OPINION:
Twitch podcaster Hasan Piker campaigned with Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, helping the Islamist socialist win the Democratic primary in Michigan for U.S. Senate.
It mattered not that Mr. Piker blamed America for 9/11, backed Hamas instead of Israel and once said of opponents, “Let the streets run red with their capitalist blood.”
Now, Mr. Piker is just some “streamer in California,” according to Mr. El-Sayed, who is trying to create distance without alienating Mr. Piker’s estimated 8 million online followers.
It is getting harder.
On Aug. 20, Mr. Piker made a statement that many took as an open threat of violence. “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually somebody is going to come around and take action,” he said. “Not against Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
So, support Israel at your own risk.
The next day, at Mr. Piker’s 2026 “Fear& LIVE” West Coast podcast tour at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, he led a sing-along that mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
On Tuesday, Mr. El-Sayed told CBS newsman Ed O’Keefe that he disagreed with Mr. Piker’s remarks about Jews, and he condemned antisemitism. Still, he added, “The idea that somehow I am going to hold myself accountable to the worst thing he said, and then not reach out to his audience? No.”
Indeed, Mr. El-Sayed cannot afford to lose the party’s base, which is animated by open borders, antisemitism, abortion, sexual depravity and free stuff, all wrapped up in “affordability.” His Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, is having a field day with the Piker connection, calling Mr. Piker Mr. El-Sayed’s “running mate.”
In 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made a similar calculation about a key supporter. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Marxist pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, had been the Obama family’s minister for 20 years.
He helped Mr. Obama cement support in Chicago’s Black church community as Mr. Obama rose to the state legislature and then the U.S. Senate before running for president.
After Mr. Wright likened the 9/11 attacks to “chickens coming home to roost,” Mr. Obama resigned his church membership. Mr. Wright downplayed it by saying, “He did not denounce me. He distanced himself from some of my remarks.”
When Mr. Obama ignored him even after the election, Mr. Wright grew bitter. In a 2010 letter, he wrote that the administration considered him “toxic” and “radioactive” and said that “Obama threw me under the bus.”
Mr. Piker’s own toxic comments include suggesting Jews “go back to Auschwitz,” and “I don’t give a f—- what Black people care about.” Also, “We’re going to keep bringing in immigrants to this country — on purpose — so they can f—- your sister and then maybe even your daughter. We’re going to destroy the White race, b——. That’s what we’re here to do.”
No problem. Mr. Piker has been busy campaigning for at least a dozen progressive Democrats in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Republican strategists should have no trouble making the Democratic Party own Mr. Piker, even though a few prominent Democrats have denounced some of his remarks.
As for the media, they do what the Democrats tell them to do. Rep. Debbie Dingell, Michigan Democrat, was asked Wednesday about Mr. Piker at a town hall meeting for Mr. El-Sayed.
“This election is about what’s going to happen when we elect Abdul to the United States Senate,” she said. “So, don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker, it’s not what November is about.”
Can you imagine the media reaction if a Republican had told reporters what they could and could not ask? It would have been declared the “end of democracy.”
Democrats generally seem far less interested in holding Mr. Piker accountable than in planning revenge. Several have promised immediate probes of the Trump administration if they win either the House or Senate in November, which is by no means guaranteed.
Rep. Robert Garcia, California Democrat, who would chair the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told MS NOW that his staff is “already preparing and gearing up” investigations.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, Georgia Democrat, who is running for reelection and has declined to disavow Mr. Piker by name, predicted that “every committee across Capitol Hill will play a role.”
Some do not want to wait. On Aug. 24, Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, filed impeachment charges against Mr. Trump for the sixth time, accusing him of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Then there is the guy who, on Tuesday, parked a truck with a 10-foot-tall guillotine in the Library of Congress lot next to the U.S. Supreme Court building. He told police he was not there for any particular reason and was released for a later hearing on a misdemeanor charge of possessing a prohibited weapon.
The first thing I thought of was Sen. Charles E. Schumer’s fiery words on March 4, 2020, outside the court during oral arguments on an abortion law.
The New Yorker thundered, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
This is not to suggest that the guillotine parked next door had anything to do with that.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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