Hasan Piker: An albatross for El-Sayed

The outcome of Michigan’s high-stakes Senate race may come down to a streamer from California, said Alexei Koseff in The Washington Post. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing a campaign crisis after his friend and political ally Hasan Piker—a progressive influencer with millions of followers—suggested in a livestream that if Jewish Americans continue to support Israel, “eventually someone is going to come around and take action—not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” Republican opponent Mike Rogers immediately played up El-Sayed’s ties to his fellow Muslim Piker, calling the streamer his “running mate.” El-Sayed attempted to mend bridges with Michigan’s Jewish community but refused to disavow Piker outright. “If you want to make this race about a streamer in California,” he said, “I just think you’re missing the boat.”

“It shouldn’t have taken this long for prominent Democrats to confront their party’s antisemitism problem,” said David M. Drucker in Bloomberg. Piker has been “spouting antisemitic and antiIsrael nonsense since at least last year”—even as El-Sayed brought him on the campaign trail. Some liberal activists see Piker as the Democrats’ version of Joe Rogan, helping them reach voters under 30, but his incendiary rhetoric risks Democrats’ “historically strong bond” with Jewish voters. Some Democrats are complaining that Republicans aren’t required to denounce right-wing influencers like the racist and Islamophobic Laura Loomer, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. True enough. But as “an avatar” of the insurgent left, Piker has made it clear he wants to purge all Zionists who believe in a Jewish homeland from Democratic ranks. Even though I’m critical of Israel’s policies, “it’s easy for me to see why Piker’s rise panics some Jews.

Like it or not, El-Sayed’s alliance with Piker “is one of the important questions at stake in the election,” said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Piker is not only virulently anti-Israel; he’s a self-described Marxist who has expressed admiration for Mao Zedong and once said America deserved 9/11. El-Sayed has said “he intends to use his victory as a platform” to move the Democratic Party to the left. His victory in November could “throw open the doors of the party to a strain of militant politics that many Jews justifiably consider dangerous.” Given that the alternative—the Republican Rogers—is an adamant Trump supporter, Michigan Democrats face “a grim choice."

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