u/Shaqsquatch

i had been pretty impressed with the work the r/Michigan mod team had been doing to prevent out of state astroturfing but this exchange has been wild and really makes me question the mod decisions going on over there.

this is likely going to get me banned but don't really care at this point if that's going to be the mods' stance on behavior like this. though i suspect this is one mod that likes Stevens going rogue rather than an official stance.

first: i posted the context of Abdul's quote twice and each time it was deleted with weirdly aggro comments from the official mod team account.

following the recommendation of the second mod comment i messaged the mods to follow up, and the exchange i got was really eye opening. full transcript here because the text is pretty small:

> Shaqsquatch 7:32 PM https://old.reddit.com/r/Michigan/comments/1v8551z/put_one_ogre_on_a_pike/

> this Politico piece was misleading enough to begin with and OP deliberately summarized it to imply the quote was about Stevens despite it being about supporting a primary challenge to Fetterman in 2028. twice now comments pointing this out have been deleted with weird comments from the official mod team account ("missy"? really?).

> i appreciate the work you all do particularly around this election but getting weirdly aggro at someone (who has been an active user here for 15 years now and lifelong resident of the state) pointing out that the post is being deliberately misleading and hiding the context making that clear seems like a weird choice and i can't imagine that's something coming from the whole mod team.

-

> r/Michigan MOD 7:40 PM So, let me get this straight.

> Stevens' people say her stunt against El-Sayed was "just a joke" and we're supposed to believe they're lying.

> El-Sayed's people say his words about an "ogre" referred to Fetterman and we're supposed to believe they're telling the truth.

> Uh huh.

> There's a new bridge in town that I have for sale.

-

> Shaqsquatch 7:41 PM yeah definitely no ideological bias at play here huh. the linked article itself quotes him talking about Fetterman in context:

> "If I win... well y'all came at me so now I get to come at you, and you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that," he said, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO. "Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different," El-Sayed added later, referencing how he could help propel the progressive moment. hope the rest of the mod team sees this it's not "El-Sayed's people" saying this. it's the linked article and the audio included in it, this is a matter of fact

>r/Michigan MOD 7:44 PM They do. They're sick of this one-sided hoop-jumping as I am.

> We are not for or against any candidate. What we are is against attempts at manipulation. There's a big jump from "Fetterman was mentioned in the same meeting" to "He said Fetterman is the ogre we have to defeat."

-

> Shaqsquatch 7:49 PM oh there's a big jump here alright but i'm certainly not the one making it. i didn't realize OP had linked the playbook summary which is even more misleading but the full quote with the audio is right here and he's deliberately talking about Fetterman's seat and supporting a primary challenge in 2028. the second part of that quote is two sentences later in his same answer about primarying Fetterman https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/27/el-sayed-backlash-leaked-comment-michigan-senate-01012659 this is not "mentioning Fetterman in the same meeting" it is the literal context of the quote, be serious if you need it narrowed down it's from 4:07 "primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that" to 4:24 "one ogre on a pike" should i go find some more hoops?

-

> r/Michigan MOD 7:54 PM FFS

> He mentions Fetterman.

> He mentions the primary.

> He says "You're going to spend $60 to beat me?" That's not about Fetterman.

> Then he says the hting about "the ogre on a pike."

> All you have about hoops. Fetterman isn't spending $60M to beat El-Sayed. We know who is. We know who the ogre is. It's not Fetterman.

> This discussion is over. You have nothing but hoops.

>You have been temporarily muted from r/Michigan. You will not be able to message the moderators of r/Michigan for 7 days.

tl;dr: at least one mod on r/Michigan is deliberately obscuring context in support of a misleading post to attack Abdul. i hope it's just one mod gone rogue but even if so the rest of the mods and Michiganders on reddit should be aware.