Recently, Haley Stevens, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, spoke in Ecorse, a suburb of Detroit. She reflected, as she has done throughout her campaign, on her work to help salvage the local auto industry as an official in the Obama Administration during the Great Recession. She also projected forward, to how she plans to represent Michigan if elected. “I’m gonna be articulating on our behalf. I am gonna be working on our behalf. I am gonna be telling the stories on our behalf,” she said, waving her arms as she warmed to her theme. “And you better believe I’m gonna be doing it with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of ‘stick it to ’em.’ ” By now, she was leaning forward, punching her left hand to the rhythm of her words. “Because that’s the Michigan way. All right!”
A clip of the remarks went viral—and not in a good way. Commenters likened Stevens’s delivery, variously, to that of a Depression-era baseball coach and a bad Chris Farley impersonator. Most notably, the video became the latest artifact in an increasingly nasty flame war between Stevens’s backers and those of her leading Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, some of whom had already made vicious fun of what they see as her exaggerated folksiness and accent. El-Sayed (who previously suggested that Stevens can’t string together “two coherent sentences”) condemned such commentary as “unkind and unhelpful,” and called on his supporters to knock it off. Stevens leaned in. She took aim at the “cool kids on the internet” who were “doing the cool-kid chatter,” suggesting that some of them were “coastal élites” who look down on Michiganders. She also mocked up yard signs bearing the slogan “STICK IT TO ’EM.” | 
