these realities your entire life—calculating risk, adjusting behavior, making hundreds of daily decisions designed to keep yourselves safe from us.

I am not writing this to tell you something new. I am writing it because you deserve to have men say it plainly, publicly, and without qualification: the burden of this crisis is not yours to carry. It never was. The responsibility for male violence belongs to men—to the men who commit it, to the men who enable it, and to the men who stay silent rather than confront it in themselves and each other.

You deserve safety. You deserve spaces designed with your security as the priority. You deserve a legal system that treats your assault as a crime rather than an inconvenience. You deserve a government that funds your health, your shelter, and your financial autonomy as a matter of right rather than charity.

Until men get the help, the accountability, and the fundamental transformation in values that this crisis demands—protect yourself, protect each other, and know that the fight for your safety is also the fight for the soul of our society.

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This Is Not Sustainable

Let me close with the truth that everyone in this conversation—even the men who are angry right now—must eventually reckon with.

Half the world are women—all the world are her children.

A civilization in which one in three women are sexually assaulted, in which 98% of rapists face no consequences, in which nine out of ten women murdered by men are killed by someone they trusted, in which women cannot walk through a city without being harassed, in which every single country on Earth fails to achieve gender equity—that civilization is not stable. It is not healthy. It is not just.

It is destroying itself.

The normalization of male violence against women is not a women’s problem that men can afford to ignore. It is a civilizational crisis that will continue to compound—producing broken families, traumatized communities, radicalized young men, and generation after generation of women whose full human potential is constrained by the constant, exhausting, inescapable work of staying safe.

Men, we built this. Which means men must dismantle it.

The solutions exist. The data is clear. The moral case is overwhelming. The only question remaining is whether enough men will choose accountability over ego, structural change over comfort, and the full humanity of women over the privilege of never having to think about this at all.

Choose correctly. The stakes for the future of human society could not be higher.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the justice our society demands. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.

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You’ve heard me say this before, but it bears repeating.

We are facing fascism in the United States. Not creeping authoritarianism. Not a political disagreement. Fascism—in real time, with real consequences for real people. And the Democratic response to fascism cannot be candidates who deny genocide, demonize Muslim Americans with zero evidence, whose family members vote to the right of dozens of MAGA Republicans, and whose own stated priorities on their official website ignore the existential threat of climate change, the gutting of voting rights, and the epidemic of gun violence.

Alexander Vindman moved to Florida to run for the U.S. Senate, positioning himself as a hero of democracy who stood up to Trump. But courage in 2019 does not purchase a lifetime exemption from accountability. Nor does it defend the record Alexander Vindman has since built—on denying genocide, on demonizing Muslims, on what kind of Democrat he intends to be. His record is one that violates the conscience of anyone committed to justice and humanity. It is a record corporate media has wholly ignored. But it is a record every Florida voter deserves to see in full before casting their vote. Because we are facing fascism, we need true fighters, and not risk electing appeasers. Let’s Address This.

Opening Thought

Perhaps most frustrating about this conversation is that Florida already has a stellar candidate for U.S. Senate in State Rep Angie Nixon. A candidate that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party ignores. You can watch my interview with Rep Angie Nixon here. The Democratic Party leadership loves to issue talking points about how Black women are the base of the party, that 93% voted for Harris in the last election, and how nobody wins the Democratic nomination for President without Black women.

But suddenly when an incredibly qualified Black woman runs for office, the corporate wing of the party tips the scale behind an out-of-state white guy whose centrist policies are Chuck Schumer’s wet dream. I preface this article with mention of Rep Angie Nixon to make clear that I write this not to scream into the wind about Vindman’s dangerous record, but to offer the right answer on who should be our next US Senator from Florida—Angie Nixon. More about her in a minute.

Problem 1: The Genocide That Vindman Refuses to Name

Watch that video. Then consider the following.

The genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people is not a contested opinion among serious human rights institutions. It is a documented, confirmed, legally analyzed conclusion reached by the most credible bodies on Earth—including Israeli ones.

B’Tselem—Israel’s leading human rights organization—has explicitly stated that Israeli policy in Gaza constitutes genocide. Israeli Physicians for Human Rights has documented the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure as part of a pattern consistent with genocidal intent. Omer Bartov—one of the world’s foremost genocide scholars, an Israeli historian at Brown University who has spent his career studying the Holocaust—has stated clearly that what is happening in Gaza meets the definition of genocide.

Beyond Israeli scholars: The United Nations has documented genocide in Gaza. The International Court of Justice is actively adjudicating genocide charges against Israel, having found sufficient evidence to order provisional measures. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. Amnesty International has published a comprehensive report titled “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza. Human Rights Watch has reached the same conclusion.

This is not a fringe position. The only people still in denial about Israel’s genocide on Palestinians are those who are either politically compromised, willfully ignorant, or both.

Alexander Vindman is in denial. On video. Publicly. Without shame.

This matters. As Professor Ta-Nahisi Coates responded when asked whether he thinks the Democratic Party can defend democracy in America:

We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy . . . and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.

Professor Coates is right. Alexander Vindman is standing in direct contradiction to every credible human rights institution on Earth and daring to call it a principled position. It is not a principled position. It is genocide denial. And genocide denial, whatever its motivation, has no place in the United States Senate.

