There’s no shortage of takeaways from last Tuesday’s shellacking, but one of the most unfortunate is the door the GOP’s drubbing opened for radical Islam. In Michigan, which is sounding more like an arm of the Tehran propaganda machine every day, two of the most powerful offices are laying an unnerving groundwork for the nation’s next chapter. As Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed openly warned in his victory speech, winning his seat was never the goal. “The goal is to use that seat to transform our politics.” And that’s what every American should be afraid of.

El-Sayed’s success, which seemed impossible in a post-9/11 world, has ushered in an era of proud anti-Semitism and a growing concern that his religion — which is predicated on non-Muslim hatred — is starting to gain an eerie foothold in the halls of American government. “I’m honored to be the next United States senator from the great state of Michigan,” El-Sayed told his new constituents, adding that the state is now “the capital of Arab America.”

Arab America is one thing, experts would note, but when Arab America is just a front for the ultimate goal — Sharia law — the country should be very concerned. That much was clear from the congratulations that came pouring in from extreme Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who called it just one step in ensuring “Muslim political power last[s] for the long haul.” Any doubts about El-Sayed’s ties to the terrorist-adjacent Brotherhood should have vanished with the group’s jubilant celebration of the Colombia graduate. Senior officials hailed the win as a model for the religion to work from “within the political system” on behalf of the Islamic world.

The fervor is even affecting Governor-elect Jocelyn Benson, who’s now appointed a Nation of Islam leader to serve on her transition team, “months after an antisemitism coalition removed him from an advisory panel over his [controversial] affiliations.” Marcus Muhammad will be helping to shape Benson’s policy priorities, despite comparing Jews to “termites” and calling Adolf Hitler “a great man.”

But exactly how worried should Americans be about the rise of Islamic power in the U.S.? The Washington Stand’s Casey Harper sat down with Shahram Hadian, a former Muslim who fled Iran, in his latest “Outstanding” podcast, and he asked that very question: is the paranoia over Sharia law just fear-mongering, or is there more to it?

“Well,” Hadian replied, “do you value your freedoms? Because if you value your freedoms, then it is absolutely a concern. If you don’t value your freedoms, and you’re okay being subjugated, whether you’re subjugated under the push for socialism, Marxism, communism,” then fine. But one thing people need to understand is that “Sharia is Islam. … It encompasses every area of life for a Muslim. So that’s part of the problem we have. … We’re trying to separate the two. And there is no separation.”

Thanks to the media and our leftist education system, young people, especially, have been led to believe that there are two kinds of Muslims — the peaceful followers, which they’ve been taught is the majority, and a tiny fringe of violent jihadists.

Pastor Hadian passionately disagreed. He talked about the success these forces have had in brainwashing our children, pointing to a disturbing new Rasmussen poll that found four out of 10 young people between 18 and 25 (43%) have a highly favorable view of Sharia. “These are not Muslims,” he noted. “These are just young Americans that they surveyed. That should be disturbing, because where are they getting that? They’re getting that as a result of our indoctrination in our high schools, in our universities, in our colleges, by the media,” he explained.

The effect, he warned, is that entire generations “want to prop up anyone they see as marginalized or as discriminated against. So, as you said, they’re going to say we’re being racist” by pointing out the truth about this religion. “They’re going to say we’re being Islamophobic. No, I’m not against any individual people. … [It’s the] ideology we have a problem with,” the Iranian made clear. “And if Muslims come to this nation, assimilate, follow our laws, fine. You want to privately be a Muslim? I don’t have a problem. The moment you try to ask for public accommodation, public funding, and [try to] change our system, now we should have a problem.”

Why? Because Islam isn’t simply a religion, Hadian stressed. “It is a political system. It is a governmental system. It is a legal system. It is a military system. It has a religious component, no doubt. But you can’t separate them. And we would do well to stop calling Islam a religion and start calling it a political ideology that is bent on … [tearing] down any other man-made law — which is what they consider our Constitution — and imposing Sharia.”

In America, our rights come from God. They’re based on natural and common law — all of which is at risk under a Muslim-dominated society. Look at Iran, the pastor urged. “One of the things that they did in Iran when Sharia became governance — within six months of the so-called revolution — was [that] they mandated that women must once again go back [to] wearing the hijab, which is the full head covering, and then, in some cases, the full-body covering. They mandated [that] the rights of women are now secondary to the rights of man. They mandated blasphemy laws. If you insult Islam, you can be arrested or killed. They mandated apostasy laws, where if you leave Islam, you can be killed. All of that [is] not a radical interpretation of Islam or Sharia.” Our rights, our republic, and especially the First Amendment, would be on the chopping block.

