How Radical Is Hasan Piker? The Twitch Star’s Flirtation With Violence.

Summary

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

Episode Summary: "How Radical Is Hasan Piker? The Twitch Star’s Flirtation With Violence."

Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Ross Douthat
Guest: Hasan Piker

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Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging, candid conversation between New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Hasan Piker—a hugely popular left-wing Twitch streamer known for his outspoken political views, marathon live broadcasts, and frequent skirmishes with platform moderation. Douthat explores what drives Piker, why his rhetoric courts controversy, his views on the future of the left, his flirtation with revolutionary language, and his perspectives on violence, political change, and America’s place in the world. The episode also digs deep into Piker’s personal background, his experience growing up in Turkey, his stance on Israel, and the challenges of maintaining optimism in a bleak political era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. Hasan Piker’s Streaming World & Lifestyle

[02:06–05:48]

• Introduction to Twitch & Hasan's Format:
  • Piker describes Twitch as “like YouTube but it's always live,” where he commentates on news, politics, and, occasionally, personal interests such as fitness.
  • He emphasizes the interactive nature: “It’s almost like a hive mind that can quickly extract and find information all around the Internet.” (Hasan, 05:00)
  • He compares himself to “Rush Limbaugh, but for Zoomers,” holding his audience’s hand through the news. (05:31)
• Streaming Stamina:
  • Once streamed 8–10 hours daily, now down to 7 due to age (34).
  • Manages the grueling schedule with strict routines, family support (his father cooks meals during streams), and regular workouts.
  • Streaming is socially and physically draining: “It depletes my social battery unlike anything else I’ve ever done.” (Hasan, 08:32)
• Impact & Longevity:
  • No plans to stop; Piker feels this is his unique calling, though acknowledges he may scale back for family someday.

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II. The Hasan Piker Worldview

[11:00–15:21]

• Political Beliefs:
  • America’s resources don’t benefit all: “It could be doing right by all of the people… and yet it refuses to do so.” (11:00)
  • Advocates for “modest social democratic reforms,” workplace democracy, and an end to U.S. imperialism.
  • Envisions a post-liberal, more democratic, and eventually socialist society.
• Vision for Change:
  • Not just American, but global change; sees capitalism as an evolutionary stage now due for replacement.
  • Admits he doesn’t have perfect answers but sees a move toward deeper democracy as necessary.

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III. Democracy, Violence, and Rhetoric

[15:21–38:20]

• On Revolution and Political Violence:
  • Sees all systems as “inherently violent,” not necessarily in the literal sense, but in their structure—poverty as violence, for instance.
  • Urges reframing: “The structural violence of poverty… redirecting that in the same way would be the structural violence of equity.” (Hasan, 17:10)
  • Clarifies: Not advocating physical violence; focuses on dismantling unjust systems.
• Hyperbolic Language & Platform Moderation:
  • Known for edgy/violent rhetorical flourishes: “let the streets soak in their bleeping red capitalist blood, dude” (Hasan, 32:13) and “If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott.” (Hasan, 30:11)
  • Takes responsibility for language; apologizes when crossing lines; attributes it to the “10-hour format” and sometimes speaking without thinking.
  • Recognizes importance of taboos and platform moderation: “I’m okay with some kind of taboo maintenance here… a direct call to violence is of course going to be considered unacceptable.” (Hasan, 51:49)
• On Being Targeted by Conservatives:
  • Discusses latest conservative focus on Twitch and the broader narrative around left-wing incitement and free speech, especially after political violence.
  • “They want to tackle it… media narrative first and foremost. But then… they want to tackle it.” (Hasan, 23:39)

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IV. The Luigi Mangione Case & Violence "Appreciation" Debate

[32:21–40:57]

• The Mangione Shooting:
  • Ross challenges Hasan’s fascination with the murder of a health insurance CEO—accusing him of “violence appreciation.”
  • Hasan seeks to “explain why people felt this way” rather than endorse violence, connecting it to the pain inflicted by systemic healthcare failures.
  • “Americans do not like political violence… yet… the Luigi Mangione case is really unique because… the reaction ultimately was very different than one I had expected.” (Hasan, 34:50)
  • Asserts he is not “the guy who starts the revolution, but the violence appreciator.” (Ross, 36:58)
• Taboo-Breaking and Hyperbole:
  • Ross: There’s a societal purpose to the taboo against valorizing violence—“I think there's a taboo around that for a reason. And you like pushing at that taboo.”
  • Hasan: “I don’t. It's not something that I like to do, necessarily. But I want to examine the contradictions...” (44:43)

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V. Defining Incitement, Systems, and Responsibility

[46:37–50:35]

• Systemic Harm as Incitement:
  • Hasan argues that policy advocacy causing economic or physical harm (e.g., anti-abortion laws, increased policing) can itself be a form of violence or incitement.
• Slippery Slopes & Taboos:
  • Ross: “If you say… all of these things are incitement… you’re basically saying the person who incites violence against a politician is in the same position as the person who supports border security.”
  • Hasan: “My argument is that I'm not normalizing it. It's already normal. I don't want it to be normal.” (48:27)
• Leftist Violence in History:
  • Ross contextualizes: “There's a reason that certain kinds of Marxism and socialist radicalism… tend to resort to violence. And it is inherent in the argument you've made.” (49:08)

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VI. Deplatforming, Israel, and Platform Politics

[51:46–54:10, 57:29–62:48]

• On Deplatforming & Accusations of Antisemitism:
  • Speaks openly against Zionism; faces deplatforming and antisemitism accusations for anti-Zionist views.
  • Separates anti-Zionism from antisemitism; highlights his own record opposing the latter.

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VII. Background & Radicalization

[54:10–56:01]

• Growing Up in Turkey:
  • “I had more proximity… to the recipient of American violence and American intervention.”
  • Couldn’t return due to fear of arrest; critical of Turkish government as well.

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VIII. Left, Islam, and Israel-Palestine

[56:08–69:20]

• Progressive Alliances with Muslim Conservatives:
  • Sees alliance as primarily about anti-imperialism and shared opposition to US and Israeli policy, not a convergence of social/cultural values.
  • "I don't think this should be happening. I don't think that this violence should be happening. And we need to solve that first and foremost." (Hasan, 57:29)
• On Zionism and Analogies:
  • Draws sharp analogies between Zionism and KKK/white supremacy, noting this is about structures of exclusion, not moral equivalence of religious beliefs.
  • Acknowledges some violence in Palestinian resistance but deems Israel’s conduct as the central moral issue.
  • Ross pushes back on analogies to Nazism; Hasan insists on importance due to “ethno religious supremacy.”

