How Many Divisions Does Hasan Piker Have?
Before Democrats sell our soul: What kind of price are we getting?
***Not everyone knows this story, so: The title is a reference to the time that someone (in some tellings FDR, in some tellings Churchill) suggested to Stalin that the Pope should be involved in shaping the post-World War II order, and Stalin replied “How many divisions does the Pope have?”
Hasan Piker is being shoved in our faces like Harvey Weinstein’s junk at a mid-2000s Miramax after party. The 34 year-old Marxist has recently been profiled in seemingly every publication short of Cat Fancy and Mature Asian, though, to be fair: It’s possible that he was profiled in Mature Asian. The latest edition of that fine publication is currently on my coffee table, ready to be read this Friday evening while I enjoy my pipe.
Democrats are Piker-curious because his fans are disproportionately young men, and Dems have what you might call a “cardigan-wearing NPR-weenie problem”. But the eye contact at the orgy here is that Piker happens to be a morally confused hard-left midwit whose whoopsies include saying that America deserved 9/11 (he later apologized), saying that Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel (he doubled down on that statement just this week!), and who recently Jane Fonda’d his way through China. To some Democrats, that makes him beyond the pale. But other Democrats fear reprising the endless purity tests that helped turn Democrats into the party of NPR Weenies to begin with.
I won’t opine on Piker’s views except to say that I think he’s a supernova of high school-level moron bait, and I wish America would respond to his schtick the way we’d respond to Trucker Ass-flavored Pringles (which do not exist as of press time). My goal here is to address the question of whether — from a purely practical standpoint — Democrats will net more votes by embracing Piker or by shunning him. I’m placing ethical questions entirely aside: For the purposes of this exercise, if I could net one single Democratic vote by reanimating Hitler’s corpse and putting him on a podcast where he and Goebbels review kung fu movies, I would say “Yes, do that.”
This debate is largely a continuation of the debate over Joe Rogan — many discussions of Piker make the comparison explicit. Kamala Harris famously turned down an interview with Rogan partly because her staffers found Rogan objectionable, and the liberal/progressive reaction to Bernie Sanders going on Rogan’s podcast in 2020 is part of what pushed Rogan towards Trump. Democrats have also noticed that the right dominates the bro-facing podcast space, and our pining for the emergence of a “liberal Joe Rogan” has come to resemble Kenneth from 30 Rock waiting for the rapture.
I understand those who think that Democrats need to stop deigning to only associate with the chosen few who flawlessly complete our America Ninja Warrior-style Purity Obstacle Course. Those tests narrow our coalition and make us look like judgemental assholes. We also need to occasionally talk to people with different views in order to have any shot at reclaiming our status as the party of free speech. But I think the comparison between Piker and Rogan is spurious for two huge reasons:
