The Rise of the Dearborn Democrats

By Rich Lowry

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

 

Michigan Democrats had to choose between a Hezbollah-sympathizing radical and a perfectly respectable former Barack Obama attorney.

 

Given the drift of the party, it wasn’t a difficult choice — it was the virulently anti-Israel extremist all the way.

 

At their convention over the weekend, Democrats selected Amir Makled as their nominee for a seat on the University of Michigan Board of Regents. A Dearborn, Mich., lawyer, Makled represented pro-Hamas student demonstrators, called for the university to divest from Israel, and expressed great respect for anti-Israel terrorists in social media posts.

 

He reposted X items referring to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “martyr” after he was killed in an Israeli strike. He gave the same treatment to a Hezbollah official named Abu Ali Khalil, “a martyr on the road to Jerusalem.” For his part, Qasem Soleimani got the honorific “Haj” after Trump eliminated him in a targeted assassination.

 

All the other terrorists killed by the U.S. or Israel in recent years might wonder why they didn’t rate and get similar Makled-endorsed Hallmark cards.

 

The Michigander has been admirably opened-minded when it comes to rancid hatred of Israel. He didn’t let his progressivism stop him from retweeting a Candace Owens post calling Israelis “demons,” who “lie, steal, cheat, murder, and blackmail.” He praised Marjorie Taylor Greene and has endorsed views of Tucker Carlson and antisemitic goon Dan Bilzerian.

 

Once upon a time, the mere association with such figures would be a deal-breaker in Democratic politics, but we live in the age of the horseshoe. Extremes on the left and the right meet on common ground from different directions; the foremost wild-eyed left-right consensus is that Israel is a malign power with untoward influence in U.S. domestic politics.

 

It is telling that the Democratic incumbent on the Board of Regents that Amir Makled defeated, Jordan Acker, is a Jewish former Obama official who saw his office and his home vandalized in pro-Hamas agitation. (Another, non-Jewish Democratic incumbent member of the board survived the convention.)

 

We are witnessing the rise of the Dearborn Democrats, not in the literal sense, but in the same sense that Jeane Kirkpatrick coined the phrase “San Francisco Democrats” in the 1980s. Back then, San Francisco, an elite coastal city, stood for the dovishness and permissiveness of liberalism; today, Dearborn, home to a large Arab-American enclave, stands for an all-consuming opposition to Israel with all that that entails, including a conspiratorial view of AIPAC and an underlying anti-Westernism.

 

The ethos of the 2024 “uncommitted movement” in Michigan, urging voters not to vote for Joe Biden in protest of his support for the Gaza war, has now surged to a formidable position within the Democratic Party. A new Decision Desk poll shows that 75 percent of Democrats favor the Palestinians over the Israelis. The swing against Israel is even more pronounced among young voters. An Echelon Insights survey found that among Democrats under age 50, 54 percent had an unfavorable view of Iran, while 62 percent had an unfavorable view of Israel.

 

The anti-Israel views of the right-wing influencers promoted by Amir Makled have yet to measurably change the orientation of GOP politics, but the Democrats are shifting rapidly.

 

In the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, who says Israel is as evil as Hamas, could well prevail. In New Jersey the other day, Democrat Analilia Mejia, who had hesitated to say that Israel has a right to exist, won a House special election. A Bernie Sanders–sponsored resolution to block the sale of military bulldozers to Israel last week won the support of 40 out of 47 Senate Democrats.

 

The Dearborn tendency, if it reaches full fruition, will leave many Jewish Democrats feeling politically homeless. It will make the Democratic Party even more reflective of campus radicalism. And if a Democrat wins the White House in 2028, the U.S. may well begin to treat Israel less as an ally and more like the equivalent of apartheid-era South Africa.