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IX. Nihilism, Optimism, and Revolutionary Hope

[70:19–73:38]

• Confronting Nihilism on the Left:
  • Douthat observes a “darkening” mood: “watching the left as an outsider and seeing it go dark, in effect get really, really pessimistic.”
  • Hasan disagrees: “My solution to that has always been to maintain revolutionary optimism. I tell people not to succumb to nihilism all the time. I tell people to maintain revolutionary optimism.” (Hasan, 71:14)
  • Cites mass consciousness shifts on issues like Israel as evidence that opinion—and the world—can change.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Twitch and Media Consumption:
  • “I'm basically like Rush Limbaugh, but for zoomers… holding your hand through the journey of reading the news.” (Hasan, 05:31)
• On Streaming Fatigue:
  • “It depletes my social battery unlike anything else.” (Hasan, 08:32)
• On Political Violence:
  • “All systems are inherently violent.” (Hasan, 16:02)
  • “Violence in this abstract concept would be equivalent to the… structural violence of poverty.” (Hasan, 17:10)
  • “Let the streets soak in their bleeping red capitalist blood, dude.” (Hasan, 32:13)
  • Ross: “I think you’re kind of a hype man for it, though… you’re the violence appreciator.” (Ross, 36:58)
• On Rhetorical Responsibility:
  • “People can simply say, this is this. I'm not putting words in your mouth… [but] someone of this mindset can easily just advocate for the harm that is done to millions of Americans potentially without uttering a single word that could be considered remotely violent.” (Hasan, 45:53)
• On Leftist Attitudes Toward Israel/Palestine:
  • “The number one most consequential wrong… is not only 78 plus years of brutal occupation and apartheid, but then also the ongoing genocide for the past two years.” (Hasan, 57:29)
• On Revolutionary Optimism:
  • “Nihilism is born out of our inability to make changes… My solution to that has always been to maintain revolutionary optimism.” (Hasan, 71:14)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Theme | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 02:06 | What is Twitch? Hasan’s streaming format | | 03:34 | Daily routine, schedule, and health | | 11:00 | Piker’s worldview and desired reforms | | 15:21 | Democracy, violence, and revolution | | 23:40 | Political violence, Twitch as a target | | 26:53 | Accusations of incitement and Antifa debate | | 30:11 | The Rick Scott “should kill” hyperbole incident | | 34:49 | Luigi Mangione case and public reactions | | 44:43 | Taboo, appreciation of violence, and boundaries | | 51:49 | Platform moderation, anti-Zionism, deplatforming | | 54:10 | Radicalization from growing up in Turkey | | 57:29 | Islam, the Left, and Israel-Palestine alliances | | 70:25 | Revolutionary optimism vs. left-wing nihilism |

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Tone & Language

• Conversational, self-aware, occasionally confrontational.
• Hasan Piker blends earnest radicalism with sardonic humor and irony, switching between academic and highly charged rhetoric.
• Douthat probes critically but fairly, frequently summarizing and challenging Piker’s positions.

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Takeaway

The episode provides a compelling window into the complexities and rhetorical provocations of today’s online left—and the reactions they provoke. Piker offers a forceful anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist vision, tempers it with strategic realism, and insists on democratic change, but does not shy from controversy or from taboo-breaking language that, as Douthat points out, walks the edge between critique and incitement. The conversation ends with Piker insisting on the importance of revolutionary optimism, even amid what he sees as a dark political moment.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Ross Douthat]

York Times Opinion I'm Ross Douthit and this is Interesting Times. Hassan Piker has no filter.

[Hasan Piker]

I just want to help people understand. Like, nobody takes 911 seriously.

[Ross Douthat]

Or at least that's the sympathetic way to describe his marathon Twitch broadcasts, which cover everything from the war in Gaza.

[Hasan Piker]

It's crazy to me that we treat.

[Ross Douthat]

Israel like this unstoppable force to his workout regimen.

[Hasan Piker]

I literally eat 1.3 to 1 1/2 pounds of straight white chicken breasts every single day. And I love eggs. Okay?

[Ross Douthat]

He's a self proclaimed anti imperialist Marxist who's been called a Joe Rogan of the left and who's compared himself to Rush Limbaugh. And he keeps getting suspended from his platform Twitch for language that he calls hyperbole and other people call incitement. Is he the future of the American left, part of our cycle of radicalization, or just another example of how the Internet drives everyone insane? Hassan Piker, welcome to Interesting Times.

[Hasan Piker]

We are living in some interesting times. Considering that it is you, Ross Douthat, who is interviewing me for the New York Times, I feel like that's very interesting.

[Ross Douthat]

Who else would it be, man? This is a place for the interesting perspectives of our moment. And I think that's what you represent. And we're gonna get into that. We're gonna talk about the. The Hasan Piker worldview. We're going to talk about debates about political violence. But I thought we should start because I know what you do. I'm very tech savvy, obviously I'm, you know, very online. I understand the Internet. But there may be some listeners and viewers who don't know what a Twitch streamer is. So I want you to tell me what a Twitch streamer is.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah. Twitch streamers, broadly, for the most part, play video games. I'm a little bit unique to the space because I cover politics. I do news and political commentary for the most part. But Twitch is basically a live streaming platform. So for the boomers that read the New York Times, I would say it's like YouTube but it's always live. It's like just livestream, YouTube. That's it.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So when I make a podcast, I come into this beautiful, wonderful studio and I sit down and it's like a self contained thing, but then it's edited and cut up and turned into the product.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right?

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, but when you sit down, you go for seven hours.

[Hasan Piker]

If you ask my audience now, they'll say, half day, half day, hossy. And they'll say seven hours, which is a joke. But yeah, I used to do it for eight to 10 hours every day, but I've. I'm 34 now, so I just, I lowered it to seven.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay. And are you doing it after we record this?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Right, yeah.

[Hasan Piker]

And I go seven days a week as well. Every single day?

[Ross Douthat]

Every Sunday. Sunday. Okay. And I think if someone, you know, they can see you right now with the mic and the background.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But if someone who wasn't familiar with this sort of dropped into the stream, they'd see other stuff on screen.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So what would they see? What do you share the screen with.

[Hasan Piker]

Normally at any given moment? If you tune in, you can either see me full screen like this, just doing direct to camera commentary, or most likely reading an article criticizing it piece by piece. And also sometimes I offer commentary over media from TV channels as well. And it's a broad spectrum of political ideology.

[Ross Douthat]

You're also talking to people who are talking to you though, Right.

[Hasan Piker]

So there are tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of concurrent live viewers.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

That are in my chat. So we broadly call it chat. They're on the side of the screen. You can see it as well. It's just constantly going up and down like it's the Matrix.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Because it's a constant flow of thoughts. And I don't know exactly how I figured this out, maybe it's my adhd, but I have been able to somehow offer commentary that people consider compelling while simultaneously browsing through.

[Ross Douthat]

And you're responding. Somebody writes a sentence and says, you know, that's stupid, Hassan, because of this. And you're like, no, you know, Gremlin user 47.

[Hasan Piker]

Exactly.

[Ross Douthat]

I'm brilliant. You say something.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right?

[Hasan Piker]

Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I don't know if I would say that. But sometimes it's complementary information that's coming in. So it's almost like a hive mind that can quickly extract and find information all around the Internet. And sometimes it's contentious where people come in and they're right wingers, or they come in and they're liberals who disagree with me on something, and they'll be like, this is wrong. Here is why you're wrong. And then there's like, a very quick, spirited debate, and sometimes it can even get a little heated. So the way I've always described what I do is that I'm basically like Rush Limbaugh, but for zoomers. So it's almost like AM radio in the spirit of, like, conservative commentary. But obviously, I think I have a higher standard for the veracity of the information that I'm looking at, because a big part of what I do, I think, especially in this age on the Internet, is sift through the misinformation. So a big part of what I do is also just, like, going through all of that and in real time and also trying to instill some sense of media literacy in the audience. So I explain it as I'm holding your hand through the journey of reading the news.

[Ross Douthat]

Do you take a bathroom break? Like, what's your. How many bathroom breaks do you take?

[Hasan Piker]

I don't know. But my. There are some people in the community that time my bathroom breaks.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay.

[Hasan Piker]

I think so what about anywhere from.

[Ross Douthat]

I don't need to know how long the bathroom breaks are.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Actually.

[Hasan Piker]

The bathroom breaks range from 22 seconds to sometimes a minute and 10.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay.

