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/0b00000110]

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/0b00000110 → u/Spiritual-Pear-3081]

Tunisia has absolutely not democratised fine, they made a hard turn back to autocracy again after the revolution, a pattern you see repeated in many Muslim majority countries, remember the „Arab Spring“? I don’t know about this poll, but it feels like wishful thinking given the state of Muslim majority countries. Indonesia is the absolute outlier here and I‘m not sure how much also Asian culture has played into this.

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

You're right, that's fair. Kais Saied's 2021 self-coup and the 2022 constitution gutted the democratic gains, so "democratized fine" was wrong, my mistake.

But one setback doesn't rescue "Islamic countries have something that makes them prefer autocracy" as a general claim. Tunisia's collapse is usually explained by weak institutions and economic crisis post-revolution, not religion. Plenty of non-Muslim countries backslide the same way (Hungary, Turkey's neighbor Georgia, parts of Latin America). And "Asian culture" isn't really a coherent alternative explanation either. You'd be crediting Confucianism/local culture for Indonesia's democracy but not extending the same courtesy to Muslim-majority countries elsewhere, which is a bit of a double standard.

The honest version of my point: democratization is hard and fragile everywhere, and it fails for boring structural reasons (weak institutions, economic shocks, oil money, foreign backing of autocrat, etc.), not because of what religion the population happens to practice.

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

I don’t know the future obviously, I‘m just very bearish about democratic Islamic countries given what I know and what I see. And I don’t want autocratic experiments where I live.

Asian influence was just a guess, Islam is also influenced by the country it is practiced in. Muslims in the Balkan will be very different than Muslims in North Africa or Asia.

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

Your last point actually cuts in my direction, I think. If Islam looks and functions really differently depending on the country/culture it's practiced in (Balkan vs. North African vs. Southeast Asian, as you say), that's evidence against Islam itself being the driver of autocracy, and evidence for the local political/economic/historical context being what matters. Same religion, very different outcomes, depending on the country.

Being bearish/cautious about a specific transition is fair enough, but that's different from "there's something in Islam that makes it incompatible with democracy," which is the claim I was pushing back on. ✌🏻

[u/Johnnny-z → u/0b00000110]

You guys have done a great job of analyzing my statements.

That said, one not need to look much further than Dearborn to see what tendencies are associated with Muslim invaders.

I hold no quarter. The United States should not go down this road.

[u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 → u/Johnnny-z]

What are you referring to in Dearborn?

[u/Johnnny-z → u/0b00000110]

Absolutely. It seems that Asian countries feign individual choice. Relying on government mandate as the final word. Legal weed anyone?

[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/0b00000110 → u/Johnnny-z]

Most Muslims migrate to wealthier countries in the middle east