The Left has plenty of bad policies. But some go way too far.
And now a socialist Democrat says he’ll go even further than Bernie Sanders.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed said he wants to push past Bernie Sanders’ public-ownership model for major artificial intelligence companies, telling a left-wing podcast in June that “some system of public control” over the industry doesn’t go far enough on its own — comments now drawing fresh scrutiny as he carries his brand of politics into a marquee general election.
Asked on the June 12 “Head in the Office” podcast whether he backed Sanders’ public ownership proposal for major AI firms, El-Sayed didn’t hesitate. “I want to actually take it a step further,” he said. “I agree that we need public ownership, but I also agree that we need some system of public control.”
A Democratic Nominee Pressed On How Far “Public Control” Goes
El-Sayed stopped short of calling for the government to seize or take ownership of private AI companies outright, instead pointing to measures like public representation on corporate boards or a dedicated oversight body. “I just think it’s really important for us to be thinking what is democratic control over this industry? What does it look like?” he said, framing AI as an “existential” risk that demands aggressive public oversight.
He cast the fight in populist terms, accusing tech companies of trying to sidestep democratic accountability in Washington. “Democracy is supposed to fix these problems, and, right now, they’re trying to slip democracy, and we cannot allow that,” El-Sayed said. “We need leaders who both understand the technological risk and are not bought off by the AI industry itself.”
Senior Democrats Have Tried To Soften The Socialist Label
The comments surface at an awkward moment for Democratic leadership, which has worked to downplay how far its rising socialist wing wants to go. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., recently argued that young Americans identifying as socialists aren’t embracing traditional Marxist doctrine, telling reporters he didn’t believe they meant “I want to socialize the means of production,” and characterizing the movement’s goals as “greater equality and opportunity” rather than “dialectical materialism” or the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
That framing sits uneasily next to more explicit language from some of the movement’s leading figures — including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who told a 2021 Young Democratic Socialists of America conference that one of the movement’s core beliefs was the “end goal of seizing the means of production.”
A Test Case For How Far The Party’s Left Flank Can Go
El-Sayed, who has drawn frequent comparisons to Mamdani, now heads into the general election against Republican Mike Rogers carrying a platform built around “Medicare for All” and calls to abolish ICE — with his June remarks on AI industry control adding another data point for Republicans arguing that his brand of politics sits well outside the mainstream in a state President Trump narrowly carried in 2024.
The resurfaced comments also feed into a broader argument Republicans have made throughout the midterm cycle: that whatever Democratic leaders in Washington say publicly about the limits of their party’s socialist wing, some of its highest-profile candidates are, in their own words, pushing to go further still.