[Hasan Piker]

But I'm away from the screen for a brief moment, and oftentimes I'll just have, like, the video running, like, the live video feed running. And I'll. I'll stay tuned to it so I'm not, like, missing anything. And I do. I'll have my father, who comes and stays with me over extended periods of time, make me a meal, and I'll eat that on camera as well. Because I'm live for seven hours a day. I eat at the same time every single day. I have a very strict regimen and so.

[Ross Douthat]

Regimen. So, like, how does your body feel? So after I podcast, this is, you know, too much confession. But it's like, I'm kind of exhausted in a way that is not the case. If you sit down and write a column, I assure you.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Like, it's a physical experience to talk, talk to someone or interview them in a way that I didn't expect before I got into this business. And most of the time, you do have guests, but most of the time you're not doing interviews, but you are arguing with people in real time.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Like, are you just spent at the end of the seven hours, or do you need to. Do you, like, go off and exercise? Like, what is the lifestyle?

[Hasan Piker]

Well, the lifestyle that your paper style section actually documented was.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, I read, I read that.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, so I. Quite the controversial title for that piece that everybody, everybody seemingly got mad at, but it was a progressive mind and a MAGA body or something.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah. So it depletes my social battery unlike anything else that I've ever done. After the end of like a 7, 8, 10 hour broadcast, I do oftentimes feel the need to just like kind of unwind. And I have a hard time just like talking to people. I can imagine in the immediate aftermath of that because the way I see it, like, you're constantly on. You have to be entertaining every single second, every single second of the eight hour broadcast. Like, you can't have dead air. You have to be constantly entertaining people. You. Or constantly trying to educate people. So there are some difficulties in that. You're also constantly online and in order not to feel super isolated and super sheltered from, you know, how regular people operate and how they feel, I always find that I ground myself basically by being around what I like to call normies or civilians. And I spend most of my time offline, directly outside, going to public parks, hanging out with my friends. And also working out is a big part of this as well, obviously.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, that's, you can't have the MAGA body if you aren't, if you aren't, if you aren't working out.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, I, I, that's what, that's what they tell me. I haven't put it to the test yet, but, you know, so you, you mentioned you're 34, right? So you're too old, you're too old to go for nine or 10 hours. You have to go for seven hours. You don't have a family.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

You're not, you're not married. Are you gonna be doing this at 50? At my age of 45. The ancient years?

[Hasan Piker]

I think so, yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay.

[Hasan Piker]

The reason why I say that is because I've designed everything in my life so that I can continue doing this. This is what I'm good at. This is the only thing I'm good at, as a matter of fact.

[Ross Douthat]

Right, well, you've designed it, but not to play the social conservative advice giver.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But do you want to have kids?

[Hasan Piker]

I do, yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay. But you might have to redesign your life someday. Fit the kid in.

[Hasan Piker]

I mean, there's no issue with that.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, there might be an issue, but yeah. All right, let's.

[Hasan Piker]

No, no, I meant, like there is no Issue with scaling back on certain aspects of my life is what I mean.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So the weekends could free up someday.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, it could.

[Ross Douthat]

Let's talk about the cause then, what you're fighting for. Give me the Hasan Piker worldview. What do you believe?

[Hasan Piker]

I believe that the United States of America is a profoundly wealthy nation. It's the wealthiest nation on earth right now, and therefore it could be doing right by all of the people that are in the United States of America, and yet it refuses to do so. And I want to, through a system of at first modest social democratic reforms, basically claw back autonomy for the everyday person and hopefully give them more of a voice in their workplace and also in the political process as well, and slowly but surely yield more egalitarian outcomes. On the global dominance side, I think that we should significantly scale back imperialism and the endless wars that we engage in and focus on helping people in this country and even focus on helping people in other countries, but in a meaningful way, not in a way where we change their own internal governance structures aggressively and sometimes directly through intervention and by force.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay, so situate that narrative relative to actual Democratic politicians and activists and so on.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Like, are you where Bernie Sanders is and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are? Or are you someone who's saying, that's a good start, but fundamentally, we want to be democratic socialists, but with an emphasis on the socialism. How far do you want to take the transformation of America?

[Hasan Piker]

Okay, so it's not just the transformation of America. I think it's the transformation of global politics in its entirety. I think that capitalism was an evolution away from feudalism and monarchies, and I think it was a fantastic evolution away from that structure and liberal capitalist democracies, I think, for a very long time presented this wonderful new evolution. But I think it's time for an alternative vision to take place, considering that the tremendous amount of bloodshed that keeps propping up this system continues. And I feel like we have an opportunity to move away from this, especially at a time when liberalism is demonstrably failing. And we are seeing, even as Kas Sunstein recognizes, illiberals that are taking advantage of this situation. Now, of course, he would probably consider me to be illiberal in some respects as well.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, we don't have to say illiberal. Let's say post liberal.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So you've got people on the right who would call themselves post liberal. You've got religious post liberals. You've got the Curtis Yarvin, we're gonna have a Silicon Valley king Post liberal.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So you're a left. Post liberal. I think that's fair, yes.

[Hasan Piker]

I wouldn't say I'm a liberal.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, right, you're post right. So you want something after liberalism was good for a while, but it's just generated too many inequalities. It's too harsh on the world. But what is the alternative? Is it Marxist? Is it essentially deeper and more profound government management of the economy? What are we talking about?

[Hasan Piker]

I think I don't have the perfect solution for this, and this is something that I readily admit, but I think moving in the direction of socialism would be a wonderful start. And the reason why I say that is because, as you mentioned, like a lot of the post liberal conversations, almost always revolve around unifying strength in the hands of one singular figure or one person, going back to a neo feudalist or like a monarch structure that Curtis Garvin advocates for. What I'm advocating for is more democracy, principled democracy, not even in the anarchist sense, where everything has to be handled with, or all unjustifiable hierarchies must be abolished through direct participation, but at least like having a more democratic process and getting people more involved, starting at the point of commodity production and then moving all the way to political participation.

[Ross Douthat]

I want to talk in a minute about how you develop this worldview and your background, but I want to pause on that idea of sort of democratic change. Is all effective change democratic or the thing that the original post liberal Marxists tended to believe was that there are certain things you can accomplish through a democratic system, but there's also revolutionary moments. To be clear, this isn't just a Marxist idea. Obviously, this is the United States of America. We're founded on a revolution. But like, what is your view of revolution as a potential transformative force in the world?

[Hasan Piker]

All politics in my worldview revolves around the distribution of resources and the distribution of power. And a big part of that component is of course, violence as well. Revolutionary violence, for example. And it just simply means like, who gets to do the violence and who gets to be on the receiving end of that violence that we have normalized because the systems that we exist under are inherently violent. All political systems are. It's just more so about redirecting that. And I know violence is such a scary concept in this, when we're discussing in this way, but we're talking about it in an academic context. But basically the idea is that instead of having a system that currently benefits the very few, I want a system that benefits as many people as Possible that has more, like I said, egalitarian outcomes.

[Ross Douthat]

And the current system, as you said, uses violence. And. Yeah, all political systems are about the monopoly of force in the end. Right, but you use the phrase redirect violence. What does it mean to say we need to redirect violence?

[Hasan Piker]

I mean, first of all, I abhor violence. Let's just start there. Violence in this abstract concept would be equivalent to the. The structural violence of poverty, for example. So when I'm talking about violence, I want to make it very clear. I'm not talking, like, go out, take up arms and, like, start shooting people.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

I'm talking about the structural violence of poverty. And redirecting that in the same way would be the, I guess, structural violence of equity because.

[Ross Douthat]

Well, the structural eradication of unjust wealth.

[Hasan Piker]

Yes.

[Ross Douthat]

Would that be fair?

[Hasan Piker]

That would be a better way to.

[Ross Douthat]

So the socialist society does not go out and shoot people.

[Hasan Piker]

No. Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Though this has happened in some socialist societies in the past, of course, I should just note. But it goes into. You live in la, right?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

So it goes into Beverly Hills or something. And it says today the city council, which maybe we've renamed it the People's Collective or something, has voted to expropriate your lavish, undeserved wealth and return your homes to the people. And that's backed up by police power. So it's violent, but it's not shooting people against the wall. But is that what you mean, that kind of redirection?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah. A similar structure, I think, has been attempted or was exhibited in Cuba. And I think it was Fidel Castro himself who personally took back any farmland from his own family members that. That went above and beyond what the state had designed. Now, obviously, this is a terrifying concept for a lot of people. So this is so far out, people in Beverly Hills. Yeah, yeah. This is so far out in the future for even someone like myself that, like, I don't even see the necessity of arguing on how this would work, because I'm more invested in, especially in the short term, getting socialized medicine, like getting universal healthcare, getting free schooling all the way up to the college education, especially for public universities, ensuring that we have some semblance of government competition, if you want to call it that, that interferes with the regular market to claw back housing prices, for example, by creating public housing, things that exist in other fairly robust social democracies and things that actually a lot poorer nations have been able to develop just good governance.

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[Ross Douthat]

I swear if it to continue this ad, please upgrade to Premium plus platinum.

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[Ross Douthat]

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[Ross Douthat]

Wait, no subscription?

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[New York Times Subscriber (Ashley and Juliette)]

Hi, this is Ashley. I live in San Francisco with my boyfriend. We would love to officially share my New York Times subscription with separate logins. We both love cooking, love being in the kitchen, but I'm a 30 minute and under efficient dinner girly. I want a sheet pan meal. He is very elaborate. He wants to get into the storytelling. I want to be able to save my easy meals and check off the ones that I've completed. And I think him having his own profile would be great.

[Ross Douthat]

Ashley, we heard you introducing the New York Times family subscription. You get your own login and Mr. Elaborate gets his.

[Hasan Piker]

Plus room for two others. Find out [e-mail] family.

[Ross Douthat]

So we're having a debate right now about political violence in the U.S. so yes, I agree. The expropriation of the property of wealthy Angelenos is abstract and we can, you know, far in the future. Right, but debates about political violence in this moment aren't. And your platform, Twitch right now looks like it might be one of the Trump administration's targets. In the aftermath of the Kirk shooting, there's been a lot of talk about we're going to go after institutions and organizations that support political radicalism or incite violence. I think Congress is calling CEOs from Discord and Steam and Twitch and Reddit to testify next month.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Why are they doing this? Why is Twitch a target?

[Hasan Piker]

I suspect a big part of the reason why Twitch is a target here, even though it was not mentioned in the investigation at all. Like, there is no evidence that Tyler Robinson, the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk, was ever on Twitch. He might have. He might have been right but there's no evidence for it whatsoever. But the reason why they're being called in, I think, is specifically because the administration currently is, in my opinion, perhaps in a very cynical manner, utilizing Charlie Kirk's death as a way to bring about significant clawbacks of the First Amendment, free expression and free organization, free organizing of the political left. And they haven't necessarily made this a secret either. They've gone after Jimmy Kimmel and numerous other cultural figures that conservatives have of petty grievances around.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

And they've done so in a way where even the most vanilla, the most timid assessment of events is enough for the administration to pull the FCC in to demand taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air. And this has created tremendous backlash from even Republicans, as a matter of fact, because a lot of people do love free speech. I love free speech. I come from a country that does not have free speech. I came to the United States of America from Turkey originally, a country that actually does jail political dissidents and journalists quite frequently. And I don't want that to happen here in the United States of America.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But so it's.

[Hasan Piker]

That is what they're going towards, right?

[Ross Douthat]

So you have the Jimmy Kimmel controversy as of this conversation, he's back on the air. But what they're doing with calling in Twitch and so on, like, that's, that's kind of about you, right? Like, you are, you are a target for sure. And are you a target just because you say, you know, you're some kind of Marxist who wants to be post liberal, or is it something else?

[Hasan Piker]

I think conservatives have a really great way of designing a narrative that makes sense to as broad of an audience as possible, even though their own setback is oftentimes how hard they go after certain people. But in the grand design of things, if you look at, like the Antifa designation as a domestic terror group, for example, if you read the executive order, it makes sense they're presenting this as this violent, leftist, organized unit that is, like, responsible for so much political violence that's taking place. It's, of course, built up around this hysteria that they expertly craft as a media narrative, first and foremost. But then, but, but then they, they want to tackle it.

[Ross Douthat]

And everyone is, everyone is in the business of crafting media narratives.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

And the Democrats were a little bit better at it, to be fair.

[Ross Douthat]

And the, the media narrative around Antifa exists at some level of hype, but also some level of reality. Because if you lived in Portland, Oregon, in the year of our Lord 2020 you had a lot of experiences of political protest and violence that involved people who called them. That was not fake.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And it's also not fake that you are a provocateur. Like, there are plenty of people on Twitch who are, you know, who are not highlighted by conservatives. Right. I just want to give you one more chance to describe the things about you in your own words that people are going after before I describe them for you.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, no, I'm sure that we'll get to that point as well, but like.

[Ross Douthat]

I said, in just a second, we will.

[Hasan Piker]

The things that I advocate for are pretty clear. But of course, this is something that conservatives have experienced and have considered cancel culture or like wokeness in particular for quite a bit, where you can just like, reframe someone and smear them. Especially in the format that I exist in, it's quite simple to take people completely out of context or make it seem as though they are incapable of using metaphor or. Or incapable of being insincere or hyperbolic in moments.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

So it kind of goes back to the same thing, is like, Antifa is a serious threat to American stability and order, and it's an organized unit that must be tackled because they're justifying violence against, you know, and what do they think you are? What do they think of that nature?

[Ross Douthat]

The equivalent of that would be conservatives saying that you're inciting violence.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right?

[Hasan Piker]

Yes, I think that is precisely what they're going to try to do. And not just like inciting violence, necessarily, but inciting terror.

[Ross Douthat]

Revolutionary terror, you might say.

[Hasan Piker]

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And I think that is the grand design and the ways in which the conservative apparatus is going to try and stamp out any sort of political discontent, like any sort of political dissent, really, because that much has been clear to me, where it's not just about people like myself who they can single out and target and say are like, you know, very scary individuals. But it's also Gavin Newsom, right? Like, Gavin Newsom will come out and make this symbolic gesture where he has no power over federal agents. But he'll say that in the next year, ICE agents that are conducting ICE operations in California state have to be unmasked when they're doing this.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

And this is. I think it's a fairly reasonable provision, even though it's. It's ultimately symbolic. Having said that, however, the conservative apparatus will point to that as like, Gavin Newsom wants to kill ICE agents and dox them. Like that's not the case.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

I mean, that's just. That's ridiculous.

[Ross Douthat]

All right, so let's, let's. Let's make this a little more concrete. You are telling a story where it's you and Jimmy Kimmel and Gavin Newsom, Right? And you're all targets of the conservative apparatus. Okay? But you're pretty different from Jimmy Kimmel and Gavin Newsom, in part a lot, for reasons we were just discussing.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

They're liberals. They're good milquetoast liberals, whatever they may say. And you are more radical. You're post liberal in some way. You want a different horizon, a different future.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

But.

