The Smearing of Hasan Piker
Michigan and nationally, the establishment seeks to silence voices it can't control.
Last week, Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow attacked her progressive opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, with a particularly egregious slander. Speaking to Jewish Insider, McMorrow criticized El-Sayed for holding a campaign event with leftist streamer Hasan Piker. Given McMorrow chose a Zionist publication to launch her subversive attack, it’s no surprise she blew the anti-Muslim dog whistle by equating Piker to a literal Nazi. Here’s what McMorrow said in her “exclusive” interview:
“[Piker] is somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes.”
If you’re unfamiliar with Nick Fuentes, I wasn’t being hyperbolic. He’s a self-avowed Nazi who openly praises Hitler for being “awesome” and “having aura.” (All of these guys are maximum virgins.) He’s also said, “Black people should be in prison” to achieve his goals of a “total Aryan victory.” Basically, he’s one of those knuckle-draggers who couldn’t find a way to contribute to humanity, so he says the most outrageous stuff to get attention. You know the type. “The Holocaust didn’t kill six million Jews, but even if it did, that was a good thing.” That sort of thing. Fuentes also claims to be asexual and live streams his dates with catboys. So there’s a good degree of repressed homosexuality driving his lifelong temper tantrum. Like I said, an actual Nazi.
There is not a single thing Hasan Piker has said that puts him anywhere close to Nick Fuentes. As we’ll cover later, the media has dredged up a slew of old Piker clips and presented them out of context, but comparing him to someone who advocates for a second Holocaust is a lie. Here’s Piker explicitly calling out antisemitism and specifying why it is important to separate anti-Zionism from anti-semitism to more effectively stop the apartheid state of Israel. If you want more evidence of Piker’s history opposing anti-semitism, here’s a thirty-minute montage of him denouncing it. If you want to criticize him for old social media statements, fine. But equating this person to a Nazi says far more about the accuser than Piker.
The only way one can honestly see similarities between Piker and Fuentes is if they are an Islamophobic bigot who thinks Arabs and Muslims are inherently anti-semitic. Evidently, Mallory McMorrow falls into this category. Speaking of, Mallory McMorrow is far closer to the Nazism of Nick Fuentes than Hasan Piker or Abdul El-Sayed is. McMorrow’s campaign financial chair, Kelly Neumann, has openly praised her Nazi grandfather. “Sure, he helped murder six million Jews and decimate Europe. But he hugged me when I came out of the closet.” If McMorrow is going to attack the El-Sayed campaign for stumping with someone they say is an antisemite, then what should we think of her campaign run by a Nazi-lover?
Mallory McMorrow’s decision to go low caught many people, myself included, by surprise. Previously, the Michigan Senate Democratic primary was understood as a three-way race between two progressives and a centrist. McMorrow and El-Sayed were competing for the progressive vote, while AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens stood for the establishment. Previously, McMorrow had been painting herself as a softer, more electable progressive than Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. She supported “universal health coverage,” but not Medicare For All. She correctly accused Israel of genocide, but then later said the term is a “progressive purity test,” which is quickly becoming the establishment’s excuse for dodging the question. Until her latest stunt, many progressives saw her as a better option than Haley Stevens, who was Chuck Schumer’s hand-pick. Just two weeks ago, Sam Seder was discussing a potential need for progressive unification behind McMorrow if the El-Sayed campaign didn’t turn out as he hoped. But now that dynamic has changed. By coddling up to Zionists and launching bigoted accusations of Muslim Jew-hatred, McMorrow has shown she’s far closer to Haley Stevens than Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. So, why did McMorrow decide to go hood-off at this moment? Occam’s Razor points to fear.