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Problem 2: Vindman’s Dangerous and Baseless Smear of Muslim Americans

Civil rights groups report record highs in anti-Muslim hate crimes. Muslims in San Diego are still reeling from the horrific attack on the San Diego Islamic center, which killed three people and targeted more than 140 American Muslim children. Now, read what Alexander Vindman said on a podcast about Muslim Americans. Read it first. Then listen to him say it himself. Here is his exact quote, in his own words:

“There is an inherent trained racism against the Jewish people in the Muslim communities. It is encouraged. It is nurtured. It is something that is not discussed. There are plenty of you know kind of more open-minded liberal uh Muslims that so it doesn’t apply to everybody by any means. But in large communities it is nurtured. This, this hatred and anti-Semitism. It is not something that’s I’ve seen addressed in any significant way.” — Alexander Vindman

In reality, Vindman has told a dangerous lie that would make Donald Trump proud.

Because this is the same playbook Donald Trump used when he claimed—with zero evidence—that he saw Muslims celebrating in New Jersey after 9/11. When he claimed that “Islam hates us.” Alexander Vindman is using his platform—built on genuine, documented opposition to Trump—to launder Trumpian anti-Muslim propaganda under the cover of Democratic credibility. That is not opposition to fascism. That is the adoption of fascism’s toolkit while wearing the other team’s jersey.

Vindman has never retracted this dangerous, false, and dehumanizing smear against Muslims. He’s only doubled down by trying to justify and whitewash genocide.

Vindman’s spouse adds later in the convo that in short, Jews love life and Palestinians love death and martyrdom. Another dehumanizing and false statement that you can listen to on your own if you can stomach it. But I want to pause on the profound, almost poetic irony here. Vindman prefaces his propaganda statement by first acknowledging that his best friend growing up was Palestinian—a Muslim who welcomed him as a Jewish refugee and never mistreated him in any way. He establishes from his own lived experience that the premise of his claim is false.

And then he makes the claim anyway.

This is not analysis. This is not evidence. This is not scholarship. This is a smear—a dangerous, documented, empirically refuted smear against approximately 3.5 million Muslim Americans—delivered without a single piece of supporting data. In fact, this hateful rhetoric advances both anti-Muslim hate and anti-Jewish hate. For example, authorities report that the two white supremacists who attacked the San Diego Islamic Center wrote a manifesto expressing violent hatred against both Jews and Muslims. Alexander Vindman’s indefensible attempt to pit Muslims and Jews against one another ignores the ground reality that those who hate Muslims also hate Jews, and vice versa.

But it gets even worse for Vindman, because his entire premise about alleged “inherent trained racism” from Muslims against Jews is pure propaganda. This isn’t my conclusion—but that of the Anti-Defamation League itself. And once again, no legacy media outlet has even bothered to do this analysis.

Who Is Igniting Antisemitism in the USA?

The Anti-Defamation League—the organization whose entire mission is documenting and combating antisemitism—has kept meticulous records of antisemitic incidents in the United States. And here is what their own data shows:

Since 2002, the ADL has documented 40,180 cases of antisemitism in the United States. Here is the ADL HEAT MAP of that data.

Moreover, the ADL lets users download the file of every single documented act of antisemitism. I have downloaded that full list of 40,180 cases of antisemitism and uploaded it here for free access.

The ADL HEAT MAP furthermore identifies the attacks by the motivating ideology behind the antisemitic attacks, and lets users filter attacks by ideology. These are the categories of ideologies the ADL provides.

Of the 40,180 documented acts of antisemitism, how many do you think were motivated by “Islamist” ideology? Given Vindman’s outrageous claim that “There is an inherent trained racism against the Jewish people in the Muslim communities. It is encouraged. It is nurtured,” we might guess a significant percent of those 40,180 antisemitic incidents are committed by Muslims, right?

The actual answer. Two.

No, not two percent. Two incidents.

According to 25 years of ADL data currently on the ADL website, and linked above, the ADL have only found two documented cases of antisemitic attacks by anyone claiming to be Muslim. That chart is below.

The two green dots are the “Islamist” acts of antisemitism. And lest anyone claim that “Leftists” are responsible for any significant share of antisemitic attacks, the ADL data documents only one such Leftists attack. All the rest are from right wing extremists, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists.

Read that again. Two versus forty thousand, one hundred and eighty.

This is not my data. This is ADL data. The very organization that exists to fight antisemitism has documented, in its own records, that the overwhelming, catastrophic, existential threat to Jewish Americans comes not from Muslim communities—but from the same right-wing extremist movement that Alexander Vindman claims to oppose.

And yet Vindman goes on a podcast and declares that there is “inherent trained racism against Jewish people in Muslim communities”—without referencing a single study, a single data point, a single piece of evidence. He simply asserts it, qualifies it slightly, and moves on as if he has made a profound and courageous observation.

The bottom line is this—we do not accept such dangerous hate and lies from Trump. We must not accept such dangerous hate and lies from Vindman either. Vindman himself frequently reminds his audiences while condemning Donald Trump’s lies that in the United States, facts matter. That evidence matters. That truth matters. And now, he literally taking a page out of Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim playbook.