[Ross Douthat]

But beyond that, you are also willing to push your rhetoric further than they do. Certainly further than Jimmy Kimmel does.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And I say this, I wanna be clear. I have a pretty high tolerance for, let's say, vivid political rhetoric. I came of age as a newspaper columnist in the 2010s when my liberal friends were all saying, like, oh, every time the Tea Party talks about revolution and taking our country back, they're inciting violence. And now I live in a world where my conservative friends say Gavin Newsom's inciting violence. Anyone who calls Trump a fascist is fighting violence. I think this is a free country. I think if you wanna call Donald Trump a fascist, you're free to do so. If I wanna call you a commie, I'm free to do so.

[Hasan Piker]

People do it all the time.

[Ross Douthat]

People do it all the time. But this is my reading, and I'll let you tell me why I'm wrong in a minute. I think you push further, and I think you like to play with the rhetoric of violence. So, like, you were suspended from Twitch, I think, for a day, and there was an argument you were having about Medicare fraud.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And the GOP was going to crack down on Medicare fraud. There's about $50 billion estimated that are lost every year in Medicaid just in fraud alone.

[Hasan Piker]

If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. Okay? You wouldn't make Rick Scott former governor of Florida Rick Scott. You wouldn't make him a prominent part of the Republican Party.

[Ross Douthat]

This is the Florida senator, and it's a reference to the fact that Scott's company paid some huge fines for they were engaged in some kind of Medicare fraud, right?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

But you didn't say we should put Rick Scott in jail for Medicare fraud.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Yeah, right.

[Ross Douthat]

You said you should kill Rick Scott.

[Hasan Piker]

This was for the record. This was in response directly to Mike Johnson, and it is something that I take ownership over.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

I did.

[Hasan Piker]

I did apologize for the language that I use instead of saying like, you know, just, you should jail Rick Scott.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Which would have been the most inoffensive. It was a hyperbolic statement that I made. Not with like any sort of significant death threat issued to a sitting elected representative, obviously.

[Ross Douthat]

I agree. I don't, I don't think you were issuing a death threat.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

I agree.

[Hasan Piker]

So, but, but you're right, that is hyperbolic language for sure. And it's one statement in a grand sea of others that of course gets highlighted through the same outrage machine and then people demand punishments and then those punishments do come down and it causes me to be even more careful with my language. Having said that, given the 10 hour format that I have, there are definitely going to be weak moments where I just like say something without even thinking about what that might come across as.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, I mean, you do. Again, I read through. You have a lot of content.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So I'm not going to tell you that I have read through every hour, every transcript.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

But I feel like I read enough to get a sense of sort of what you mean by hyperbole. And it means different things. Right. It means like you're, you know, you're talking about landlords and why they're bad. I think you were taught, you know, you were talking to a landlord friend at the time.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But you said, you know, let the streets soak in their bleeping red capitalist blood, dude.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So, yeah, I don't.

[Hasan Piker]

In a video game, but to showcase the silliness of the statement in myself.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right, right.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay. So it's like ironic, or is it Marxist revolutionary rhetoric? I just want to bring this to a fine point. There's the great case of Luigi Mangione, who is charged with murdering the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in broad daylight in New York City. And you're gonna tell me that you've always said that murder is wrong and that Luigi Van Gione should not have committed murder, but you've talked a lot about Luigi.

[Hasan Piker]

Of course. I think it's one of the most consequential. It's one of the most consequential instances of adventurism, which I always will say is wrong because I think it invokes social instability, which I think is bad in general to exist under. But what I try to always do, especially with the Luigi Mangione case, is to talk about the concept, for example, of social murder. The notion of our systems that already exist, like the privatization of healthcare and the denial of care, that make people infinitely less tolerant than we normally would. In a civilized society to an adventurous act of violence, such as the case with Luigi Mangioni, who is.

[Ross Douthat]

Wait, wait, just pause there. That make you're talking because this is something you've done a bunch, right? You sort of, you don't say, I love Luigi. You're like, we people are. You know, he's seen as a positive figure for most of America. He says, I'm going to dish out what many Americans have experienced to the figurehead of that pain.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Do you think like most Americans sympathize with like who is the we who looks at shooting a United Healthcare CEO and says that's understandable?

[Hasan Piker]

I think it's the people online that are not necessarily like card carrying DSA members or whatnot, but just like that's.

[Ross Douthat]

Democratic Socialists of America just for.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, yeah, not the, like the DSA guys or the Democratic Socialists of America or you know, party for Socialism and Liberation, but it's like the Barbers and the Debras, as I like to call it, that, you know, live in the Midwest and are truly repulsed by the way that private healthcare operates in this country. And for them, I think the Luigi Mangioni case is really unique because Americans do not like political violence.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Nobody likes it. I mean it's. This is poll after poll that has shown everyone thinks that obviously murder is wrong. I think murder is wrong, everyone thinks political violence is wrong. And yet in the case of Luigi Mangione, a lot of people, I think had such a deep personal experience with the way that the healthcare system has harmed them in some way that the reaction ultimately was very different than one I had expected. From the moment that before they even found out who the alleged shooter was, from the moment that people recognized that the victim was the faceless CEO of a healthcare company, everyone immediately understood what's going on.

[Ross Douthat]

I mean, not faceless, right?

[Hasan Piker]

No, no. I'm saying like for most people, the.

[Ross Douthat]

Healthcare company had previously been faceless and now there was a dead man who had a face.

[Hasan Piker]

Exactly. And, and I think that was a unique case that needed to be examined. And that's precisely the reason why the media was covering it in the same way as well. The only difference is that tonally speaking, they were just more so outraged by the reaction in and of itself rather than trying to examine why people felt this way. And I think what I try to do in this situation and many others is to explain why people feel this way. Because for them, when their grandparent has cancer and then that treatment is denied or the coverage is denied, even though they're paying these incredibly costly premiums to this healthcare company. They view that as murder. They view that as a tremendous wrong that was done to them. And I seek to address these problems so that there isn't decentralized forms of violence where people make up their own minds and assume that they have the righteous vindication and they're gonna go out and do things like this.

[Ross Douthat]

I don't know, man. I think you're kind of a hype man for it, though. Like, you're. Yes, I agree. You're doing analysis. And sometimes the analysis people would have celebrated Luigi Mangione, obviously, without you. Hasan Piker, talking about him all the time.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But I listen to the way you talk about him. Like, you're fascinated by him, too. You're participating in the fascination, and you're doing a thing where you're like, well, you know, I'm not saying violence is good, but you've gotta understand that there's other forms of violence in society besides this one. And people who like Mangione, they're saying this violence maybe isn't as bad as that kind of violence. And this just seems to me like you're not the guy who starts the revolution, but you're the violence appreciator. That's sort of how I feel about your Mangione coverage. You're out there, you're appreciating. It's like, okay, tell me why it's not fair.

[Hasan Piker]

But the reason why I'm saying I wouldn't say that that's fair is because, like, I do make it obviously very clear that, and I refer to this over and over again, adventurism and people taking matters into their own hands is a mere reaction to the social contract unwinding in real time in front of us. I don't think this is a good thing. I want to make sure that we have a system that helps everyone, and a part of that is creating the same social stability that existed. Now, you can do that by force, by stamping out dissent and moving in the direction of the Trump administration, or you can try and do that by addressing some of these inequities that exist that do actually harm a lot of people.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right?