With Haley Stevens campaigning as well as a goldfish taken from its bowl and dropped on the kitchen counter, McMorrow went to Jewish Insider to signal to the Israel lobby that she’s willing to do their bidding. By attacking Hasan Piker, McMorrow sent a message to Israel-aligned donors and Zionist politicians — specifically Chuck Schumer — that they can pressure Stevens to drop out and support McMorrow, who will happily protect Israel in the Senate. Though AIPAC is officially backing Stevens, McMorrow is closely aligned with the group’s Israel policy. Back in September, Drop Site News published a leaked donor call in which McMorrow campaign manager Wellesly Deniels told Zionist donors that AIPAC found McMorrow’s policy paper “outstanding.” Because she doesn’t want to be accused of explicitly attacking El-Sayed, and because she’ll still have to win a general in Muslim-populated Michigan, McMorrow chose to attack Hasan Piker. This gives her the plausible deniability to say she didn’t call Abdul El-Sayed a Jew-hating Muslim; she only inferred it by saying he hangs out with Jew-hating Muslims.
Obviously, the McMorrow camp thinks this is what they need to do to win the August primary. But I’m not sure they calculated correctly. I wasn’t persuaded by McMorrow's argument about “electability,” but maybe some Michiganders were. By coming out as a staunch Zionist who is willing to slander her Muslim opponents with the same bigotry as Jonathan Greenblatt, I think a lot of former McMorrow supporters might be reconsidering their support. Today, the race looks very different from just a few weeks ago. With El-Sayed being the only candidate supporting Medicare For All, calling to abolish ICE, and not cozying up to the Israel lobby, it’s fair to say the Michigan Democratic Senate primary is between a progressive, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, and two pro-establishment candidates, Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens. There are already signs that the McMorrow campaign’s AIPAC Batman Signal backfired. Following her stunt, donations poured in for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, making him one of the top donation recipients on ActBlue, alongside James Talrico and Jon Ossoff. The attack also earned McMorrow increased scrutiny from progressives, whom she’ll need to win both the primary and the general. With many Democratic voters rightfully angry at McMorrow’s low blow, the campaign tried to shift the news cycle with a populist-coded video of McMorrow opposing corporate surge pricing. But as David Sirota pointed out, there are multiple anti-surge-pricing bills in the Michigan state senate. McMorrow is the Democratic majority whip, but she hasn’t sponsored a single one. In just a matter of a few weeks, McMorrow has revealed herself to be the duplicitious Washington-insider many Democratic primary voters are tired of.
It’s unknown whether McMorrow’s gamble will pay off. But what is undeniable is that the McMorrow campaign is feeling enough pressure from Dr. Abdul El-Sayed that they felt the need to ditch their progressive veneer and join the establishment smear campaign of Hasan Piker. In this way, her attack on El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker was two-fold. Yes, it stoked anti-Islamic bigotry among the electorate, but it also broadcast to the national Democratic establishment: “I am on your side, and I will do your bidding. Help me.” It’s important to note that Mallory McMorrow didn’t start the national smear campaign against Hasan Piker. The leftist streamer has been the central target of shady centrists attempting to disempower the left and keep the Democratic Party aligned with capital, crypto, Israel, and other things that suck. What I’d be curious to know is whether she saw an opportunity to join this campaign, or if the Democratic corporatists reached out to her with an invitation. Regardless of how she joined the Zionist movement, this background is why we can’t view Mallory McMorrow’s snakeism as a single tactic in an isolated race, but the opening of a new front in a larger establishment war to discredit the left and rig the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.
