Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, finds himself navigating the distance between the man he was in 2021—a public intellectual critiquing football as a vessel for toxic masculinity and racism—and the candidate he is presenting himself as today, one who invokes his own gridiron past to earn the trust of working-class voters. The resurfacing of his Substack writings, in which he held up a fictional television coach as a better model of manhood than the sport's traditional virtues, places him at a crossroads familiar to many who have moved from the world of ideas into the arena
Michigan Dem Senate Nominee Faces Backlash Over Blog Posts Criticizing Football Culture
the toxic masculinity at the heart of America's most popular sport
Mark
Why does a five-year-old blog post matter now, in a Senate race?
Mimi
Because it reveals something about how El-Sayed actually thinks about masculinity and American culture—not just what he's saying on the stump to win votes. The timing makes it worse. He's now claiming football credibility while his own writing says the sport breeds racism and misogyny.
Mark
But he played football. He has real experience. Can't he hold both ideas—that he loved the game and that it has serious problems?
Mimi
In theory, yes. But the posts don't read as a nuanced critique from someone who loved the game. They read as a wholesale rejection of it. He's not saying "I played and I saw problems." He's saying the whole culture is toxic and we should model ourselves on a fictional character instead.
Mark
What does he gain by invoking his football past now?
Mimi
Authenticity with voters who might otherwise dismiss him as an out-of-touch progressive. But the blog posts undermine that move. They suggest the football stuff is just a tool, not something he actually values.
Mark
Is this actually disqualifying, or just awkward?
Mimi
Depends on the voter. For someone in a working-class Michigan town where high school football is a pillar of community life, being told your sport is a vector for bigotry—and then having the person who said it ask for your vote—that stings. It reads as contempt.
Mark
What would a good response look like?
Mimi
Honest reckoning. "I was wrong about some of this," or "I was too sweeping," or even "I still believe those things but I respect why people disagree." Anything but pretending the posts don't exist or that they don't contradict what he's saying now.
The Pulse
- Five-year-old blog posts have returned at a critical moment, threatening to reframe El-Sayed's identity just as he is working hardest to define it on his own terms.
- His writings did not merely critique a scandal—they indicted the entire culture of American men's athletics as a transmission system for racism, misogyny, and homophobia.
- He proposed replacing the stoic, tough coach archetype with the weeping, biscuit-baking warmth of a fictional television character, a contrast that is easy to caricature and hard to walk back.
- Meanwhile, his campaign has been actively promoting his high school wrestling and football credentials to reach young male and working-class voters, creating a visible and exploitable contradiction.
- El-Sayed has offered no direct reconciliation of these two postures, leaving the tension unresolved as the general election against Republican Mike Rogers enters its final stretch.
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, finds himself navigating the distance between the man he was in 2021—a public intellectual critiquing football as a vessel for toxic masculinity and racism—and the candidate he is presenting himself as today, one who invokes his own gridiron past to earn the trust of working-class voters. The resurfacing of his Substack writings, in which he held up a fictional television coach as a better model of manhood than the sport's traditional virtues, places him at a crossroads familiar to many who have moved from the world of ideas into the arena of democratic persuasion. In a state where football is not merely entertainment but identity, the question of which version of El-Sayed is the authentic one may prove to be the defining question of his campaign.
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, is facing renewed scrutiny over a series of 2021 Substack posts in which he argued that toxic masculinity was not a peripheral problem in American football but something woven into the sport's very fabric. The writings, unearthed by The Midwesterner, emerged in the aftermath of former Raiders coach Jon Gruden's resignation over inflammatory emails—but El-Sayed's critique reached well beyond that episode.
Drawing on his own experience as a high school center at Andover, El-Sayed described the locker room and sidelines as places where racist taunting was routine, and characterized men's athletics broadly as a space where racism, misogyny, and homophobia operated as a shared language. He extended the indictment to the NFL itself. In place of traditional athletic virtues—toughness, discipline, resilience—he offered the fictional Ted Lasso as a model: a coach who cries, talks through his feelings, bakes biscuits, and smiles. In a separate post, he praised European soccer as more egalitarian than American sports leagues, tying his preferences directly to his progressive politics.
The problem is that El-Sayed's campaign has simultaneously been working to establish his credibility with young male and working-class voters by invoking those same high school football and wrestling years. The gap between the intellectual who spent considerable energy arguing that football culture is fundamentally corrupted and the candidate now claiming that culture as part of his identity is wide enough to drive a campaign narrative through.
El-Sayed has not yet addressed the contradiction directly. In a state where football is woven into community identity, how he responds—and whether voters find that response convincing—may well determine the shape of the race's final weeks.
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic nominee for Senate, is confronting renewed scrutiny over writings from five years ago in which he mounted a broad critique of American football and the masculine culture it cultivates. The posts, published on Substack in 2021 and recently unearthed by The Midwesterner, arrived in the wake of former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden's resignation following the release of inflammatory emails. In them, El-Sayed argued that the problem ran far deeper than any single scandal—that toxic masculinity was woven into the fabric of the sport itself and men's athletics more broadly.
El-Sayed, who started as a center on his high school football team at Andover, drew on his own experience to make the case. He recalled feeling at home on the field, but described the sidelines and locker room as places where he absorbed "a hefty dose of the worst kinds of racist taunting." Within men's sports generally, he wrote, racism, misogyny, and homophobia functioned as a common language. He extended the indictment to the NFL itself, characterizing it as infected with deep-rooted racism.
Rather than celebrate the traditional virtues of athletic competition—toughness, discipline, resilience—El-Sayed proposed a different model of masculinity altogether. He held up the fictional soccer coach from the television comedy "Ted Lasso" as an alternative. This character, El-Sayed noted approvingly, cries, talks through his problems, encourages his players, bakes biscuits for his boss, and smiles constantly. It was the kind of emotional openness and gentleness he believed coaches should emulate.
His critique extended beyond American borders. In a separate 2021 post, El-Sayed tied his sports preferences explicitly to his political ideology, praising European soccer as deeply egalitarian in ways American sports leagues were not. The posts reveal someone working through a coherent set of ideas about gender, power, and culture—ideas rooted in progressive theory about how masculinity is constructed and transmitted.
But those writings now sit in tension with El-Sayed's recent campaign messaging. As he has moved through the primary and into the general election against Republican Mike Rogers, he has worked to build credibility with young male voters by invoking his own high school wrestling and football credentials. The gap between the intellectual critique he offered years ago and the street credibility he is now claiming creates an obvious vulnerability. Working-class Midwesterners who love football, who see it as a source of pride and community rather than a breeding ground for bigotry, may reasonably ask which version of Abdul El-Sayed they are being asked to support—the one who played the game, or the one who spent considerable energy explaining why the game and the culture around it are fundamentally corrupted.
El-Sayed has not yet addressed the contradiction directly. What he says in response, and how voters in a state where football remains central to the social fabric receive that response, will likely shape the final weeks of the campaign.
Notable Quotes
On the sidelines and in the locker room, I was fed a hefty dose of the worst kinds of racist taunting, and within men's sports, racism, misogyny, and homophobia were lingua franca.— Abdul El-Sayed, in 2021 Substack post
Ted cries. He talks through his problems. He encourages his players. He bakes biscuits for his boss. He smiles like, all the time.— Abdul El-Sayed, praising the fictional coach from 'Ted Lasso' as a model for athletic leadership
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