Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

Returning to the program today is Dr. Abdul-El-Said. He is a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in the great state of Michigan.

He's also, I have to say, a former contributor to current affairs magazine.

It would be the first former current affairs contributor to the U.S. Senate if elected, just a little small side note there.

And he is, according to Slate, the Democrat. Everybody is talking about Dr. El-Saiad, welcome

back to the program. Thank you so much for having me, Nathan. It's good to continue the

conversation. Well, listen, I first came out to see your campaign in 2018 in Michigan

for governor, and there was a lot of excitement at that time, just like there was a lot of excitement

around Bernie Sanders in 2016, 2020, but you didn't win, he didn't win, and yet it seems this

time as if something may feel a little different.

We've had since then some very unexpected political upsets, Meddania, New York, Graham Platner,

recently in Maine.

Do you think things feel different this time around?

And if so, what's your explanation for that?

Yeah, they certainly do.

I mean, you see it in room after room across the state. You see it reflected in the data that's coming out of polling, et cetera. And I think it's a couple things. Number one, you know, my message hasn't changed. I'm saying the same thing I said eight years ago when I ran for governor in 2018. I think what has changed, though, is that circumstances have proven a lot of that message right.

I said that Donald Trump was not himself the disease of our politics. He's just the worst symptom of the disease and that the system itself was the disease that allowed corporations and billionaires and special interests to buy and sell politicians in ways that leave them rigging the system against us. And I think over the last eight years, people have seen that happen in an accelerating fashion.

You think about the people who were at the dais with Donald Trump when he got sworn in for a second time.

You think about the rise of AI and big tech.

You think about the fact that we've watched more and more billionaires spit out of

this economy at a higher and higher rate and people feel like they are running in quickstand

and cannot afford the basic means of a dignified life. You watch our tax dollars get funneled over

...