Ta-Nehisi Coates Tells an Idiot's Tale of Haley Stevens ‘Waking Up and Choosing Violence’

The butthurt among Democrats caused by Haley Stevens endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for Senate in Michigan over Abdul El-Sayed hasn't dissipated one bit. Stevens has been called "vermin-like" by X's biggest misogynist, Keith Olbermann, and compared to a used condom by James Carville. Vanity Fair decided to get in on the game by giving space to Ta-Nehisi Coates to explain that Stevens' betrayal "isn’t a story about party intrigue" but rather "a story about Stevens waking up and choosing violence."

"Haley Stevens’s defection from the Democratic vote isn’t a story about party intrigue. It is a story about Stevens waking up and choosing violence. In supporting Mike Rogers, she has allied herself with an odious culture war in the US, tied to the very real war in Gaza,” writes Ta-Nehisi Coates. https://t.co/rAS148XFnW

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) November 3, 2026

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a dumb person's idea of a good writer. His writing is so purple he ought to pen his pieces in Crayola violet crayon.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 3, 2026

For the majority of his opinion piece, Coates repeats the usual "anti-Muslim attacks" against El-Sayed that NBC News reported on, citing quotes from President Donald Trump and even reaching all the way back and evoking the late Rush Limbaugh, who called President Barack Obama "Barack the Magic Negro.” (Anyone who actually listened to Limbaugh back in the day knows it wasn't him who coined the phrase, but rather film critic David Ehrenstein in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.)

In the final two paragraphs, Coates finally gets to Stevens herself:

Stevens, in joining Rogers, has allied herself with this odious culture war, one that is itself tied to a very real war. The campaign of hate, of which El-Sayed is the latest victim, has a simple goal: to render Muslims and Arabs more killable….

…

This long war on the Muslim and Arab world has reached its apogee in the concentration camp of Gaza, where every single bomb was dropped from a plane of American extraction. And the genocide is but the latest chapter in a book authored by Israel, a state whose own basic laws reserve full rights for its “decent” people and something less for everyone else. This is the state that Haley Stevens has claimed to literally see in her dreams. And it is ultimately the defense of this state that drove Stevens into the arms of Mike Rogers. From this perspective, Stevens’s defection isn’t a story about party intrigue. It is a story about Stevens waking up and choosing violence.

@VanityFair Stop, stop. She's already cool enough.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Written by someone without a brain who is desperate to get noticed. It is nice to know there are politicians with a conscience.

— Pete Weldon 🇺🇸📈 (@peterjweldon) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair A smart person for idiots congrats guys

— Lee Kuan Yimby (@LeeKuanYimby) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair You are not a serious publication.

— Dr Manhattva (@Manhattva) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair i love her more now

— J Mathews (@OldandUnpopular) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Of fucking course Coates will go all in on this is VIOLENCING ME. Ah well, nevertheless she persisted.

— That Chick From Seattle (@burnedinseattle) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Coates is a grievance hustler with absolutely nothing of substance to offer. It’s all just 2020-era bumper sticker slogans repeated and rephrased

— El Grande Arsenalo (@SouthMetroAFC) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair God, you suck

— Bryan (@CommieLosers) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair You morons have done stupid crap before, but this....

— Gregory Alan 🇮🇹🇨🇦👷‍♂️ (@rightgreg61) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Christ, I'm liking her more by the minute.

— Mr. Binturong (@BrenBearcat1) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Ta-Nehisi Coates article generator: something something white, patriarchal, violence….

— Paul Crowley (@PaulCrowley1847) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Right. From the guy who is pro-Hamas as resistance, someone exercising her right to vote as she chooses is violence. What an entitled fuckhead.

— The Poor Mans Alan Watts (@badphilosopheee) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair This is why I would never subscribe to this shit magazine. Why are y’all platforming such a hateful lunatic? This guy needs to be medicated or institutionalized—not published.

— Erika 🇺🇦🇵🇱 (@Carp3_Vinum) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair She didn't "defect" from the democrat party. She just chose to endorse the opponent of ONE openly anti-semitic democrat and the party kicked her out. Big difference.

— Rebel Normie (@rebelnormie) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Coates has become a parody of himself. He spins fantasies and lies, all the while trying to keep the mask on his true hate for Jews and white people. But his mask is constantly slipping

— Paul CH (@PaulChoden) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair I was on the fence about her before but after reading this, I now think she's a badass. Team Stevens.

— Mac (@mckate112) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Stop. I was already on her side in this, you don't need to hard sell me.

— Pablo Dax (@FilipinoCod) November 3, 2026

@VanityFair Wow. That's a lot of retard stuffed into one article. You could have made 10 retard articles with that much retard.

— Carlton Eadie (@theleftisjunk) November 3, 2026

Coates told Trevor Noah on his podcast that he was unsure whether he would have been “strong enough” to refrain from participating in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks if he had grown up in Gaza. But Stevens is the one who "chose violence" by endorsing Rogers.

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Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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