How reprehensible. How indefensible.

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Problem 3: His Brother Eugene Vindman Votes to the Right of Nearly 75 Republicans

Alexander Vindman is running for U.S. Senate. And his twin brother Eugene Vindman is a sitting U.S. Congressman from Virginia. Eugene Vindman’s voting record tells us something important about the worldview the Vindman brothers share.

The purple triangle in the sea of red dots is Eugene Vindman. Vindman is a member of the New Democrat Coalition—the centrist caucus of the House Democratic Party. And according to GovTrack’s nonpartisan ideology analysis, Eugene Vindman’s legislative positioning places him among the most conservative Democrats in the chamber, to the right of nearly 75 Republicans.

He is the single most conservative Democrat in the House. His voting record does not align with Democrats. It does not even align with Independents. It aligns firmly in the Republican camp under a MAGA fascist regime.

Let that sink in. A Democrat. Voting to the right of 75 MAGA Republicans. During a fascist administration that is dismantling democracy, destroying voting rights, gutting healthcare, exacerbating climate change, stripping food from tens of millions of families, launching illegal wars, and threatening to annihilate entire civilizations.

And just last week Eugene Vindman was one of only eight Democrats to join MAGA Republicans and throw trans kids under the bus.

The Vindman twins are not identical politically, of course. But ideology is not formed in a vacuum. Families share values. Worldviews develop in common. And what the Vindman record—Alexander’s genocide denial, his anti-Muslim smears, Eugene’s right of MAGA conservative legislative record, Alexander ignoring the existential threat of climate change and the epidemic of gun violence on his official website—tells us is this: this is a family that believes the path forward for Democrats is to move right, appease the MAGA crowd, and avoid the bold moral clarity that this moment demands.

That is not just wrong. It is catastrophically dangerous.

We do not need an appeasement party. We need an opposition party. And we cannot build an opposition to fascism with candidates who adopt fascist talking points about Muslims, while denying the genocide that every credible human rights institution has confirmed, and while voting repeatedly to the right of MAGA fascists.

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The Ultimate Consequences of Vindman’s Dangerous Rhetoric

This is not merely a philosophical debate about political positioning. Alexander Vindman’s actions are doing real harm with documented, deadly consequences.

Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in the United States reached a record high in 2024, with CAIR documenting 8,658 complaints—a 7.4% rise year on year and the highest number since CAIR began compiling data in 1996. Since October 2023, alarming incidents have included the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy, the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man, and the beating of a Muslim man in New York.

And in the backdrop of this record high violence against Americans who are Muslim, Alexander Vindman is going on podcasts to declare, without evidence, that Muslim communities are hotbeds of “inherent trained racism” against Jewish people.

Vindman’s comments are precisely the kind of content that normalizes anti-Muslim suspicion, fans the flames of Islamophobia, and materially contributes to a world in which Muslim and Arab Americans are attacked, discriminated against, and killed. And worth repeating, Vindman’s unhinged hate against Muslims also endangers Jewish people. The same right wing extremists who hate Muslims also hate Jews, and now they have Vindman to cite as “justification” for their hate.

A man whose comments contribute to that environment has no business representing us in the United States Senate.

Problem 4: Vindman’s Actual Policies are Abysmal

As if all of the above were not already disqualifying, Alexander’s stated policies on his campaign website are abysmal. While the United State remains the only developed nation on Earth without universal healthcare, Vindman opposes it and wants to build the health insurance private industry that kills 68,000 Americans a year annually. While Florida capitulate to climate change, Vindman doesn’t mention it even once on his platform. While the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act and condemns Black Americans to a modern day Jim Crow dystopia, Vindman doesn’t mention it even once on his website. While gun violence remains the leading cause of preventable death for children in America, and Florida has seen the horrors of the Parkland and Pulse mass shootings, Vindman doesn’t mention gun violence prevention even once on his website.

What are his positions on these vital issues? Who knows. He hopes you don’t ask him, and believes he can skate by on name recognition alone. One thing is for sure, this is not the fighter we need.

Florida Has an Incredible Choice: Angie Nixon

As always, I never cite a problem without also offering an answer to that problem. The actual answer to MAGA fascism is Florida State Representative Angie Nixon. I recently sat down with Rep Nixon for a full conversation, live from her bookstore, on her run for U.S. Senate in Florida. We often talk about the fact that Black women are the base of the Democratic Party. With Rep Nixon, we have the chance to reinforce that talk with actions. Take the time to watch or listen to my interview with her before Florida’s August 18 primary.

Angie Nixon is not a transplant who moved to Florida to run for office. She is from Florida. She was elected in Florida. She has dedicated her life to uplifting Florida communities. Last week she walked onto the Florida House floor with a bullhorn to denounce racist, unconstitutional redistricting maps, unapologetically and without hesitation. Governor DeSantis had her arrested for getting into the good trouble of protesting Jim Crow America on the Florida House floor.

That is the kind of courageous fighter we need to send to the U.S. Senate.

Rep Nixon supports Medicare for All—because healthcare is a human right. She condemns the genocide in Gaza—because human rights require consistency and courage, not political cowardice. She champions voting rights, reproductive freedom, and economic justice. She is 100% people-funded. And she is inclusive of all people, of all faiths and no faith—because that is what genuine leadership looks like.

