She also advocates government environmental protection programs because “private enterprise is not designed to self-regulate for the betterment of society; it is designed to make money for its owners.”
While Abboud said she supports the Second Amendment, she has called for immigration reform that would lead to a “pathway to legal status, at a minimum for those without criminal convictions, so people living in our state are no longer hiding in the shadows.”
Being a Muslim, especially a Democratic, liberal Muslim, is also a massive problem for Abboud. Like El-Sayed, she is running in a state that also went for Trump in 2016 and is seen as even more Republican and conservative than Michigan.
And also like El-Sayed, she realizes being a Muslim isn’t going to make her campaign for the Senate any easier. But for her, it’s more than a question of politics. It’s a matter of personal safety.
Abboud told AZ Central she received hundreds of hate messages on Facebook because of her faith. An Abboud campaign spokeswoman said they always request police escorts at campaign events.
Mazen told Reuters he realizes it’s more than the mysteries surrounding the Muslim religion for many in Michigan, Massachusetts, and across the nation that will raise questions in the minds of voters he and El-Sayed will be meeting on the campaign trail.
“People don’t understand what it means to me to have a Muslim faith and to believe that faith compels me to serve every American and to serve the Constitution,” Mazen said.
Mazen, who became the first Muslim Cambridge, Mass., city councilor, hopes his campaign, and that of El-Sayed, are the beginning of a trend. He has issued a nationwide “open call” to his fellow American Muslims, offering to train them to run for elective office.
“Muslims are unbelievably underrepresented in elected office,’’ Mazen told theBoston Globe. “Having Muslims in elected office, the way I am, can change the narrative from being on the defensive [in the media] … to the work that we actually do around issues such as affordable housing.”
Mazen said that since he launched Jetpac in February more than 100 Muslims have expressed an interest in being trained to run for elective office.
Jetpac was launched shortly after Trump announced his first executive order that was intended to block people from several Muslim-dominated countries from coming to the United States.
Mazen said his decision to move forward with Jetpac was not a direct response to that order. But he believes the reaction to Jetpac and Muslims deciding to seek office reflects the community’s response to what some see as anti-Muslim sentiments in America evidenced by the election of Donald Trump.
“Trump is the outcome of a 20-year process, and we are actually responding to that process,” Mazen told the Globe.
“We are responding to many Americans who feel they are being demonized and villainized,” Mazen added. “We are not necessarily responding to Trump; we are responding to the environment that allows Trump to come about.”
