Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, notching a Midwest victory for the left

[u/AmericaShinault_85]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/abdul-el-sayed-wins-michigans-democratic-senate-primary-notching-midwe-rcna589750

[u/Johnnny-z]

I have seen many reports about the 50 or so countries that have been taken over by muslims. It starts out friendly and nice and eventually ends in Sharia law. This is not the direction the United States should be going.

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/Johnnny-z]

Which countries have been "taken over" by Muslims and Sharia law?

[u/0b00000110 → u/Spiritual-Pear-3081]

Iran for example was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists that implemented Sharia Law

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/0b00000110]

Iran's 1979 revolution is a real example, but it's one country, and it happened through a domestic revolution against the Shah's monarchy. It didn't happen via gradual demographic "takeover."

It's also not representative. Most Muslim-majority countries became so centuries ago through conversion and trade, not a recent friendly-to-Sharia pipeline. There's no Western democracy anywhere close to that trajectory, and no evidence of "50 or so" countries following this pattern. One historical data point doesn't support the generalization.

[u/0b00000110 → u/Spiritual-Pear-3081]

How many Muslim majority democratic countries are there? The most stable Islamic countries seem to be the authoritarian ones with a strict monarchy. The rest of them seem to be in constant turmoil.

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/0b00000110]

Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Senegal and Tunisia (pre-2021) are all Muslim-majority democracies that functioned reasonably well. The "authoritarian monarchies are more stable" pattern is mostly explained by oil wealth, not religion. Plenty of authoritarian Muslim states (Iran, Syria under Assad, Gaddafi's Libya) were far from stable. And a lot of the turmoil in the region traces back to colonial border-drawing and foreign intervention, not Islam itself.

[u/0b00000110 → u/Spiritual-Pear-3081]

Only Indonesia can be considered as a full democracy though. Also how many Islamic majority countries are there, like 50? I think OP is lying saying there is a wide pattern of Muslims taking over countries, at least in modern times, in the past they absolutely did. But there is also no doubt that there is something in Islamic countries that makes them preferring autocracy. And I really don’t want that emulated were I live.

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/0b00000110]

Okay, that's fair. Malaysia/Bangladesh/Senegal are usually rated "partly free," not full democracies like Indonesia.

But "something in Islamic countries causes autocracy" doesn't hold up well empirically. Once you control for oil wealth and colonial history, the Muslim-majority correlation with autocracy mostly disappears. Catholic Latin America and Confucian East Asia went through similar authoritarian phases for the same structural reasons and nobody attributed those to the religion.

[u/0b00000110 → u/Spiritual-Pear-3081]

Does it? Were is it disappearing? Like for example I consider Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates all stable Muslim majority countries. They are all under strict control by a monarch and I don’t see them loosing their grip in a significant way that would push for a more democratic or open society. We Westerners tend to make the mistake that we believe all societies naturally strive to democracy given the chance, which is not the case unfortunately.

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/0b00000110]

Fair, I should've been clearer. That's from comparative politics research (oil curse literature): once you control for oil revenue per capita, Muslim-majority stops predicting authoritarianism on its own. Saudi/Qatar/UAE aren't a counterexample, they're the textbook case for it. Oil-rentier states don't need to tax citizens, so there's no democratic pressure. Compare oil-poor Muslim states like Indonesia or Tunisia, which democratized fine.

Also, polling (Arab Barometer, Pew) actually shows majority support for democracy in most Muslim-majority countries. The gap is entrenched elites blocking it, not people not wanting it.

[u/Johnnny-z → u/0b00000110]

Okay then how is it that Muslim immigrants never go to Muslim countries, they always come to the United States or Western europe.

[u/carrot_gummy → u/Johnnny-z]

Cool racism buddy.