Rule of thumb: Anyone who brings up Hasan Piker’s influence over the Democratic Party is trying to distract people from talking about Elon Musk’s control over the Republican Party.
To be clear, you’re a progressive of the sort that the 40% of Democrats who make up the Progressive Caucus are, right?
That group would have nothing to do with Piker. Piker is popular among DSA types, and among younger people who don’t know the difference between DSA spaces and Progressive spaces, who figures like Piker are channeling towards the DSA instead of towards Progressivism by adopting the aesthetics of Progressivism. But Piker will often go on ranta about how he thinks social issues are an important distraction from real class warfare.
It makes perfect sense that you, an actual Progressive, would know very little about Piker.
The thing you should be worried about is the fact that Piker and people like him funnel young people who are getting into political activism away from spaces like yours and towards more radical spaces.
The more successful he and his ilk are in this goal, the fewer new people will enter spaces like yours, and eventually the DSA sorts will be able to dispense with the progressive aesthetic altogether.
Is Elon still involved? I thought, having not heard from him in the context of politics since the DOGE disaster, he was pursuing some other billionaire whim.
Are you talking about your Arafat link again?
And now you’re doubling down with the lies, throwing in even more gratuitous accusations of antisemitism with no basis whatsoever. So thank you for proving my point about you being dishonest and hypocritical.
“Screeching that the Jews got him kicked off the tour”. We get it - you are incapable of making any point that isn’t completely disingenuous.
Macklemore specifically cited Kraft. Macklemore has been removed from the tour. On what basis are you claiming that Macklemore is lying other than the restraining order forcing you to stay 500 yards away from reality?
I know that reading and thinking are your dump stats, but I explicitly referenced Robert Kraft’s views. Are you Robert Kraft?
And there’s even less evidence that Macklemore is lying. But you went with that option anyway.
That’s an idiotic rule of thumb. I’m very critical of Musk and of his influence on the Republican party. But I also don’t think there’s anything worth saving on the Republican side at this point, a why would I waste my energy arguing against that here, in a space where absolutely no one defends Elon Musk? (Actually, isn’t there one guy who’s still a big fan of his? Fuck that.)
Huh? He cited nothing. He said that Kraft got him kicked off the tour but he cited 0 evidence for this. The only reason he thinks Kraft kicked him off the tour is that Kraft is a Jew, and Macklemore is the guy who wore that costume while singing “Thrift Shop”.
He still controls Twitter, so yes.
And your evidence for this statement is…?
I actually think this isn’t as intellectually dishonest as it might look at first sight, but just further evidence that Babale is hyperfocused on things that only Very Online People know or care about.
Piker has 2.5 million “followers” on Twitch, but only about 25,000 people, on average, actually listen to any particular stream. If he’s the “#1 left-wing content creator”, that doesn’t prove he’s influential, it proves left-wingers have better things to do than listen to podcasts.
The fact that he provided zero evidence that Kraft did anything?
Cite that the campaigns are paying for him?
Anyway, i just googled “mamdani piker”, and i got a a variety of hits, many from Fox News. Some old ones saying Mamdani condemned Piker, and others saying people are outraged that he didn’t codemn piker, and others saying that Piker’s presence at a Mamdani rally upset people.
The most recent article i found was:
Oh, and this one, that i had to dig pretty far into before i found any mention of Piker
It basically says Mamdani is being smeared for being a Moslem. The relevant part of the article says:
All of this follows a petition from a group of 9/11 family members urging Mamdani to not appear at the ceremony. The petition, which garnered more than 100,000 online signatures and relentless hype from the conservative New York Post, claims that Mamdani should not attend because he hired Ramzi Kassem, a former defense counsel for an al-Qaeda member imprisoned at Guantanamo, as chief counsel; appeared on Twitch streamer Hasan Piker’s show; and refused to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
For his part, Mamdani denounced Piker’s statement that America “deserved 9/11” and Piker has himself apologized for the comment. Like many U.S. lawyers, Kassem represented Guantanamo detainees who suffered torture at the hands of the U.S. military. His main client, Abu al-Dharbi, the brother-in-law of one of the 9/11 hijackers, ultimately pleaded guilty to his role in an attack on a French tanker in Yemen and agreed to testify against a higher-level target. And Mamdani has said that the phrase “globalize the intifada” is “not language that I use.”
And this somehow enabled you to read his mind?
Meanwhile, he does appear to have been kicked off the tour.
I don’t identify as a progressive. I’m the right wing friend of progressives. (I’m not right wing. But I’m the sort of establishment person who works for the insurance industry and points out that there are actual downsides to having a tower next door that blocks your view of the sky.)
C’mon guys, it would kill you to Google for ten seconds? This was on ESPN yesterday, as well as a bunch of other media outlets. Nobody, including Kraft, is denying that Kraft was responsible.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who also owns Gillette Stadium, said Monday he had rapper Macklemore removed as an opening act for singer Ed Sheeran’s shows at the venue later this month because the stadium “has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech.”
Yeah, i didn’t take that as dishonest, just as evidence that Babale lives in an echo chamber.
As compared to like 10 million per episode for Rogan. So only about a 400 to 1 difference…
Thank you.
As I said before: in Kraft’s view “Free Palestine” is apparently “hate speech” and “Heil Hitler” is not (although I presume Ye is not still performing that song in public).
I hate genocide. See, it’s got hate right there in it.
I wish that was true, because then I could ignore people like Piker. But they aren’t just “very online” anymore. Again, he was brought onstage to campaign with two of the rising star Democrats that people who want the Democratic Party to move in a more DSA friendly direction point to as evidence that there’s demand for that. AOC and Bernie engage with him often, too. Like it or not, he is in real politics.
I agree that he’s only appealing to a tiny sliver of normal people - that’s precisely the problem. He has outsized influence among media figures (note all the puff pieces he’s recently gotten in Rolling Stone and other outlets) and the staffers of politicians. That’s precisely how the Tea Party into MAGA takeover of the Republican party happened, and if the DSA stages a similar rise to power on the Democratic side, this country is finished.
It does seem pretty clear that Macklemore is being cancelled for his pro-Palestinian statements specifically, so I oppose Kraft’s actions. If he cancelled it because he thought Macklemore was antisemitic, he certainly wouldn’t be allowing Kanye West to perform at his venue. As to whether Macklemore is actually antisemitic, that costume looks extremely sus but I’ve never heard of the guy other than for his controversial statements on Palestine and I don’t care enough to research him and have an informed opinion.