A Michigan sheriff comes in from the cold

by J.R. Dunn 

An electoral campaign doesn’t collapse the way a material object does. When a bridge or building goes down, it’s over in seconds. One minute it’s standing there the way it always has; the next it’s no more than wreckage splattered across the ground, waiting to be cleaned up and replaced.

When a campaign collapses, it happens in slow motion. It just goes on and on, day after day, week after week, until election day unveils the ruins for all to see.

Abdul Muhammed El-Sayed has been learning this firsthand over the past few weeks. After peaking in early September – at the latest –things started coming apart piece by piece, one disaster following the next as if on some kind of metaphysical schedule. First, Hasan Piker. Then, a key staffer abandons the campaign and speaks out about the real El-Sayed. El-Sayed’s double citizenship with Egypt is revealed. Mom’s support of Hamas, bubbling under for months, finally explodes. A filmed public visit to the voters by way of a gas station flops as ignominiously as any campaign event on record.

And then last week, it was a lifelong Democrat, Saginaw County Sheriff William L. Federspiel, who, in an action that went strangely uncovered by legacy media, abandoned the Democrats and endorsed Mike Rogers.

Sheriff Federspiel was not only a loyal Democrat; he was also an elected Democrat official, taking office as sheriff in 1987. After forty years, it’s fair to say that he was a lifetime party member.

This past weekend, the sheriff appeared on local TV to present his reasons for the move. As far as I know, this interview has not appeared on national media. Sheriff Federspiel is quiet and soft-spoken in the traditional Midwestern manner. He has obviously given this matter a lot of thought for a long period.

“Over the last eighteen years I noticed my party has shifted. Shifted away from traditional values, Chistian values… I used to be accepted in the Democratic party… then as each election came about every four years, the party shifted further left.”

For Federspiel, those values include both pro-life and, naturally enough, pro-law enforcement views. ”I don’t believe people should be released early from prison if they’ve been convicted by a jury of their peers. I believe they should do the time if they’re willing to do the crime.”

That was a major beef with El-Sayed, who has, of course, threatened to empty the prisons should he find himself in a position to do so.

Federspiel has long been at odds with Democrat leftists, whom he accuses of attempting to primary him in recent elections, putting up astroturf candidates in an effort to run him out of office. Their animosity came out into the open with Federspiel’s Mike Rogers endorsement: “I walked away at the urging of the local party, who went on Facebook and told me to leave after I endorsed Mike Rogers.” (He also endorsed GOP governor candidate John James – see below.)

It seems to me that the Michigan GOP could do a lot worse than to run Sheriff Federspiel for higher office. As for the Dems, this is yet more evidence – if any were needed – of their campaign to run every decent party member out in a lunatic effort to turn the party into a haven for maniacs, cranks, degenerates, and terrorists – oh, not to forget those 100,000 Social Democrats out to sweep all before them. We’ll be seeing more of these defections as time goes by.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/a-sheriff-comes-in-from-the-cold/