[Hasan Piker]

Because I don't think you disagree with my assessment that systems are inherently violent no matter which way they go. And that. But. And I assume you understand what I mean when I say, like, the social murder of tens of thousands of Americans in the process of having their. Their health care coverage denied. Like, it must interest you as well, right? Because it interests Certainly people at CNN and many other mainstream outlets like why people are doing this, but their reflection.

[Ross Douthat]

On it is, I think it's 100% the case that certain people who had terrible experiences with the health insurance bureaucracy had a reaction to the assassination that is like what you describe. I think that's absolutely real and it says something about the way the system works in America. On the other hand, I also think, and again, because I'm not a socialist utopian, right. I think that there is not this magical alternative where, you know, if we only didn't have nasty things, politicians who love the rich, imposing austerity, everyone would get all the care that they want. I don't think that world exists. I also have, you know, I have a lot of personally negative experiences with the American healthcare system. I had, technically still have chronic Lyme disease, which is a disease that officially doesn't exist. It definitely exists. And I have known a lot of people in that world who have a very specific version of the kind of anger you're describing that's directed towards the medical establishment and how it interacts with insurance companies. And, you know, these are people, people who've had their lives ruined by this illness that the system does not effectively cover or treat. But it's really important as a society that if one of my friends who had chronic Lyme disease went out and killed someone who they felt was involved in denying them treatment and maybe was right, that you wouldn't do that. It would be irresponsible for me to do a podcast and be like, man, that person looks badass. I think that would be irresponsible even if I was appreciating something real. And that's where I think you're. It's not you saying it's really interesting how people have this reaction to it is what I'm challenging or questioning. It's the extent to which, again, you're like, oh, he's an adventurer. It's the propaganda of the deed, man. Well, okay, yeah, but a society that has those adventurers is going to be in a lot of trouble.

[Hasan Piker]

I agree. I don't disagree with you on this. I think it's a. It's a reflection of the. The very social fabric that keeps us together and keeps us stable, unwinding in real time. America is a very violent country, right? But we have systematized this violence and we have normalized it. And inevitably, that violence has also come back to the domestic front, where there is unlimited bloodshed happening at schools. I mean, Charlie Kirk's assassination was the 46th school shooting, technically a shooting that happened at a school, and then the 47th happened only an hour later in Colorado. And our reflection on these sorts of events is that because it's so normalized, because the system must continue, because there are numerous different interests at play here, specifically gun manufacturers, for example, very important part of our domestic manufacturing industry.

[Ross Douthat]

And America is an extremely important part of our culture. America is an extremely libertarian, personal liberties devoted society in ways that have right wing connotations, like lots of gun ownership and left wing connotations too. But, but yes, go on.

[Hasan Piker]

Certainly. And, and what I'm trying to say is that in the absence of any sort of significant initiative to claw back some of that, to have some kind of reasonable policy that will say, all right, guys, like, we all like guns. I like guns, I like shooting guns.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

I do not have any sort of gun culture in my, in my development. I began my journey of understanding guns because I was writing about gun control. But having said that, I still believe that there needs to be reasonable gun safety, reasonable gun control. This is not a call to action to say, like, oh, it's awesome that, like, school shootings are happening, or it's awesome that political assassinations are taking place left and right.

[Ross Douthat]

No, but nobody. Okay, but, but this is, this is a difference. I promise.

[Hasan Piker]

It's no longer just like random school children that are being killed, is what I mean. The only reason why this is becoming a more significant, more consequential problem in the eyes of many people in the media is because it's no longer people that we can just kind of see as collateral damage and, like, consider to be invisible.

[Ross Douthat]

I don't, I don't think that's right. First of all, I think that the media has given a lot of coverage to school shootings. I think it would be strange to say that the media has ignored that issue in any way, shape or form.

[Hasan Piker]

Oh, no, I wasn't.

[Ross Douthat]

I think the lie, but I. But I think the lie. You're like, the reason people are upset in this case. The reason that people are upset in this particular case.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Is that when school shootings happen, there is, except in very online communities, there is not valorization of the school shooters. Nobody calls a school shooter an adventurer.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And obviously we don't want to live in a world with school shootings, but we especially don't want to live in a world where it seems like people who are sort of in the public scrum, like you, right. Are sort of appreciating violence. Like, if I You know, I'm pro life. I think abortion is a form of murder. I think if somebody killed an abortionist, and I went in the New York Times the next day and tried to write something that was in the vein of what you said about Mangione. And I concede writing and talking are different.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But if I'd done that, it wouldn't be published. And I might be fired not as a violation of my free speech rights, but because I would be crossing a line of, again, not endorsement, but even just appreciation, like the appreciation of the violent act. I think there's a taboo around that for a reason. And you like pushing at that taboo. I just think that's what you like to do.

[Hasan Piker]

I don't. I don't. It's not something that I like to do, necessarily. But I want to examine the contradictions of even what you just said.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

You say abortion is murder. I obviously don't agree with that. I'm pro choice. I think it's a matter of bodily autonomy, and the government shouldn't interfere in this between a medical professional and a woman. Having said that, you get to argue about women's bodily autonomy being potentially removed by making the argument through the systematized version of violence. Because I think, as you would probably also recognize, abortion restrictions have come down in numerous states since the decision of Roe v. Wade was overturned. And in the process, women have found themselves in this unique predicament where they can't even get their ectopic pregnancies dealt with because their medical professionals are worried about potential prosecution. This has led to a lot of pain and a lot of torment and maybe even in some instances, death. When you argue on behalf of the pro life position, you can. You don't have to say, like Bill O'Reilly did Tiller, Tiller, the baby killer. And then someone goes out and actually shoots a doctor. You can simply say, this is this. I'm not putting words in your mouth. I don't know what your position is on, on, or your advocacy around abortion, but someone of this mindset can easily just advocate for the harm that is done to millions of Americans potentially without uttering a single word that could be considered remotely violent by the broadest subsects of American society.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So you're right.

[Hasan Piker]

This is the uneven dynamic is what I'm trying to explain.

[Ross Douthat]

I understand your argument, but your strategy for your argument is that effectively advocacy for policies that cause harm, Economic harm or physical harm.

[Hasan Piker]

Physical harm.

[Ross Douthat]

Could it tell in this case? Right, but we were talking about economic harm earlier.

[Hasan Piker]

So both economic harm leads to physical harm as well.

[Ross Douthat]

But you know that that constitutes a form of. Could be argued to constitute a form of incitement.

[Hasan Piker]

Yes, that's precisely what I'm saying.

[Ross Douthat]

That's what you're saying, right?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah. And that's actually the argument with like, policing. Policing is a necessary institution, but people can just point to it and demand more of it. But that in that demand, they're technically demanding more of the unreasonable outcomes and the unjustifiable outcomes of policing that lead to, for example, the death of George Floyd.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Or other cases.

[Ross Douthat]

But this analogy is itself part of why people think you are normalizing the things that are taboo, which again would include right wing forms of violence.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But if you say, if your theory is all of these things are incitement, if you support putting more people in jail, that's incitement. If you support border security, that's incitement. It's incitement all the way down. You're basically saying the person who incites violence against a politician is in the same position as the person who supports border security. And that seems like an argument that lends itself to encouraging people to commit political violence because you're saying, oh, it's all normal already. What's a little more. What's one more act of incitement in a world of incitement? You're just normalizing it when you make that argument.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, my argument is that I'm not normalizing it. It's already normal. I don't want it to be normal. I want it to be abnormal. I want people to actually take a serious look at the violent structures that already exist, that from the point of the recipient is already experienced as like a direct form of violence. But do you understand the broader point that I tried to arrive at in these conversations, for the record, which of course lend themselves so perfectly to quippy clips to just make it seem as though, you know, this is a, this is a person that is very clearly inciting a certain thing. Or do you think I'm just like. Do you think I'm just like dancing around the issue? You can be honest.

