Abdul-El-Sayed appears on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. Credit: Meet the Press screenshot
Michigan’s far-left Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing fresh scrutiny after a video resurfaced showing the progressive candidate taking aim at one of America’s most beloved sports.
“Football is very much associated with a particularly masculine and, oftentimes, toxically masculine culture. And so much of it was about—you wanted to be able to get back up and play for your team, and you really aren’t allowed to show pain or vulnerability. That’s part of the sport,” El-Sayed declared in a February 2023 podcast released shortly before the Super Bowl, according to The Washington Times.
The Democrat seeking to represent football-crazed Michigan in the United States Senate apparently believes the culture surrounding the game is infected by “toxic masculinity.”
Abdul El-Sayed on football: “Football is very much associated with a particularly masculine and oftentimes toxically masculine culture.” pic.twitter.com/UqPxID8yD4
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) August 10, 2026
El-Sayed did not stop there.
He proceeded to invoke American wars, Manifest Destiny, the destruction of Native Americans and the transatlantic slave trade—arguing that their underlying narratives are echoed in football’s ethos.
El-Sayed said:
“You think about all the wars that we fight abroad, all of the sordid history of oppressing other people in the name of this American idea, right? Whether it was, quote, Manifest Destiny and destroying Native Americans, or it was the transatlantic slave trade where, you know, folks who, quote, founded this country on the backs of Native folks that they destroyed, then captured people, enslaved them, and had them work their fields because they thought it was their right. Right. And all of this, like a lot of these narratives, you kind of see echoed in the ethos of football.”
Abdul El-Sayed said the “sordid history” of Manifest Destiny, destroying Native Americans, and the transatlantic slave trade is “echoed in the ethos of football.”
h/t @KFILE pic.twitter.com/LSJn4cUazi
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) August 11, 2026
In a 2021 essay published by the Detroit Metro Times, El-Sayed argued that “toxic masculinity” sits at the heart of America’s most popular sport.
El-Sayed also described the locker room culture he experienced as a player: “Racism, misogyny, and homophobia were lingua franca.” On the field he felt free, he claimed. On the sidelines and in the locker room? “I was fed a hefty dose of the worst kinds of racist taunting.” A particular “bro” culture, he said, has been replicated in football for decades.
His essay reads, in part:
“The toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport — and men’s sports culture more generally — is way deeper than a few emails or a Jay-Z turnaround.
Growing up, sports were my lifeline. As a brown kid with a funny name that most people couldn’t pronounce (my full first name is Abdulrahman), sports were a safe haven. On the football field, I felt free. And yet on the sidelines and in the locker room, I was fed a hefty dose of the worst kinds of racist taunting. After all, it’s where a particular kind of “bro” culture has been inculcated and replicated for decades. Racism, misogyny, and homophobia were lingua franca. And while coaches would call out the most egregious forms, there was rarely a concerted effort to uproot the culture that drove it. Indeed, too often, coaches were raised in the same culture. So while I remain grateful to all of my coaches for many of the lessons they taught me, I can’t help, in the spirit of coaching itself, to ask how we can improve.”
The post Michigan’s Radical Democrat Senate Nominee Abdul El-Sayed: Football Is “Toxically Masculine” Culture Full of Racism, Misogyny and Homophobia appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
