Noah Smith
· Noahpinion
· April 17, 2026 at 20:45
· ⏱ 16 min read
| Read on Substack ↗
Summary
Noah Smith argues that mainstream Democrats should not embrace leftist streamer Hasan Piker despite his popularity and anti-Israel stance, because Piker's extremist pro-authoritarian, anti-American ideology would drag the party down the same destructive path as the GOP's embrace of figures like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. The article has zero market or financial content, so no actionable trading implications arise from it.
•Hasan Piker has made vulgar and extremist statements, including a profanity-laced tirade against a Vietnamese refugee and calling the fall of the USSR 'one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century'.
•Piker defended the CCP's ban on gay dating apps as a 'privacy issue', downplayed the Xinjiang genocide as 're-education', and praised Chinese colonialism in Tibet.
•Piker has said America deserved 9/11, defended Russia's annexation of Crimea, and described Hamas as '1000 times better than Israel'.
•Ezra Klein wrote a New York Times op-ed urging Democrats to open a dialogue with Piker, comparing his popularity to Tucker Carlson's and arguing that gatekeeping extremists is counterproductive.
•Piker's Twitch stream gets about 6.5 million hours of attention per week, roughly 10% of Sean Hannity's viewership and a third of Anderson Cooper's, and only about half his audience is American.
•Smith warns that mainstreaming extremists creates a 'competitive market for extremism' where influencers one-up each other, as seen on the right with Carlson and Fuentes.
•Anti-Israel sentiment is rising among Democrats (65% sympathize more with Palestinians, per Gallup), but Smith argues liberals should criticize Israel on liberal merits, not by embracing anti-American shock jocks.
•Smith contrasts the GOP's embrace of anti-American ideology (Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, end of Ukraine support) to argue Democrats would suffer similar self-defeating policy outcomes.