They Said a Capitalist Should Die. They Were Outside El-Sayed’s Event.

A Facebook post from Ciscovo G Ci is a screen recording of Cam Higby. When this copy was pulled, Facebook’s title on it was 33,000 views and 747 reactions. Higby’s original, posted the night of October 22, is past 950,000 views. His caption says Abdul El-Sayed supporters who tabled outside his event told Higby he should be killed for being a capitalist, and called for a violent overthrow of the government. He says he got it on a hidden camera.

The camera stamp reads October 23. The banners behind the table are Wayne State. Two men sit at a red table in FRSO shirts, Freedom Road Socialist Organization. A banner on the front of the table says from the river to the sea. Higby asks what they are advertising. They say Freedom Road Socialism. Then this: the only way to create change in this country is a revolution, and that will not happen through reforms. He asks what kind of revolution. Overthrowing the government. Violently? Yeah.

He asks if they are there to say landlords should be killed. The answer is “Yeah, dude. And if you’re a fucking landlord, I hope you die.” He asks if that is because he is a capitalist. Yeah. Then: “Your tenants decide they have a revolution. They put you down like the dog you are.” Higby’s caption says “killed.” The sentences on the tape are “I hope you die” and “put you down like the dog you are.”

These are not staffers in an El-Sayed shirt. They are FRSO, tabling outside his Wayne State event, and Higby calls them his supporters. FRSO’s own program says it applies Marxism-Leninism and is trying to build a revolutionary communist party. Wanting the government overthrown by violence is the organization’s line, said out loud, on a campus sidewalk.

The same week, El-Sayed stood at the Detroit Economic Club and said “I’m a capitalist.” The men outside his event said a capitalist should die, and that the government comes down by violence. He did not say those sentences. They did. They said them on his stop, in the open, into a camera.