[Ross Douthat]

I think I, I think that there's a. I'll be honest. I think there's a reason that certain kinds of Marxism and socialist radicalism, when they take power or trying to come to power, tend to resort to violence. And it is inherent in the argument that you've made. I'm not saying it's an argument that doesn't have a certain power. If it didn't have a certain power. Lots of people wouldn't have believed in it.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

There is an inherent violence in the use of state power. There is an inherent coercion in all kinds of policies, including policies that I support.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

I support restrictions on drugs that probably you do not. That absolutely involve coercion. I believe in restrictions on bodily autonomy enforced by state power that uses violence. I believe in that. I understand that someone can say, as a radical on the left, this violence exists and we want to redirect the violence. And do I think that you, Hasan Piker, prosperous media personality in Los Angeles, are enthusiastic about the expropriation of wealth and punitive violence by communist death squads? I don't think you are, but I think that the reason you have strong taboos against sort of, you know, is to prevent that slope from slipping in that way.

[Hasan Piker]

I will say what I'm enthusiastic about, I am enthusiastic about the expropriation of wealth for people such as myself as well, in the form of taxation, though. And that's basically the grand design that.

[Ross Douthat]

I have right now, though. No one's going to deplatform you.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Twitch is not going to suspend you for saying that you want to raise taxes on the rich and use the force of the state. But what do you think? Like, do you think it was reasonable for Twitch to suspend you for a day for talking about killing Rick Scott? Like, what are, what are the obligations, I guess I'm asking, of. Of platforms with this stuff?

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, no, I think. I think it's understandable that Twitch did that, which is why I apologize for the use of my language as well. Like I said, there are certainly instances where it's an emotionally charged conversation or I'm being careless and it comes across, reaches an unintended audience that sees it as in this like super short format in a very negative way. It's unfortunately a byproduct of the medium that I'm in real time discourse happening with random anonymous accounts.

[Ross Douthat]

But you're okay with some kind of taboo maintenance here?

[Hasan Piker]

Oh, for sure. In order for normal discourse to flourish, obviously some kind of terms of service need to be implemented. You know, like a direct call to violence is of course going to be considered unacceptable. I totally understand that. Even if it's like being made in jest or even if it's like being misunderstood in that moment without the appropriate context. Having said that, however, if we're talking about like broader things like, and we didn't really get to talk about this a lot, but a de platforming initiative has taken place on Twitch and on numerous other platforms, mostly championed by the ADL and some other actors as well, because of my consistent anti Zionist advocacy. I am an avowed anti Zionist. I openly say it. I have also spent all of my professional career combating antisemitism, which has grown in this country as well. And yet a lot of these organizations, I think, and a lot of people have falsely maligned and smeared me as an anti Semite, despite my advocacy against antisemitism.

[New York Times Subscriber (Ashley and Juliette)]

Hi, I'm Juliette from New York Times Games and I'm here talking to fans about our games. You play New York Times Games?

[Ross Douthat]

Yes, every day.

[New York Times Subscriber (Ashley and Juliette)]

There's this little tab down here called Friends, so you could add your friend.

[Hasan Piker]

That feels new to me.

[Ross Douthat]

It is. It's nice to have the social aspect. Oh my God. And you have all their times. That's cool.

[Hasan Piker]

You can look at Spelling bee wordle connections.

[Ross Douthat]

Oh my God. Amazing. Love that I have to get the app. New York Times Games subscribers can now add Friends in the Friends tab. Find out [e-mail] games so this brings us to the last area I want to talk about. You've mentioned a few times growing up in Turkey. Just talk about for a minute. Your background in the Middle east and how it shaped your politics. Even how it radicalized you might be a good way of putting it.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah, I mean, I have, I think, a very different opinion about American foreign policy than the average American has due to the fact that I didn't grow up in America. I had more proximity or a closeness to, I guess, the recipient of American violence and American intervention. Being someone who. Who grew up in Turkey. And therefore my starting position is very different to the way that like, the American world police narrative was designed in the United States of America, admonishing its enemies, making them seem as though they're, you know, barbaric and deserving of like some kind of direct military intervention. These are things that I obviously considered to be not only wrong but, but also incredibly consequential. This kind of sentiment was incredibly consequential for people who had to live in these countries and had to be victims to boots on the ground military warfare and, and even like the drone wars that greatly escalated under Obama.

[Ross Douthat]

What. What do you think about the government of Turkey?

[Hasan Piker]

I. I am not a fan of the government of Turkey and I've written extensively about my criticisms of the government of Turkey. And it's part of the reason why I can't really go back to Turkey, even though my whole family lives there out of fear that I might be jailed. And I don't think the Trump administration would demand my return as an American citizen.

[Ross Douthat]

I'm curious how you think about how left wing politics and Middle Eastern culture and Islamic politics fit together. And I understand you're not a Muslim. You don't consider yourself a Muslim, cultural Muslim, but you're culturally Muslim.

[Hasan Piker]

I'm culturally Muslim in the same way like many secular Jews are Jewish or many American Protestants say that they're Christian, but they're not really.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

So I'm going to ask you for a take and you know, based on that background, because I'm really interested in the ways that sort of conservative forms of Islam and the culture of the progressive left right now fit together both in Europe and the United States. Because in a way, these are some of the most different groups you can imagine. Forms of Islamic cultural traditionalism are pretty distant from the norms and mores of the secular Western left right. At the same time, including on some of the issues that you've been talking about, opposition to US Foreign policy, Israel, Palestine and so on, there's a very strong alliance often between sort of Muslims who feel the US is too imperialist or too pro Israel.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And these groups. And it's a pretty important force in European politics. And you see it, I think you see it more in progressive politics in the US Right now as sort of opposition to Israeli military operations in Gaza has become more and more of a litmus test. I'm just curious if you have thoughts on how that fits together. These two very different, very culturally different groups having a kind of alliance of. Is it alliance of convenience? Is it something more? What do you think about that?

[Hasan Piker]

Super easy to explain. I disagree vehemently with the clan. I don't want Arkansas to be firebombed into oblivion. I don't want the children of Klans members to be killed at their schools. I don't want the hospitals that Klans members go to to be bombed as well. And I'm not even making an equivocation between the Klan and for example, Hamas, which I consider to be a resistance group, that they have a emancipatory movement. Ultimately. I don't agree with their internal politics, their domestic affairs. I don't agree with a lot of the things that they represent or a lot of the things that they say. But these are utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things in the overarching hierarchy where the, the number one most consequential wrong that's taking place is not only 78 plus years of, of brutal occupation and apartheid, but then also the ongoing genocide for the past two years. I feel like that is far more important to address than any number of different, like, civil liberty initiatives that Muslim countries could engage in. And I think a lot of people see it that way as well, where they're just like, I don't think this should be happening. I don't think that this violence should be happening. And we need to solve that first and foremost. It's not necessarily that leftists in the west are like firm and committed believers in, I don't know, whatever kind of like stereotype version of, of Islamic fundamentalism.

