Democrats Are Too Cozy With Hasan Piker

There’s no excuse for failing to call out antisemitism on the left.

By Jonathan Cowan and Lily Cohen

Hasan Piker at the Web Summit in Qatar, Feb. 3, 2026. Photo: Noushad Variyattiyakkal/SOPA Images/ZUMA Press

As lifelong Democrats, we agree with Sen. Ted Cruz on virtually nothing. But Mr. Cruz was brave to decry antisemitism in the Republican Party. Mr. Cruz also named a big name, calling Tucker Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.” Too few Democrats have followed Mr. Cruz’s lead by calling out the rising antisemitism on the far left. That must change.

The antisemitism spewed by Mr. Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and other far-right bigots is well-documented and widely condemned. But the far left has antisemites, too. No left-wing agitator is more influential and extreme than Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Mr. Piker is often called “progressive,” but that does violence to the term. A self-identified Marxist, he has referred to ultra-Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” employed antisemitic dog whistles (“bloodthirsty, violent pig-dog”) against an anti-Hamas viewer of his stream, compared liberal Zionists to “liberal Nazis,” and said “Hamas is a thousand times better” than the Israeli state.

Mr. Piker’s depravity doesn’t stop there. His misogyny is indistinguishable from that of far-right influencers. He believes “America deserved 9/11.” He praised the Chinese Communist Party, saying “in terms of good governance, there’s a lot that we can learn from the way they perform out there.”

Mr. Piker is anti-American, antiwomen, anti-Western and antisemitic. No Democrat should engage with him. All should seek to push him to the fringe, where he belongs.

This isn’t happening. The Pod Save America team put him onstage at CrookedCon. Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for Senate in Michigan, tweeted a picture of himself celebrating Piker with a supporter. California Rep. Ro Khanna, a possible presidential hopeful, pushed back on X against concerns we raised about antisemitism on the far left by declaring his pride in going on Mr. Piker’s feed. Mr. Piker chimed in to support him.

Handing Mr. Piker a microphone isn’t magnanimous or respectful of views that test your priors. Going on his show isn’t a sign of bravery, of willingness to talk to the other side, or to show up in challenging places. All these things do is support a bigot.

But few dare speak that truth. The only prominent Democrat to call out Mr. Piker’s bigotry directly so far is New York Rep. Ritchie Torres. Mr. Torres sent a letter to Twitch in October 2024 detailing Mr. Piker’s antisemitism. Other Democrats must follow suit.

Left-wing antisemites are savvier than the Nazi-endorsers on the right, who marched in Charlottesville, Va., and sat for dinner with the president. The antisemites of the left cloak their attacks in critiques of the present Israeli leadership. Many American Jews, including us, abhor Israel’s current leaders. Criticism of Israeli policy isn’t antisemitic. The Israel-Hamas War was a humanitarian catastrophe for Gazans. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is appalling.

But the Jew-haters on the left go much further. They use loaded words taught in social justice seminars (“apartheid,” “genocide,” “settler colonialism”). They push age-old tropes about Jewish wealth and influence (“Epstein class,” turning “tax the rich” into “tax the Jews”). And they replace the word “Jew” with “Zionist.”

This language is more than offensive. It can beget violence. Last year, an alleged murderer seemingly inspired by left-wing rhetoric killed two people for the crime of being at the Capital Jewish Museum. Democrats must understand that accepting antisemitic figures like Mr. Piker into the mainstream puts Jewish Americans’ lives in danger.

There’s no excuse for putting political tribalism before Jewish safety. Or for overlooking hatred to generate likes online. Or for failing to act against the surge of antisemitism, spread by the Hasan Pikers of the world and normalized by too many on the Democratic side.

We’re all for a big tent. But the Democratic Party needs to draw a line in the sand. Hasan Piker and his fellow Jew-haters belong on the other side.

Mr. Cowan is a co-founder and president of Third Way, where Ms. Cohen is a press adviser.