Join her campaign

Closing Thoughts

In a world of complex decisions, this is among the easiest.

Florida’s primary election is on August 18th. The establishment wants a complicit Alexander Vindman, the people need a courageous Representative Angie Nixon.

Angie Nixon is Florida. She has earned her place in that community through years of service, sacrifice, and showing up—not through a résumé built elsewhere and a candidacy parachuted in at the last moment.

Alexander Vindman moved to Florida to run. He has no roots in Florida, no community organizing, no contribution. He only wins if we ignore the much more qualified Black woman who was already running a stellar campaign for U.S. Senate.

Above all, Florida and the future of the Democratic Party does not need a candidate whose platform rests on genocide denial, dangerous propaganda against Muslim Americans, and corporate centrism to appease Chuck Schumer. Florida needs a leader who will fight—loudly, boldly, and without apology—for every person in this country.

That leader is Angie Nixon.

Support her campaign at angienixon.com.

Vote Angie Nixon for U.S. Senate.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered politics that corporate media ignores. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union

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But this story is bigger than Afghanistan. It is a story about the global failure to protect girls from child marriage—including right here in the United States. And it is a story about the consequences of twenty years of American imperial warfare that left women and girls in Afghanistan worse off than before a single bomb was dropped.

In this article I analyze the horrors that the Taliban is inflicting upon women and girls, the United States’ complicity in this atrocity, and what meaningful legal levers we have to fight back and protect women and girls in Afghanistan and globally.

Let’s Address This.

What the Taliban Just Did—And Why It Is So Dangerous

This month Afghanistan’s Taliban government published Decree No. 18—a new law on judicial separation in marriage. The United Nations expressed “grave concern” about the decree, saying the code further entrenches discrimination against women and girls. The law’s most devastating provisions target girls directly. Among its most controversial provisions, it says that the silence of a girl reaching puberty can be interpreted as consent to marriage. It also includes a section on the separation of girls who reach puberty and are married, which “implies that child marriage is permitted,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement.

And escape from that trap has been made nearly impossible. If a girl asks her husband for a divorce and he denies it, “then in this case, there are no witnesses with the girl, the husband’s word is valid,” the new law says. As Human Rights Watch Afghanistan researcher Fereshta Abbasi asked devastatingly: “How could a girl who has been married to an abusive husband for four, five years dare to go to court?”

Additionally, a husband’s absence or failure to provide financial support is no longer considered sufficient grounds for divorce. The legislation has triggered protests in the capital, Kabul. Women’s rights organizations have described the law as “institutionalized violence” against women and children. The Taliban already commits gender apartheid in their restrictions on women’s right to work and movement—and now further financial apartheid by absolving the men controlling every aspect of their lives from providing financial support.

The scale of the crisis this law will deepen is staggering. According to the Guardian’s reporting, there are no official statistics on forced and underage marriages in Afghanistan, but activists say the rate has risen at an alarming pace in recent years, driven by the Taliban’s ban on girls receiving education after the age of 11. One informal estimate cited by The Guardian suggests that since that ban, approximately 70% of girls have been pushed into early or forced marriage—and that 66% of those marriages involved girls under the age of 18.

“Decree No. 18 is part of a broader and deeply concerning trajectory in which the rights of Afghan women and girls are being eroded,” said Georgette Gagnon, the UN official overseeing the mission in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s response? They claimed the decree follows Islamic law. That claim is not just wrong. It is an insult to Islam itself.

This Is Not Islam—It Is a Perversion of It

Violent and insecure men have long used religion as an excuse to abuse women when in reality they mean patriarchy and their own egos. The Taliban invokes Islam to justify virtually every atrocity it commits against women and girls. This must be named and refuted directly—because the conflation of Taliban ideology with Islamic teaching is false and devastating to the women and girls harmed by their twisted logic.

The Quran is explicit. Surah An-Nisa, verse 20 condemns any force or coercion in matters relating to women, declaring in explicit terms:

O ye who believe. It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will; nor should you detain them wrongfully… and consort with women in kindness…

No deep interpretation needed. In simple terms. It is unlawful to deny women their free will and autonomy. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) established—fourteen centuries ago—that no woman can be married without her express and free consent, and that a woman may seek divorce unilaterally, on the basis of her own desire alone, without requiring her husband’s agreement. This right—known as khula’—predates Western legal frameworks for divorce by over a millennium.

Moreover, when marrying or divorcing, Islam mandates a wali, i.e. a legal representative, to keep a degree of separation between a woman and the man who may eventually become her husband, or her ex-husband, with the mandate to exclusively protect her interests. Islam was the first major world religion to mandate and codify women’s right to consent to marriage and to exit it, while prioritizing her safety throughout.

On financial rights, Islam provides another clear guidance. A woman has equal rights over her husband’s income, he has no rights over her income. Accordingly, in no circumstance should a woman not have financial access and autonomy. When Prophet Muhammad (sa) married Khadija, she was a wealthy CEO. He was her employee. At no point did he usurp or demand her rights or property. Islam forbade it.