Anti-Pikerism
I know almost nothing about war and military strategy. But even as a movie-educated armchair general, I know that the first thing you do in battle is take out your enemy’s communications. Unable to promote their messages and coordinate counterattacks, your enemy would be disoriented, increasing your chances of victory. Right now, the left-of-right political world is on the eve of the battle for the 2028 Democratic primary. On one side is the Democratic establishment, which wants to keep the party tethered to Israel and oligarchy. On the other side is the progressive left, which wants to follow the will of Democratic voters by sympathizing with Palestinians and taking on corporate power. Since the establishment lost all three branches of government in the 2024 election, these forces have been skirmishing and waging proxy conflicts through numerous left vs. center Democratic primaries, general elections, and media wars. But with the 2026 midterms creeping closer and closer, and likely 2028 candidates teasing their announcement, the battle to control the next phase of Democratic politics is just over the horizon. To help their ideological forces win that battle and keep the party aligned with capitalism and Zionism, the pro-establishment forces are attempting to take progressive communicators off the board — just like bombing the enemy’s radar station before you invade. This isn’t conjecture. Last year, the pro-establishment think tank Third Way released a memo advising Democrats to “reduce far-left influence and infrastructure.” To achieve that goal, they are launching a coordinated smear campaign against arguably the most effective leftist commentator, Hasan Piker.
The sheer volume of anti-Piker content published in mainstream media shows how this is a coordinated attack. On March 19th, Third Way founder Jonathan Cowan co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling Piker a “Jew-hater.” On March 23rd, The New York Times covered the Cuba Humanitarian mission by hinting Piker was a hypocrite for staying in a four-star Havana hotel, even though American law forced him to stay there. (This article served the dual-purpose of hippie punching at Piker while obscuring the important issue of American starvation of the Cuban people.) In just one week, Jewish Insider has published seven articles urging Democrats to “shun” the streamer. Politico piled on by asking fourteen potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates if they’d appear on Piker’s Hasanabi stream. Of course, Corey Booker raced to say Piker’s “terrible comments about Jewish people” meant he “would not be joining Piker’s stream.” In response, Hasan Piker clarified he never invited Corey Booker or any of the other candidates on.
As was McMorrow’s slander, this is a racist smear campaign to disempower leftist criticism of Israel and silence calls for economic populism. When NY-17 congressional candidate Effie Phillips-Staley visited the West Bank and described the conditions as apartheid, her local Democratic committees tried to sabotage her campaign by refusing to support her ballot petitions. While Phillips-Staley agreed to join Piker’s show while he was in New York over the weekend, the Westchester County Democratic Committee denounced her and released a statement accusing Piker of “anti-American hatred, the dehumanization of Jews, the minimization of horrific sexual violence against women, and other forms of bigotry.” While statements such as these have considerable sway amongst the Democratic elite, they are out-of-touch with the electorate, which is more observant and distrustful of political subservience than ever before. Effie Phillips-Staley bravely stood her ground and called out the Democratic establishment for trying to “narrow the tent” and silence Piker’s voice. I especially appreciated Phillips-Staley's use of the “tent” metaphor, as centrists have been lecturing everyone else about the need to “grow the tent” since November 5th, 2024. (Typically, one would think losing would drive you to call it quits on giving lectures. But hey, what do I know?) So, if the democratic establihsment wants to “have a big tent,” why are they taking Jonathan Cowan’s advice to “draw a line in the sand” and exclude “Hasan Piker and his fellow Jew-haters” from entering the Democrats’ big tent? It’s simple, really. The Democratic establishment wants a “big tent,” but only if it’s filled with people who don’t threaten their grip on the tentpole.
A Big Tent. But Not Too Big.
