Hasan Piker is a socialist millionaire streamer. He is the nephew of Cenk Uygur, the co-founder and longtime host of The Young Turks, a progressive online news network.
Piker got his start working at TYT before becoming a full-time Twitch streamer. He is currently pushing hard for Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.
Piker once said:
America deserved 9/11, dude. Fuck it, I’m saying it.
Piker was raised Muslim and still identifies as a cultural Muslim. In 2019 he said America deserved 9/11, an attack carried out by Muslim terrorists who murdered nearly 3,000 people.
The people murdered on 9/11 came from every walk of life — Americans of every race and background, immigrants, and people from countries around the world.
Muslims were among the victims too.
When he was called out, he claimed he only meant “blowback” from American foreign policy. He later said he did not mean that individual Americans deserved to die.
But the words Piker said were clear.
There is no version of “America deserved 9/11” that excludes those deaths, because the attack’s defining feature was the deliberate killing of civilians in the towers, the Pentagon, and the planes.
Saying “America deserved 9/11” while claiming you didn’t mean the people who died is a distinction without a difference. The attack was the mass murder of those people. There is no 9/11 without the deaths.
Yet Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has accepted and welcomed Piker’s support anyway. He has appeared with him, benefited from his platform, and refused to distance himself from a man who thinks America deserved 9/11.
When asked to disavow Piker’s comments, El-Sayed called it “cancel culture” and a “gotcha game.”
Piker has also said Democrats who refuse to back El-Sayed “must be punished,” arguing the party should enforce Marxist-Leninist-style discipline so there is “no more factionalism” once a winner is declared.
Piker said:
Notice how whenever someone comes out and says, ‘yeah, that’s actually a bad association,’ immediately it’s weaponized by the Republicans. This is why you can’t. This is why you have to have discipline. This is why you have to abide by the party line. Okay. You can’t be out here doing that. You can’t be out here saying like, ‘oh, I’m a centrist Democrat and I think Abdul is a bridge too far.’ That must be punished. If there’s one Marxist-Leninist doctrine that the Democratic Party should deploy, it’s that. Okay? Follow the party line. Sure, we’ll have robust democracy, a robust democratic back and forth internally within the party. But once it’s over, once the winner is declared, no more factionalism. It’s over. Abide by the party line.
Do you believe America deserved 9/11?
Do you believe the people who jumped from the burning towers, the ones crushed under the rubble, and the families who lost loved ones deserved it?
And do you believe Democrats who refuse to fall in line behind Abdul El-Sayed should be “punished” — that the party must enforce Marxist-Leninist discipline so there is “no more factionalism” once a winner is declared?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then: Vote for Abdul El-Sayed.
Or be punished as a Democrat.