Returning to the topic of marriage, Prophet Muhammad (sa) also made clear that girls are not to be married before the age of maturity—defined in Islamic jurisprudence as adulthood, with full legal and moral capacity to consent. Forcing a child into marriage—and then legally stripping her of the ability to leave—is not Islamic governance. It is the abuse of religious authority to perpetuate misogynistic control.

The Taliban has no Islamic justification for this law. None. What they have is power—and a willingness to use it brutally against the most vulnerable. And while the Taliban’s atrocities have brought this injustice into the spotlight, the reality is sadly far worse. This injustice is a global crisis and merits a global response.

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This Is a Global Crisis—Including in the United States

It would be convenient if we could frame this purely as an Afghan problem or a Taliban problem. It is not.

Child marriage is a global crisis. And the United States—which will inevitably be among the loudest voices condemning this Taliban decree—has its own catastrophic reckoning to face. Just last month in Oklahoma, 36 Republicans voted to block a ban on child marriage. What should have been an easy unanimous vote passed only 51-36. As of this article, more than 30 states nationwide have no ban on child marriage. And it is not an anomaly.

According to the non-profit Unchained At Last, since the year 2000, the United States has documented 315,000 cases of child marriage within its own borders—largely sanctioned by the Church and courts. No federal law bans child marriage in America. Not one. Individual states have varying and inconsistently enforced protections, but there is no national floor that prohibits the marriage of minors under any circumstances.

This brings us to the critical question of international law—and here the news is both good and deeply troubling.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)—the most comprehensive international human rights treaty specifically protecting women and girls—calls explicitly for action to specify a minimum marriage age of 18. Under CEDAW, any law that permits or enables child marriage is a violation of the treaty’s binding obligations. Article 16, paragraph 2 states plainly:

The betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory.

CEDAW was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 1979. Afghanistan has ratified this treaty. The United States has not.

The self-proclaimed leader of the free world has refused to ratify the world’s primary treaty protecting women and girls from discrimination, child marriage, and forced union—placing itself in the company of nations it routinely condemns for their human rights records. Women and girls in America remain unprotected by the very international standard we are now invoking to condemn the Taliban.

This hypocrisy does not excuse the Taliban. Nothing excuses the Taliban. But it does mean the United States must put its own house in order—immediately—if it wants to lead with moral authority on this issue.

The United States must ratify CEDAW. Now.

Afghanistan Has Ratified CEDAW—And That Is Our Legal Lever

Here is the crucial legal fact that must drive the international response: Afghanistan has ratified CEDAW.

Afghanistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, as documented by the United Nations Treaty Collection. That means the binding obligations of CEDAW—including Article 16’s explicit prohibition on child marriage and its mandate that “the betrothal and the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect”—apply to Afghanistan under international law.

Decree No. 18 is not merely morally reprehensible. It is a direct violation of Afghanistan’s binding international legal obligations under a treaty it has ratified.

This matters because it gives the United Nations and the international community concrete, treaty-based grounds to demand accountability. Not as cultural imperialism, not as Western interference, but as the enforcement of a legal commitment Afghanistan made to the world and to its own people.

The UN must not limit itself to expressions of “grave concern.” Grave concern is not accountability. The UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, and UNAMA must use every mechanism available under international law to hold the Taliban to Afghanistan’s existing treaty obligations—including targeted sanctions on Taliban officials responsible for implementing laws that violate those obligations. The sustained, coordinated pressure must not relent until Afghan girls are protected.

Regional nations—particularly Pakistan, which itself banned child marriage in 2025—have both the geographic proximity and the cultural and religious relationship with Afghanistan to bring the Taliban to the table. Pakistan’s leadership must use that leverage. The silence of regional Muslim-majority nations on the Taliban’s systematic abuse of Islamic principles to oppress women is itself a form of complicity. It must end.

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The Consequence of Forever War and Imperial Failure

Finally, we cannot conclude this conversation honestly without confronting the role American foreign policy played in creating the conditions we now condemn.

Twenty years of American military intervention in Afghanistan—at a cost of over $2 trillion and tens of thousands of lives—ended with the Taliban returning to power in 2021 in a collapse so swift it further rendered the entire enterprise a catastrophic failure. Women and girls in Afghanistan are, by virtually every measurable standard, worse off today than they were before the first American bomb fell.

And let us not forget who negotiated the terms of that collapse. Donald Trump’s administration negotiated the Doha Agreement—releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners, including senior commanders and hardened extremists, in exchange for commitments the Taliban promptly ignored. That agreement did not include a single binding protection for Afghan women. Not one. The Trump administration traded Taliban prisoners for nothing—and Afghan women are paying the price.

This is the inevitable consequence of wars fought not for human rights but for geopolitical positioning, natural resources, and imperial projection. When the empire packs up and leaves, it is always the women and girls who are left to bear the weight of everything that was promised and never delivered.

Global Solidarity Is Not Optional—It Is Obligatory

In conclusion, the path forward is clear—we must center the protection of women and girls in Afghanistan and globally. It will not be easy. But it is obligatory.

The United States must ratify CEDAW internationally and ban child marriage domestically. Today, the spectacle of America condemning child marriage abroad while refusing to adopt the international treaty that prohibits it—while 315,000 documented cases of child marriage have occurred on American soil since 2000—is a moral and legal incoherence that undermines every word we say.

