Democrats fighting over Hasan Piker face accusations of falling into a Republican trap

A s the multi-day Democratic Party fight over association with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker continues, the party’s progressive flank and even some centrists fume that party leadership has once again lost the plot.

Just under a dozen members of the party’s elected officials in Washington have made statements condemning Piker in the past week over two individual comments Piker made on-stream about the September 11 attacks and the backlash against Jewish supporters of Israel, both of which he argues are being taken wildly out of context. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pledged in an interview this week to “continue” speaking out about Piker and comments he claimed were antisemitic.

At the same time, Piker remains a popular figure among younger Democrats and those Democratic candidates who’ve been supported by the left-wing pundit have firmly refused to back away from him, denouncing the criticism as dishonest smears. Piker himself has denied charges of anti-Semitism, and apologized for offending viewers with his remarks about 9/11.

All of this is occurring under the spectacle of a national media frenzy surrounding Piker and the Democratic Socialists of America, whom journalists have made the focus of their questions to Democrats of all stripes. And some Democrats are beginning to air publicly their resentment over party leaders like Jeffries falling into what they call a Republican trap. Campaigning alongside Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Rep. Debbie Dingell rolled her eyes at them on Wednesday.

“Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker,” complained Dingell, who endorsed El-Sayed’s rival in the primary. El-Sayed openly campaigned with Piker during the contentious Democratic contest, but quickly won endorsements from his challengers after it was over.

“It’s not what November is about. Republicans are trying to make it-- Republicans are trying to divide us,” Dingell went on, speaking at an El-Sayed town hall event in Ann Arbor. “And we gotta stop letting them try to divide us.”

Republican plot or not, the divisions are real. Dingell’s fellow Michigander in the House, Rep. Hillary Scholten, is refusing to campaign alongside El-Sayed or be associated with him on campaign literature over the Piker debacle. At a town hall event this week, the congresswoman representing Grand Rapids and parts of the state’s western regions was lectured by a constituent and accused of contributing to the spread of Islamophobic rhetoric against El-Sayed, which she denied.

Ro Khanna, a Democrat very publicly eyeing a 2028 bid for president, was even less sparing in his criticism of his colleagues on X.

“Quit calling Bernie Sanders an antisemite. Stop wasting time attacking Hasan Piker instead of Trump’s robber baron corruption,” Khanna advised Democrats on Wednesday.

“Too many demotivated Democrats stayed home in 2016 and 2024. We can’t repeat past mistakes,” he added.

Khanna and Dingell’s criticism is evidence of a deep fracture that has emerged within the party at a critical time.