Harper reframed it this way. “Everything you’re describing is Islamic fascism, essentially. And I think … because we call it ‘Sharia,’ maybe people don’t get it. But if you just call it Islamic fascism, people might understand what we’re talking about. It’s very similar.” He paused to play devil’s advocate. “The skeptic in my mind [would] say, ‘Well, sure, Iran has Sharia. They’re kind of totalitarian, but this is America. Is this really going to happen here? The Muslims here are westernized.’”

But the reality, he acknowledged, is that we’re already seeing the shift. “If anybody dares travel around this nation, as I have over the last 22, 23 years that I’ve been traveling and carrying this message … they will see it. If you go to Hamtramck now in Michigan, if you go to Minneapolis, if you go to Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Paterson, New Jersey, if you go to Plano, Texas, where I’ve been three times in the last year and driving around and watching about a 30% Muslim population now in those areas. You see the implementation [of this ideology].”

The quiet movement in places like Kaufman and Plano, Texas, to develop “Sharia Cities” is real. It’s part of the reason Congress now has a Sharia-Free America Caucus.

They start by telling the non-Muslims, “This is now a Sharia-controlled area, this enclave. And it could be a neighborhood, it could be a city block, it could be a city,” Hadian notes. “They impose it, and then they force people out of those areas. They start taking over population growth, and ultimately, they take over governance. Hamtramck, Michigan,” he emphasized, “has the first Muslim-majority city in America and the first Muslim-majority city council and mayor, police chief, all of it. They are Muslim. So it’s not just a religion. It’s now become political.”

Look, he underscored, “Jihad isn’t blowing yourself up. Jihad is warfare to establish the religion [and] to establish Islam. So they say, number one: Migrate, go to these other places. Number two: populate. Their birth rate is two to four times our birth rate here in America. They’re double our birth rate. In Europe, they’re four times the birth rate of the Western Europeans. So all they’ve got to do is have more children, and they’re going to take over. And number three, segregate … so there is not assimilation.”

Of course, the other crucial element to this is the alliance we’re starting to see between Muslims and socialists in the Democratic Party. What does this axis of red (socialism/Marxism/communism) and green (Islam/Sharia law) mean?

Hadian wants Americans to understand that this rise of Muslims and socialists in our political system is no accident. “It’s a marriage of convenience for power. It’s a demonic marriage, if I can be that bold to say. And ultimately, it’s a divided house they can’t both sustain. And experience has shown [after] 4,448 years of Islam that when the green takes over, it will overtake the red. It just uses the red to get to that power.”

Looking at Western Europe, which is farther along in this “transformation” that El-Sayed so proudly represents, “The globalists are the red … and they’re helping the green to take over the world, to be the boots [on the ground] and the foot soldiers in their migration replacement. They are bringing the Muslims in to replace the low population birth rate of Western nations, which leads to all sorts of horrific problems like the rape culture in Western Europe, all of that concocted by the … [red] socialist Marxist communists. They think they can control Islam.” But the Bible’s prophecy of Gog and Magog, he insists, “tells us in the end, it’s going to be that green that I think is going to be the major player persecuting and killing Christians, which is what’s happening right now. The greatest persecution of Christians is coming at the hands of Muslims.”

The picture is grim if America continues on this trajectory, which it will if the church doesn’t intervene. “People need to understand that red and blue, Republican and Democrat, is not the main battle that’s happening for the earth. Even the battle of East and West is not really the main battle that’s happening,” Harper reiterated. “There are spiritual powers that are working together on light and darkness. … And within the kingdom of darkness, you have the principalities of Islam, the principalities of communism, atheistic communism, and they’re happy to work together — even if one of them loses in the end — because they’re actually on the same side.” He paused before adding, “I’m not sure if Christians have really woken up to that. I think they’re a lot more awake now than they were 50 years ago, but man. We don’t have much time left to wake up.”

Hadian agreed but tried to drive home a key point: “Politics aren’t going to stop this Islamic takeover of America at first. It’s got to be the church. The church has to pray. The church has to stand. The church has to vote. The church has to be educated and equipped. If the believers who are supposed to have the Spirit of God in us don’t do that, how do you expect non-believers to understand that? … They have to [know] that this isn’t just a surface issue. This is much deeper than just a few radicals or whatever. This is an absolute spiritual battle against ultimate freedom, liberty, Christianity, God-given rights, the God of the Bible.”

This is not something that’s going away, he warned. “It’s just gotten worse.”

For more on the threat, check out the special Pray Vote Stand Summit panel with Pastor Hadian, Michele Bachmann, Robert Spencer, and Tony Perkins here.