Afghan girls did not ask for twenty years of war. They did not ask for a Taliban that imprisons them in childhood marriages before they have had the chance to become the doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, and leaders they were born to be. They did not ask for a world that watches their subjugation, issues statements of grave concern, and moves on.

They deserve more than our concern. They deserve our action.

The future is not unwritten for Afghan girls—it is being written right now, by men with power and without conscience. The question is whether the rest of the world will let that stand. We cannot. We must not. And we will not—if we are serious about the human rights we claim to defend.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This—a platform dedicated to human rights, international law, and the accountability that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for universal human rights

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On Episode 224 of The Qasim Rashid Show:

Claire Valdez is a union organizer running in New York's 7th congressional district — a seat neighboring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has endorsed her, as has Zohran Mamdani — without taking a single dollar from real estate money. Paul Nolley is running in Illinois' 16th, a 9,000-square-mile rural district that the party has written off, against an opponent with $6 million in corporate PAC money and a hundred percent Trump voting record.

Between them, Claire and Paul cover everything the establishment pretends is too radical to win on: Medicare for All, the PRO Act, getting corporate money out of politics, a living wage, and an end to U.S. arms transfers to Israel — all the things that we need to have done to protect a functioning democracy in this country.

Watch these live interviews on YouTube

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Interviews from This Week

1. Monday — Live With Chris Rabb for US Congress PA-3

2. Tuesday — White Supremacists Kill Three American Muslims in San Diego

3. Wednesday — Fighting Back the Growing Threat of Christian Nationalism

4. Thursday — Who Is Igniting Antisemitism in America?

5. Friday — Mallory McMorrow’s Racist Attack on Abdul El-Sayed Is a Betrayal—And a Warning

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What Is The Public Thinking?

This week, what is the public thinking about the U.S. Senate races this November? Right now, the public believes there is a 63% chance that Democrats will win all four core Senate seats—up six points from last week. That kind of momentum is solid, it means our work is making a difference. But 63% is not a guarantee. We must keep pushing until this prediction becomes a reality.

Dad Joke of the Week

I have followed Mallory McMorrow’s career for years and celebrated her courage and principled stances. In 2024, I attended the DNC and watched her speak live, reporting afterwards:

The most significant mention of Project 2025 came from Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, who brought the entire fascist manifesto as a prop with her on stage. Her poise and delivery were excellent, and most importantly, her message was received loud and clear—Project 2025 is a brazen, unapologetic, undemocratic, unhinged attempt by the MAGA Republicans to permanently install Donald Trump as a dictator.

I shared her warning. I celebrated her courage. I thought: this is the kind of Democrat we need more of.

Which is precisely why her attack on Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is not just a political disappointment. It is a personal one. It is a betrayal of the values she claimed to hold, of the party she claims to represent, and of the millions of Black and brown voters she will need if she ever wants to win a general election in Michigan.

Mallory McMorrow’s smear campaign alleging that Dr. Abdul El Sayed is not a doctor is not a political attack—but a racist one. The receipts prove it and far from sweeping it under the rug, we need to talk about it. Let’s Address This.

McMorrow’s Attack—And Why It Is False

Here is what McMorrow said about Dr. Abdul El-Sayed:

Turns out Abdul El-Sayed misrepresented, over and over, being a physician. He’s not. The truth? He’s never held a medical license, never did a residency, and never passed his boards.

The false claim went immediately viral. She repeated it numerous times, literally issuing a formal press release like she uncovered a major scandal. Right wing media outlets picked it up. And the MAGA joy has been palpable. Let us deal with the facts first, and asses the damage caused by the racism after.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor. He is a Rhodes Scholar. He graduated from Columbia University Medical School with an MD. He earned a PhD in Epidemiology from Oxford. He served as the Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department—one of the most consequential public health leadership roles in Michigan’s recent history.

He is, by every meaningful definition, a doctor.

He has also been transparent—for years, publicly and repeatedly—about his deliberate choice to not pursue a clinical residency. That choice was not a failure or a fraud. It was a principled decision rooted in a clear-eyed analysis of where he could do the most good. He looked at our healthcare system that kills 68,000 Americans annually from preventable, treatable conditions, that produces 500,000 medical bankruptcies every single year, that delivers the lowest life expectancy, highest infant mortality, and highest maternal mortality of any developed nation on Earth—and he concluded that the most meaningful change would not come from practicing medicine inside that broken system. Instead, the most meaningful change would come from using his medical expertise to build new policies for a system.

So he became a public health official. A policy architect. And the results of this decision speak for themselves. As Dr. El Sayed recently reminded everyone:

As a public health official in Wayne County, I led the program to set aside $7 million to erase nearly $700 million in medical debt for 300,000 families. It’s the biggest medical debt erasure in Michigan State history.

And in 2024 in his capacity as Wayne County Executive Health Director, he partnered with Vision to Learn to provide eye healthcare to more than 100,000 children and free glasses to more than 30,000 children.