Just like a tent needs a central load-bearing structure, so does a political party. What is your headline to voters? What are you rallying Americans around? Workers’ rights? Equality? Democracy? The Republicans have a tent pole: Donald Trump is the most America-first candidate in history. It was always bullshit. That pole has been wavering since Trump reclaimed the White House, and the GOP tent has shrunk as a result. But it was a convincing mantra that won Republicans a trifecta of control over the American government. We can’t say it didn’t work. Weak as the Republican pitch was, the Democrats’ current tentpole is even worse. I’m not sure it exists. To the extent the Democratic establishment has a tent pole, it’s something about them being the adults in the room. Instead of speaking to voters’ concerns about Gaza and economic vulnerability, the Democrats chose to message what party insiders want to hear. Liz Cheney implored Republicans to choose “Country over Party,” swinging tens of votes to the Democrats. Harris promised to create “the most lethal American military.” Literally no one wanted that, except the people who wrote the speech, thinking, “Aha! Let’s see the Republicans try to call us weak now!” (They still did.) Harris even got closer to corporate interests than Biden, letting her Uber-executive brother-in-law serve as a close campaign advisor. As a result, the campaign signalled to corporate donors that a Harris presidency would abandon Lina Khan’s antitrust project, a move welcomed by economic corporatists represented by groups like Third Way. So yes, the Democratic establishment is interested in “growing the party tent” to win elections — but only if the people in that tent don’t threaten their position holding the tent pole. As a former John Fetterman staffer and current Vice President of the Searchlight Institute (it’s junior varsity Third Way), Tre Easton put it, newcomers to the Democratic tent should show deference to those who were “there before you.” This is why they want to move the Democrats’ right — it will strengthen the establishment’s control of the party. Alternatively, moving the party left will weaken their hold by including more progressive-minded members.
Because Hasan Piker is threatening the establishment’s grip on the Democratic tentpole, they are smearing him as an antisemite. Speaking anonymously to Politico, one adviser to a potential 2028 candidate said they see Piker as a “gatekeeper” to the 2028 primary. If that sentiment is true, which, given the streamer’s growing audience and influence, it appears to be, then we see why Third Way and the democratic establishment are trying to scare politicians away from appearing with Piker. In this scenario, the goals of a 2028 contender differ slightly from the Democratic establishment. Not only do the corporatists not want a leftist shaping the discussion surrounding the 2028 primary, but they don’t want to validate his project with the attention of their “serious” candidates. Gavin Newsom might go on Hasanabi and dodge Piker’s questions about Israel, which the California governor will consider an increase in his presidential chances. But that would have come at a cost to Third Way, as it would have increased Piker's relevance and the left’s influence while decreasing theirs. If the left is holding the Democratic tentpole with one hand, and rallying voters to working-class issues with Hasan Piker’s “megaphone,” then the 2028 Democratic primary is a greater risk to benefactors of Democratic centrism than is the 2028 general election.
The duplicitousness of this media smear campaign reached its zenith under none other than Jake Tapper. Citing Third Way’s op-ed, Tapper had on a “panel” (really two people who agreed with him) to cover Piker’s “antisemitism.” To show the real purpose of false accusations of anti-semitism, the same day Tapper chose to make out-of-context clips from a streamer as his headline, Israel passed a law legalizing the execution of Palestinians, but not Israelis. Because that’s the real purpose of the anti-Hasan Piker smear campaign. Distract from the indefensible actions of apartheid Israel, silence critics of the Democratic establishment, and make sure Medicare For All stays on the sidelines. That’s the plan. But the existence of this plan shows how weak the Democratic establishment is. Previously, Third Way, Chuck Schumer, and other centrist voices would point to polls as evidence that their politics worked. But now the polls are saying the opposite, Third Way is lying about them and trying to cheat its way back into relevance. Much like McMorrow’s slanderous attack on Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the attacks on Hasan Piker arise from a place of establishment insecurity.
Sorry centrists. People like Hasan because he’s right about you. And your attempts to sink him are only showing them that, if anything, he was too kind to you.
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In Solidarity — Joe
funny how everyone is criticizing Hasan and
not Democrats, who actually have power and are funding a genocide
Completely agreed that lots of Hasan criticism is misguided and vailed attempts to downplay the genocide, but Hasan is not infallible. I appreciate him bringing leftist ideals to the mainstream, but he is far from perfect as a spokesperson for the left. He struggles to consider opinions from identities he doesn’t possess, occasionally shares misinformation, and (imo) has some majorly misogynistic tendencies. All this to say I also get that if we wait for the perfect spokesperson, we may be waiting forever. Just food for thought that he has blind spots too.