Hasan Piker Gets CANCELLED....

Why some Democrats want to shut off Hasan Piker’s ‘megaphone’

The popular streamer’s rise as a Democratic influencer coincides with the party’s long search for a path out of the wilderness.

Hasan Piker’s new role as a midterm surrogate and potential influence on the 2028 presidential race is driving a wedge in the Democratic Party.

After POLITICO reported that Piker, the far left political streamer with millions of followers, will stump in Michigan with Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed next month, his history of divisive comments launched an avalanche of criticism from Republicans and Democrats.

Two of El-Sayed’s opponents, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens, lambasted El-Sayed, with Stevens telling Jewish Insider “someone who’s campaigning with someone like that is not going to win in Michigan” and McMorrow saying Piker “says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes,” comparing him to the antisemite nationalist influencer.

Piker’s rise as a Democratic influencer and surrogate coincides with the party’s long search for a path out of the wilderness, particularly in recapturing young men.

Piker is scheduled to appear on a livestreamed, “Choose Your Fighter” rally organized by Progressive Victory at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is among the list of attendees. Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Planter was originally billed as a participant, but he pulled out of the event. (A person familiar told POLITICO that Platner’s planned appearance was a miscommunication.) And on Sunday, Piker will rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a tax-the-rich rally.

The question over Piker’s prominence also comes as both the Republican and Democratic parties ask fundamental questions about how big their tents should be.

But it’s the out-of-power Democrats who face the higher short-term stakes.

In an interview with POLITICO, Piker downplayed accusations that have been leveled against him, like center-left think tank Third Way, whose leaders wrote in a WSJ op-ed that Piker had a history of anti-American, antiwomen, anti-Western and antisemitic comments. Piker said Third Way was “losing their institutional relevance.” He also said he’s merely channeling, not changing, the attitudes of the Democratic base.

“I’m a megaphone, right?” Piker told POLITICO. “There are a lot of Barbs and Deborahs out there in Minneapolis, for example, that have never encountered me, and yet they share that frustration with the failures of establishment liberalism all the same.”

Piker said those type of voters view Democrats as “ineffective, inept.” “It’s not because they tune into The HasanAbi broadcast every day,” he said, referencing his Twitch channel. “They arrive at that conclusion because the Democrats lost to Trump twice. With the same principle that you got to pivot to the mythical moderate center.”

This isn’t Piker’s first rodeo: He livestreamed an interview last year with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders before one of the duo’s “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also sat for an interview with Piker last year.

But Piker’s increasing coziness with prominent Democrats also comes as some in the party argue he poses a problem for them.

“Piker is close to — but not over — the Nick Fuentes line, where going on his show itself is indefensible,” Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett, who’s been sounding the alarm about Democrats’ affiliation with Piker, told POLITICO. Bennett added that Democrats “take on all of his baggage if they don’t overtly reject” him, which he said is “dangerous because it empowers the right and gives them an incredibly powerful tool to hit Democrats with that’s very bad.”

But some Democrats like Khanna argue that the party needs to assemble a broad coalition. “That must include engaging with Israel critics like Hasan Piker as Pod Save hosts have done and many progressive candidates have done,” Khanna told POLITICO. “Of course, I disagree strongly with some of his statements and point that out. But cancelling people or shaming people like Hasan Piker, Shawn Ryan or Theo Vonn is not the answer.”

POLITICO surveyed 14 potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, asking whether they would appear on a livestream with Piker if invited. Only three definitively said they would.

topics: hasan piker, piker, hasanabi, hasan piker twitch, israel, iran, china, russia, ukraine, crimea, cory booker, ro khanna, ruben gallego, gavin newsom, theo von, joe rogan

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