OPINION:
Rep. Debbie Dingell, Michigan Democrat, has heard enough about Hasan Piker, the radical communist podcaster and influencer who recently suggested that Jews invite violence when they advocate for Israel.
“Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker,” Ms. Dingell said at a rally for Michigan leftist Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. “It’s not what November is about.”
Democrats are finally facing questions about Mr. Piker’s involvement in their party politics, which include supporting candidates through his commentary to millions of online followers and appearances on the campaign trail, including Mr. El-Sayed’s.
The questions come largely from liberal journalists, and they are about a problem within their own party. Naturally, Ms. Dingell says that Republicans are to blame.
“Republicans are trying to divide us, and we’ve got to stop letting them try to divide us,” she said. “I don’t agree with Hasan Piker on a lot of stuff.”
Ah, but the “lot of stuff” in that quote is doing a lot of work — waving away a disgusting pile of ugliness.
As I wrote about in this space two weeks ago, Mr. Piker has a horrifying “greatest hits” catalog of statements to denigrate or offend most people.
In addition to saying that the United States “deserved” the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Piker declared that he would “wipe my a— with the Constitution.”
About his ideological enemies, he said, “Let the streets soak in their f—-ing red capitalist blood.”
He said he wanted more illegal aliens in the country “so they can [rape] your sister, and then maybe even your daughter.”
About Blacks, he said, “I don’t give a f—- what Black people care about.”
About Jews, he said, “Go back to Auschwitz.”
By lumping all this awfulness together and calling it merely “stuff we disagree on,” Ms. Dingell is blessing its existence, as if it is a point of view that is supportable but just different from her own.
It very much matters in this age of decentralized media, when millions of voters have their worldviews shaped by online content creators such as Mr. Piker. He is a gatekeeper, a viewpoint enforcer, for the online Marxist left.
To listen to one congressional Democrat who is also a presidential hopeful, Democrats should lay off Mr. Piker because the base loves him.
“Too many demotivated Democrats stayed home in 2016 and 2024. We can’t repeat past mistakes,” Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, posted on X. “Quit calling @BernieSanders an ’antisemite.’ Stop wasting time attacking Hasan Piker instead of Trump’s robber baron corruption.”
Disavowing such repulsive commentary is not “wasting time,” and many Democrats have done so publicly.
Still, in a midterm election year in which Democrats must flip four seats to take the Senate, it is telling that, as in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidates in other battleground states have not parted ways with Mr. Piker.
ChatGPT says that none of the Democratic Senate candidates in Maine, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Iowa or Alaska has said a discouraging word about Mr. Piker.
Another who has not is Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, an incumbent senator who cannot do it because he needs to actively court the radical base. Mr. Ossoff recently endorsed Mr. El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate race as a show of friendship to the left. He intends to run for president in 2028 and will need pro-Marxist Democrats to be open to him.
That is why, when pressed, an Ossoff spokesperson issued only a very vague statement frowning at “reckless and dangerous rhetoric” aimed at Jewish people, but failed to disavow Mr. Piker or even mention him by name.
That barely rises above the level of “stuff we disagree on.”
Mr. Ossoff, who is Jewish, has personally remained silent and has not rescinded his endorsement of Mr. El-Sayed.
Mr. Ossoff should know that when he endorsed the Michigan Senate candidate, he got everything that came along with that endorsement, including Mr. El-Sayed’s positions and associations. Mr. Piker is squarely in the Democratic tent, and Mr. Ossoff cannot pretend he is not.
He certainly does not talk about all that in Georgia, where he is supposed to be campaigning for reelection this November, though he is instead laying the groundwork for a presidential run. That was what compelled him to endorse a candidate who consorts with a self-identified Marxist who wishes for the extinction of Jews.
To do the right thing, Mr. Ossoff, along with every other Democrat, should completely disavow Mr. Piker. If they do not, you know they value political convenience over any principles they may once have had.
Mr. Piker has a First Amendment right to speak, of course, but so do the rest of the Democrats. They should use theirs to banish his corrosive brand of politics or be tainted by it themselves.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
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