Every aspect of Dr. El Sayed’s career has been on public display. Even a cursory glance shows clearly that McMorrow’s attack is not grounded in fact. It is not grounded in policy. It is what you do when you have lost the policy debate, you are losing in the polls, and you have nothing of substance left to run on.

And incidentally, McMorrow attack arrived right as a new poll shows she is currently 10 points down with less than 100 days until Election Day. Dr. El Sayed’s existence as a doctor clarified, let’s get to the meat of the discussion. Because McMorrow’s criticism is worse than a desperate political attack—it is an attack grounded in racism. One that threatens the general election. And that is what we need to talk about.

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McMorrow’s Attack—And Why It Is Racist

Let’s draw the line—a clear, documented, undeniable line—between what McMorrow did and a pattern that has recurred throughout modern American political history.

Barack Obama. The first Black president followed every rule. Won every election. And still faced years of demands for documentation to prove he is a “real” American. The birther movement demanded his birth certificate. When he released it, it was not the “long form” birth certificate. When he released that too, it still was not enough. To this day—years after he left office—millions of Americans believe the birtherism lie. The credentials of a Black man are never sufficient. The proof is never enough. The legitimacy is always in question.

Ilhan Omar. A Black Muslim refugee who built a life in America, ran for Congress, and won. The response? A fabricated allegation—with no basis in reality, no supporting evidence, no credible source—that she “married her brother” and committed immigration fraud. The lie has been investigated and debunked repeatedly. It does not matter. It has become a standard talking point, repeated so often that it has taken on the false weight of established fact.

Zohran Mamdani. A man of South Asian Muslim and Ugandan heritage wins the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Republicans immediately allege immigration fraud. When they cannot prove it, they propose legislation specifically designed to bar him from taking office. When you cannot beat them at the ballot box, change the rules to disqualify them from playing.

Notice the pattern. Every target is Black or brown. Every target is Muslim—or accused of being Muslim, or associated with Muslim communities, or simply brown enough that the accusation lands. Every target followed the rules. Every target ran for office the right way. Every target won—legitimately, democratically, decisively. And every target was then subjected not to a debate about policy, but to a campaign designed to delegitimize their very right to hold the office they won.

The message is not about policy. The message is: people like you do not belong here.

That is the message behind the birtherism campaign to attack Barack Obama. Behind the fabricated marriage campaign to attack Ilhan Omar. And behind the racist denaturalization campaign to attack Zohran Mamdani.

And it is the message behind Mallory McMorrow’s delegitimization campaign to attack Abdul El-Sayed. And the only side that wins with these attacks are MAGA extremists, something we’re already seeing with McMorrow’s attacks on El Sayed.

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McMorrow’s Attack—And How It Is Arms MAGA

Just as the right wing racist attacks on Obama, Omar, and Mamdani have become mainstay talking points in the conservative ecosystem, McMorrow’s racist attack on Abdul El Sayed is already taking root. Last week Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal posted support for Dr. Abdul El Sayed—an honest, sincere post of support.

The response was overwhelming bigotry from people repeating Mallory McMorrow’s false and racist talking points against Dr. Abdul El Sayed.

This is but a snapshot. I looked up many of these accounts responding to Jayapal’s campaign appearance with Abdul. Virtually, if not every single one, is a MAGA account. And every single one is using Mallory McMorrow’s talking points—verbatim—to claim that Abdul El-Sayed is not a real doctor, while expanding on racism, anti-Muslim hate, and dehumanization.

Read that again. MAGA accounts are using Democratic primary attack lines gifted to them by Mallory McMorrow to target the progressive candidate leading in the polls. It’s important I make a critical distinction here. I am not calling McMorrow a racist. I am, however, absolutely pointing out that racists are happy to use her false claim to try and delegitimize Dr. El Sayed.

And do you think they’ll stop these attacks should Dr. El Sayed win the primary? Of course not—they will double down and point to Democratic State Senator Mallory McMorrow as the validator for their racist, false, attack. This is the catastrophic, irreversible consequence of engaging in racist attacks during a Democratic primary: you hand the enemy the weapon. And it creates a lose-lose situation for all of us.

McMorrow’s Attack Risks a Lose-Lose Situation

And to further remove any doubt about my view of her—Mallory McMorrow would be an exponentially better senator than any Republican. But that’s not the point of this article. The point is, given these racist attacks, wether Abdul wins or loses the primary, the damage is done. If McMorrow’s lie works and it costs Abdul the primary, then we have allowed a racist smear to determine the Democratic nominee in one of the most consequential Senate races in the country.

And if Abdul wins the primary—as he should and polling increasingly indicates he will—then he will walk into the general election while carrying Mallory McMorrow’s lie on his back. He will face an already embedded MAGA disinformation ecosystem, forced to spend time and resources to debunk a lie already treated as established fact by millions of Republican voters who will use it against him in November.

And the thing is, if you are a Mallory McMorrow supporter and still don’t believe this attack is racist, then you still can absolutely agree this attack is meritless and harmful. For example, can you name any Democratic politician who agreed with MAGA when they attacked Dr. Jill Biden for using the title ‘doctor’ without a medical degree? Of course not. Every Democratic voter in the country knew at that time that MAGA attacked Dr. Biden’s credentials, because they could not attack her on policies.

And that same point applies here.

