Abdul El-Sayed Vilified Beloved American Holiday, Pushed For Day Of Reparations Instead
Progressive policy ambitions meet practical realities as Americans weigh costs and consequences.
Every year around this time somebody digs up an old post where a politician trashes Thanksgiving, and every year it's a useful reminder of how a certain kind of candidate actually thinks about this country when the cameras aren't on. Abdul El-Sayed didn't just critique the holiday's history, which plenty of historians have done without torching the whole occasion. He called for it to be turned into a day of reparations, built on a framing of America as fundamentally a story of "systematic annihilation.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed once said that one of America’s favorite holidays should be a day for “reparations.” El-Sayed argued on Thanksgiving Day in 2019 that the United States was built on the “systematic annihilation” of American Indians and said they should be given reparations.
The anti-Thanksgiving post resurfaced as the Michigan Democrat faces questions
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Every year around this time somebody digs up an old post where a politician trashes Thanksgiving, and every year it's a useful reminder of how a certain kind of candidate actually thinks about this country when the cameras aren't on. Abdul El-Sayed didn't just critique the holiday's history, which plenty of historians have done without torching the whole occasion. He called for it to be turned into a day of reparations, built on a framing of America as fundamentally a story of "systematic annihilation." That's not a footnote to add to the Thanksgiving story. That's a rejection of it.
The timing matters too. This wasn't some stray comment from a college seminar. It's from 2019, well into his adult political life, and it's resurfacing now because he's running for Senate in Michigan and voters deserve to know what he actually believes before he's holding a gavel in Washington. Candidates get to evolve, sure. But there's a difference between growth and simply hoping nobody notices the paper trail.
What's telling is the reflex itself. Instead of thinking a family holiday built around gratitude might be worth preserving even while being honest about history, the instinct was to scrap it and replace it with a guilt ritual. That's not how most Americans, of any background, actually think about Thanksgiving. Most people see a day to be with family, eat too much, watch football, and give thanks for what they have, not a day that needs to be canceled and repurposed as a national confession.
Michigan voters can decide for themselves whether that worldview belongs in the Senate. We just think they ought to see it in full before they vote, not after.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.