Coach Silky

This is so perfect. Honestly, I thought "Tommy" was a plant by the way he walked off at the end. Abdul El-Sayed just looks too good here. But after looking it up, I learned he was a former Josh Hawley staffer. This is the most inspiring performance by an American politician that I can remember seeing. El-Sayed was faced with a bigoted question. He didn't hide from it or pander. He broke down why it was a bigoted question, and gave a stirring defense of American principles and the Constitution. At the end, his interlocutor wouldn't condemn Christian Nationalism! El-Sayed has a perfect response to this, and "everybody clapped." A lot of us have had this experience of arguing with right-wingers, questioning them, and then finding out that they have no principles, they're just bigots. A Hawley staffer will talk about the US Constitution and freedom of religion to attack a Muslim politician, and sing a completely different tune when it comes to Christian fundamentalists. Again, the "everybody clapped" nature of this, followed by Tommy walking off in shame, made me think that he was a plant. But no. This was a real-life rightoid, getting exposed as the hateful, hypocritical bigot that he is in front of the entire world. Abdul El-Sayed's rise in American politics has made me a lot more optimistic about our future.