Hasan Piker lays bare the left’s double standard on hate

There is an old proverb: Show me who you associate with, and I’ll tell you who you are. By that measure, luminaries of the far left told us exactly who they are on Tuesday in Michigan.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (D), and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) chose to share a campaign stage with the extremist influencer Hasan Piker, who has said that “America deserved 9/11” and that he “hate[s] this f—ing country so much.” Tlaib told Piker, “You’re always welcome here” in Michigan.

These Democrats aren’t alone. Others, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and the former Obama staffers at Pod Save America have also cozied up to Piker, hoping to appeal to the young voters who watch his radical Twitch streams. Democratic leaders are content to remain silent about Piker’s growing influence, even as they rush to moralize about extremism and hate on the right.

Recall their outrage in November 2022 when Trump hosted white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. The Democratic National Committee said, “If it was any other party, breaking bread with Nick Fuentes would be instantly disqualifying.”

Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced the meeting as “disgusting” and “pure evil,” while Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) added that Republicans who remained silent were “complicit in legitimizing bigotry and hate.”

Now the same statements can be applied to them.   

Piker has earned his reputation as the left’s Nick Fuentes, with enough vile and hateful statements to fill a book. He has argued for “killing landlords,” stated that it “doesn’t matter if rapes happened” in the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel, and called Hamas terrorists “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state.”

At the Michigan rallies on Tuesday, Piker responded defiantly to critics, declaring he would “do it again just the same” despite the backlash and saying of his detractors, “F— ‘em.” El-Sayed refused to disavow the association, dismissing concerns as “platform policing.”

Some Democrats have pushed back, including primary opponents of El-Sayed. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) said of Piker, “His voice should have no place in our political discourse and all elected officials should condemn his rhetoric.” Democratic leaders appear not to agree.  

Radicals are nothing new in American politics. What is new is how the two major political parties embrace them in a craven attempt to benefit from their populist reach. It is a tactical mistake as well as a moral one.

Throughout human history, attempts to appease or draw benefit from ideological extremes have ended poorly for the appeasers, and so it will be this time. If our two parties do not stand up to these forces, they will be devoured by them.   

It is already happening in the Republican Party, and it may accelerate for Democrats after November. If the party takes control of the U.S. House, the far left will demand seats on powerful committees and attempt to seize control of the agenda. The question is whether enough Democrats will rise up to stop them.

Leaders of courage exist in both parties. The time is coming for them to assert themselves anew. Centrists can and should use leverage to counterbalance the radicals, knowing — as the radicals themselves have proven — that it does not require large numbers to wield outsized influence over the U.S. House. But it does require boldness.

Meanwhile, there is little wonder why Americans are registering as Independent in record numbers. Parties, like people, are defined by the company they keep. Centrist Democrats and Republicans are finding that they have more in common with each other than with the extremes steering their own parties.

In that way, the anti-American radicalism on display in Michigan was not just unsettling; it was revealing and potentially helpful. The Democrats embracing Piker are telling us who they are, and America should listen.

Margaret White is executive director of No Labels.