Abdul El-Sayed stands by criticism of fireworks, tells Americans to find other ways to 'show you love'

Abdul El-Sayed had a chance to walk back a weird moment and instead he leaned into it. Fireworks on the Fourth of July are about as apolitical as it gets in this country. Kids on the curb, sparklers, the smell of gunpowder in the humid air, your neighbor's dog losing his mind. It's the one night a year most people agree on something. And a guy running for U.S. Senate in Michigan decided that was the hill to stand on.

His answer on "The Breakfast Club" wasn't a clarification, it was a lecture. Find other ways to "show you love" the country, he said, as if setting off a Roman candle in the driveway is somehow in competition with paying taxes or voting or whatever he considers the acceptable substitute. Nobody asked him to rank patriotic gestures. Nobody needed a hierarchy. People just wanted to watch things explode in the sky with their families like they've done since they were kids.

This is the kind of thing that sounds clever in a green room and lands terribly with actual voters, the ones who grill on the porch and set off fireworks the neighborhood kids can see. Doubling down on it tells you something real: he'd rather be seen as principled to a narrow audience than relatable to a broad one. That's a fine strategy for a podcast. It's a rough one for winning a statewide race in a state that still likes its Fourth of July the old-fashioned way.