Looking at my feed on X this morning (yeah, I know) I stumbled upon something called “2WAY,” (@2waytvapp on X), a video commentary platform founded by Mark Halperin and Arnold Jung back in 2024. You may remember Halperin from 2017 sexual harassment accusations from almost a dozen women. I can’t find any evidence that anyone ever substantiated these claims, but they derailed his pundit career for several years.

In any event he’s back, now sharing his thoughts at 2Way, and I managed to catch a short clip on X. In the clip, he argues that Senator-elect Abdul El Sayed from Michigan will not become a dominant figure in Congress because he “doesn’t play nicely.”

“A freshman senator who comes in and acts the way he does? I don’t think that’s going to go over particularly well with his older peers. Last night he insulted the vice president. He was extremely rude and crude to Mike Rogers.” 

He’s talking about comments El Sayed made during the campaign and in his victory speech Tuesday night.

To Vance he said, “JD, habibi,” followed by his delight that Vance would have to swear him in, and then said “Wolverine one, Buckeye zero” referencing the Ohio State Michigan football rivalry. Using “habibi” this way is an Arabic equivalent of “Bless your Heart,” and any Southerner will get the meaning. Any football fan would characterize the football jab as on the order of “locker room talk.”

To Rogers, El Sayed said, “You chose hate and Michigan chose hope. May we never have to see the likes of you in this state again.”

Nothing “rude and crude” here, but Halperin has to call him out without saying a thing about all the nasty things Vance and Rogers had to say during the campaign. For example, on August 31, Vance said “there’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil,” and called him “a little weasel” on October 15. 

Rogers has called El Sayed a con man, and when asked if he’s a terrorist responded “Look at the data. It’s pretty clear.” He also accused El Sayed of believing that “America deserved 9/11.”

All of this is a classic case of the “both sides” pundit bashing a Democrat for occasionally doing something Republicans do every day and on a different level. He also completely ignores any evidence that El Sayed will be able to build relationships with is Senate colleagues, not the least of which is that he managed to get dozens of Michigan and other Democrats to support his campaign. 

I also find it very interesting that Halperin doesn’t seem to think competence and grasp of policy will matter here. Halperin apparently thinks we still live in a world where the US Senate is some kind of collegial deliberative body where they all adjourn to the cloak room for cigars and bourbon after the Committee hearings end.

I never thought Halperin was such a great pundit and this kind of silly analysis of the situation exposes him as a hack. He’s always been a ”both sides” centrist – when discussing Trump’s first term, for example, he focused on why Trump appeals to some voters rather than criticizing his corruption, graft, and rhetoric. 

I’m old enough to remember when pundits did this to avoid the “liberal bias” label, which is fair enough, I guess. But in practice it comes down to an attempt to look moderate while bashing people you don’t like while overlooking worse flaws in others. Halperin always had something bad to say about both sides of policy disputes, even in cases where one was clearly the bad actor. 

He’s not doing that here. Here I think he just wants to say something bad about El Sayed for some reason. Even to the extent he has a point, I’m not sure this means El Sayed will never be a dominant figure in Congress. He’ll have a learning curve, to be sure, but I think he’ll do well because he has a clear grasp of policy and is willing to stand up to Republican bullies. 

“When they go low, we go high” just didn’t work, and Democrats are sick and tired of watching conservatives fight hard for what they believe in while Democrats hem and haw and waffle. We’re tired of watching conservative bullies get away with telling lies and calling names (Talafreako!). We’re over listening to conservative accusations of treason and hatred of the country we grew up in – and many of us served in the military – while our side tries to work with them to govern. We’re tired of watching Republicans accuse our neighbors of eating pets without someone calling them out for their bullshit.

We want Senators and Representatives and Presidents who stand up for our values and fight to protect the people, blue and red, who are falling behind by pushing good policy. 

What Halperin describes as “rude and crude” meanness is standard rhetoric for conservatives, and Democrats voted for El Sayed because we’re ready for someone willing to give as good as he gets. This may or may not degrade American politics, but Republicans started it.

About time Democrats pushed back, and I’m glad we elected brilliant Senators like El Sayed to do it. 

Oh, yes…Habibi, JD.