McMorrow could have attacked Abdul on policy. After all, she has policy differences with him—real, substantive ones that voters deserve to hear debated honestly. She could have argued that her vision for healthcare is better. She could have made the case for her record in the Michigan Senate. She could have competed on the merits.

Instead, she chose a lie grounded in the same delegitimization framework that has been used against every Black and brown Muslim candidate in modern American history. Having run for office myself, I’ve faced similar racist attacks from white male Democrats, alleging I’m not a “real lawyer.” This is an old, tried, and racist playbook, and it deserves to be called out and discarded. Mallory McMorrow chose to engage in this racist attack while knowing—she had to know—that in the age of MAGA disinformation, a lie about an Arab American Muslim doctor’s credentials does not stay inside the Democratic primary. It escapes. It spreads. It calcifies.

If Michigan Democrats lose this Senate seat in November, they will need to reckon honestly with who handed MAGA the ammunition to make that happen. And they’ll need to reckon with the failed strategy of hiring communications consultants who refuse to run on hope and progress, and insist on running on fear and division.

No, we are not done yet in this article—there is one more piece of disturbing news about McMorrow’s campaign that every Michigan voter, and every Democratic voter nationwide who cares about women’s rights, needs to know. I looked up who is advising Mallory McMorrow’s communications strategy, and I am even more mortified than I already was.

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Lis Smith: The Woman Behind McMorrow’s Comms Strategy

The racist attack on Abdul’s credentials did not emerge from a vacuum. It came from a campaign operation whose infrastructure deserves serious scrutiny.

As Jacobin and the Lever have previously reported in a comprehensive investigation, McMorrow’s campaign is deeply embedded in a new dark money-backed Democratic machine called Majority Democrats and its affiliate, the Bench. This is a new influence network of PACs, rich donors, and consultants taking advantage of increasingly threadbare campaign finance law to pour millions into Democratic campaigns, aiming to elect leaders committed to returning the party to the “moderate” middle. (Side note, I have no idea what “middle” exists between MAGA fascism and upholding democracy, but Democratic moderates seem to think it exists).

The network’s donors read like a who’s who of Silicon Valley and Wall Street billionaires. Hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel and his wife Sue are the network’s largest financial backers, having collectively donated $9.3 million to entities tied to Majority Democrats and the Bench since their inception. Other donors include billionaire tech mogul Mark Heising, who has contributed $2.1 million, Nvidia board member Tench Coxe, Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, and cryptocurrency CEO Michael Novogratz. Again, this is not my research, it has already been documented in detail by investigative journalists with full receipts at the article linked above.

I share this because, sitting at the center of this operation, serving as a senior adviser to both Majority Democrats and the Bench is communications consultant Lis Smith.

Who is Lis Smith?

Smith’s past clients include Elissa Slotkin, the centrist Michigan Senator who is silent on genocide in Gaza, is drowning in corporate money, and confirmed more of Trump’s nominees than all but five Democratic Senators. Arguably worse, Smith worked for disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo. That work included running communications operations against the women who accused Cuomo of sexual assault—smearing survivors to protect a powerful man.

I want that to land fully. Mallory McMorrow hired Andrew Cuomo’s comms consultant, who Cuomo hired to silence his accusers. And she is now running McMorrow’s comms strategy in her race against Abdul El Sayed.

We cannot pretend that McMorrow’s attack on Abdul El-Sayed is just a rough patch in a competitive primary. It is a deliberate, racist, and false smear. One that MAGA is celebrating. That is a betrayal. Of Abdul. Of the Party. Of Michiganders. And of everything McMorrow says she stands for.

And, it also points to exactly why Abdul is who this moment demands.

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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—Who This Moment Demands

So let’s close with a reset.

Mallory McMorrow is an accomplished State Senator, one whom I have long admired. She should have run a campaign on her platform, values, and principles. Sadly, she has chosen to include a racist smear.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a doctor. He is Rhodes Scholar, a Columbia-trained physician, an Oxford-trained epidemiologist, a former public health director, and the only candidate in this race who has never taken a single dollar of corporate money. Not because he couldn’t. Because he chose not to. Because his campaign begins and ends with one principle: money out of politics, money in your pocket.

Dr. El-Sayed is the only candidate in this race who will fight for universal healthcare as a human right—not as an aspiration to be negotiated away in committee, but as a moral and policy imperative that he has spent his career building the intellectual architecture to achieve. He is fearless in the face of fascism. Unapologetic in his advocacy for working families. Clear-eyed about the genocide in Gaza when other candidates look away. Inclusive of all people, of all faiths and no faith, because that is what genuine democratic leadership requires.

And he has been smeared with the oldest attack in America’s racist politics playbook. In response he has not flinched. He has not responded in kind. He has not abandoned his principles. Instead, he has doubled down with a smile and a continued focus to fight for working people.

That is not just who Michigan needs in a Senator. That is who America needs.

Michigan Democrats should select Dr. Abdul El Sayed as their nominee in the August 4 primary election, and all Michiganders should vote for Dr. Abdul El Sayed in the November 3 midterm election. Let’s stand together to change politics for good.

Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — a platform dedicated to human rights, accountability, and the people-powered politics that corporate media ignores. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.

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