The Flight 1073 Election

In 2016, writing as “Publius Decius Mus,” Michael Anton called that year’s vote the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. There were no guarantees, he warned, and whoever got to the controls might not know how to land the plane. Critics called it hysteria. It was really an argument about what happens when you wait for someone else to act. Trump was the better choice.

Last week, 174 people, most of them Israeli, got a live demonstration.

Flydubai Flight 1073, bound from Dubai, UAE to Tel Aviv, squawked a general emergency, then the code for unlawful interference and hijacking, then turned away from Israeli airspace as fighter jets scrambled.

Inside the cockpit, according to Israeli officials, a radicalized jihadist Omani co-pilot named, Hamam al-Hammami, had stabbed the captain with an axe and tried to crash the plane. The Indian Captain, Smit Machchhar, wounded, struggled and got the door open. Passengers rushed in and bound the co-pilot with earphone cables. Backup pilots landed the jet in Saudi Arabia.

Data from publicly available sources shows that two hours and fifteen minutes into the flight, the Boeing 737Max suddenly took a sharp nosedive, dropping from 34,000 to 17,000 feet in under a minute as it sped up from 411 knots to nearly 600.

The plane recovered slightly for several seconds, reaching 21,650 feet, before dropping sharply again, this time to under 14,000 feet, badly damaging its tail.

Over the next hour, the plane failed to maintain a steady altitude, though it remained at around 15,000 feet, indicating it was being controlled by hand rather than autopilot.

Israeli authorities were unable to make full contact with the plane during the incident. Israeli Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to intercept it amid fears of a hijacking and possible suicide crash into Ben Gurion airport. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior military officials held assessments on the incident and various scenarios.

Not long after, contact was finally made with the plane the flight landed at obscure Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia. Everyone survived.

The motive is under investigation. But here is what is already reported: the Wall Street Journal says Oman had grounded this man over concerns about his radical Islamist views, and an airline hired him anyway and put him on one of the most sensitive routes in the world. The warning signs existed. The institutions shrugged. Extraordinarily brave people had to save the plane with their bare hands.

That is the lesson of Flight 1073, and it is why this November matters.

In Michigan, Democrats have nominated radical Abdulharam El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who narrowly won a primary that split his own party over Israel and Jewish voters. He is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, claims to be a dual Egyptian citizen, has a sister who is Hamas, takes campaign funding from CAIR and now it appears from the billionaire George Soros, as well.

His ally and campaign presence Hasan Piker, a social streamer, who appeared at his primary-night celebration, has said America deserved 9/11. Haley Stevens, the congresswoman El-Sayed beat, told him to “get rid” of Piker. El-Sayed first called the remark a “dumb statement,” then issued a flimsy statement only very slightly distancing himself and only after he had the nomination in hand, as his opponent, Mike Rogers has pointed out. He has also had to apologize to Michigan’s Jewish Democratic caucus for his past antisemitic remarks.

Judge him by his associations, rhetoric, and his own record. A candidate who needs a primary win, a general-election pivot and an apology tour to explain his allies is asking Michigan for trust he has not earned and does not deserve.

By analogy to the earlier Flight 93 that was sadly crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, a decade later we face another lesson and another electoral choice. The national US midterm election sees a host of democrat socialists running to tear America apart and to stir a revolution in the institutions we know and the culture and economy we have birthed and nurtured for 250 years.

Mike Rogers has earned his. He is an Army veteran, former FBI special agent, a congressman, and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a man who spent his career on exactly the threats that Flight 1073 made real. One recent poll has El-Sayed three points ahead. That is not a cushion for Republicans. It is a warning not to stay home.

How can it be that Michiganders would fall for this radical evil and vote to kill or destroy America?

Why would any Jewish, Christian, or Humanist person vote for such an antisemite, terrorist and communistic candidate? Why would any black person allow their vote to sway an election that will only hurt them and condemn their believing community to such hatred? Do Muslim Americans really want this themselves? Why would anyone who is a US citizen, who has defended the country, sacrificed for the country or pays taxes want this outcome?

So, the questions are for every voter in Michigan, whatever your faith or background. Do you want a US Senator whose coalition includes people who say America deserved 9/11?  Who unabashedly admits he hates America?

Do you want a movement that treats the war on terror as an embarrassment instead of a duty? Do you want to find out, after the fact, that the warning signs were there?

Anton was right about one thing: you cannot count on being rescued. This is the Flight 1073 election. Charge the cockpit.