To be pithy about it, if you're going to run the "divide and conquer" flim-flam, you have to convince the marks there's something in it for them. The GOP can't do that, which leaves the opening for somebody like El-Sayed to expose the con for what it is. Fin.

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Anyway, none of this is brilliant or original insight. It's just helpful in understanding the corner Republicans have painted themselves into, in Michigan and nationally. They have fundamentally misunderstood the electorate, and it may cost them for a really long time to come.

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That's the real weight of his counter-punch: not that Tommy is a bigot (though he kind of is), but that Tommy won't agree to play by the same set of rules he demands El-Sayed play by. Who's the outlier here?

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And attack he does, brilliantly. I thought the bit about the Constitution was great, not because it's a secular counterweight to Christian chauvinism, but because El-Sayed framed it perfectly as a neutral operating system that Americans buy into as the rules of the game.

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That gives someone like El-Sayed the opening to speak and react confidently. He knows Tommy's coming at him with a bluff and a weak hand. The only people who care about him rejecting the Muslim Brotherhood aren't going to vote for him anyway, so he doesn't have to dodge or weave, he can just attack.

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