[Ross Douthat]

No, I don't. Oh, I don't think they are at all. I think, no, I, I can, I completely agree. That's, that's, I think, a big part of why it's an interesting, an interesting political formation. I'm gonna, I'm gonna run with the clan analogy just because you offered it to me.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

Like if there was a war against a small political state controlled by the kkk, that followed in the aftermath of the KKK going out and killing a lot of African Americans, black women and children, and the larger region consisted of a bunch of regimes that even if they weren't fully kkk, had some sort of white supremacist elements. Right. And were not democracies, were authoritarian and so on. Right. I feel like a lot of people would see a little more complexity in that drama than you do in the way you talk about Israel and Zionism.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

I should say I think opposition to and skepticism of the Israeli strategy in Gaza is totally understandable and I've expressed it myself.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

But you're something more. Again, you're an anti Zionist.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

In fact, you've said as long as we're doing KKK things, in one of your arguments, you've said sort of a certain kind of Zionist tendency should be treated the same way we treat neo Nazi tendencies.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

And that kind of rhetoric shows up around on the left.

[Hasan Piker]

Yeah.

[Ross Douthat]

Isn't there something a little bit strange from a left wing perspective about that kind of focus on the crimes of one country in an environment that you've just yourself analogized to the kkk?

[Hasan Piker]

So great question. The reason why I made certain to mention that I find the Klan's political opinions to be repugnant, but I still would not advocate to firebomb them. But then also made a distinction between Hamas as an emancipatory movement that has evolved over the years to fight back in ways that I might even personally find to be inappropriate or morally repugnant. Ultimately, one or the other there is.

[Ross Douthat]

More inappropriate or more morally repugnant.

[Hasan Piker]

I think that as someone who believes in human rights, I think, like targeting civilians is the major reason why I criticize Israel. It would be very hypocritical if I considered targeting civilians to be appropriate if it was done during an emancipatory struggle. Having said that, I do have the same understanding or the same, the same conceptualization of that kind of resistance as I do with the ANC or as I do with the IRA or even with the abolition of slavery in this country.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

The reason why I don't think it's an apt analogy to compare the KKK to Hamas beyond, like, disagreements and enforcement is because the Klan has not been dominated or the Klan itself has not existed under a brutal structure of black supremacy that wiped them out. This is the reason why I don't think the comparison is apt in that regard, because I, I do agree with Palestinian liberation as, as a concept. Whereas I would liken the clan's operations or their worldview to the same kind of ethno religious supremacy that is baked into Zionism as well. And the exterminationist policies, I think that also exists within Zionism as well. So the clan is a closer analogy to when it formalizes and it turns into a system of violence to what Israel is doing. This is why I'm also not shy about making comparisons to even Nazi Germany, which a lot of people I think maybe a couple years ago, even myself, would shy away from doing.

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah, I mean, I think those comparisons are, are not really persuasive at all. If you actually read about the things that the Nazis did on the Eastern front and compare them to whatever war crimes you accuse Israel of, those comparisons seem pretty faulty to me. And they seem faulty in a way that, again, I think yields a kind of unique scapegoating of the Zionist state within the wider range of Middle Eastern states especially. Right. So if you look at the history of the Middle east over the last 80 years, most of the crimes that you're accusing the Israeli government of committing, I mean, if you look at the history of Iraq, if you look at what happened to the Jews in Arab countries after 1947 and 1948, if you're looking for ruthless oppression, you can look next door to Egypt. It seems like there are many, many potential targets of a leftist utopian form of moral outrage. And again, I'm not. Right now, Israel is conducting a brutal war.

[Hasan Piker]

So you still don't consider what Israel is doing to be a genocide.

[Ross Douthat]

I agree with you that like right now it would be weird for you to go on your stream and say let's not talk about Gaza, you know, let's talk about how the corruption of the Saudi monarchy. I agree with that's.

[Hasan Piker]

By the way, I do, I do talk about the Saudi monarchy quite a bit or numerous other collaborative states far before even the Abraham Accords were implemented. I've even.

[Ross Douthat]

But you wouldn't describe yourself.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

As an, I don't know what the right term is, but you wouldn't say like it's, you know, it's wrong for Saudi Arabia to exist because it was, you know, founded in some acts of violence. Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Can I, can I elaborate on that?

[Ross Douthat]

Yeah.

[Hasan Piker]

I would say that it is utterly inappropriate and wrong if there were exclusionary practices. And some of this does exist in the Muslim states that we're talking about where there was no allowance for, for example, Jews to come and live in these countries.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

And, and as a matter of fact.

[Ross Douthat]

Some of the, I'm pretty sure speaking, I'm pretty sure speaking as a Christian that there are some pretty exclusivist rules in more than a few Middle Eastern countries.

[Hasan Piker]

Right, Absolutely. And I see that as a, as a byproduct of the rampant destabilization that has existed in this resource rich region. And I, my criticism against these countries not having the allowance or not having any moment of respite to be able to evolve. I see that as a byproduct of American imperialism and Western imperialism as well because it makes it a lot more difficult for people to have any sort of civil rights struggle when they're so predisposed with being bombed or being destabilized in one way, shape or form, either in the hands of Israel as a destabilizing factor in the region or directly through American intervention, British intervention and the like for coups and whatnot to take place in these countries. It makes it quite difficult for the regime change to take place in a revolutionary manner. And the Iranian revolution also is a great example of this as well. When you put a puppet state in charge that is Western aligned and that puppet state must enforce its dominance over and over again through brutal practices of torture and, and mass incarceration, people are inevitably going to revolt against that. And what I have seen in my experience as someone growing up in Turkey, more often than not the people that actually find themselves the most earnest anti Western figures, the people that these resentful populations can unite behind Oftentimes actually wear fundamentalism as a way to show how anti Western they are. And this is the reason why some of these like despotic regimes actually end up taking power.

[Ross Douthat]

But you wouldn't extend, it seems to me like you wouldn't extend that kind of structural argument and narrative to the Israelis, right? You're like, well, you know, there's so much, there's Western imperialism, you know, there's war, there's violence. This is how the Middle east, you know, ends up with dictators and theocrats, okay? The state of Israel has been surrounded by countries that deny its right to exist, have invaded it repeatedly, and yet that narrative to you does not inspire any sympathy for the Israelis?

[Hasan Piker]

Yes and no, because they're currently winning. It's incorrect to say that my analysis does not factor in like externalities or resistance against, like Israel's incursions, for example. So ultimately it goes back to did the Palestinians have good reason to say we oppose this, we oppose the Israeli state. Was it born out of ancient anti Semitism or was it born out of an emancipatory need that all indigenous people have, all peoples of the world have in terms of developing autonomy, an argument that Israel makes for its own Jewish determination, right? A Jewish state's self determination, which.

[Ross Douthat]

But surely it could be both, right? You could say, of course, there's an admirable, understandable desire for emancipation, a desire to have your own homeland. But at the same time, at a certain point, when it hits a certain level of KKK style hatred, you would say even if the original motivation is correct, even if there are understandable motivations here, something has gone wrong.

[Hasan Piker]

The KKK style hatred is correct. That is precisely the reason why it invokes a violent reaction though. But ultimately that is what Zionism ends up becoming. And if left unaddressed, this inherent contradiction, this notion that of Jewish self determination is presented as like a totally normal thing. Everybody has self determination. People have a right to develop their own nation state. But this one specifically has demographic concerns. Demographic concerns that require the eradication or mass displacement of the indigenous population that do not fit the in group, the demographic in group. And that is at the heart of this problem of how certain societies get more and more comfortable with fascist violence. And I see this as a dual problem in America as well as Israel.

[Ross Douthat]

So let's take, let's just take that because I know you have to go stream. This is the last I could talk.

[Hasan Piker]

About this all day, by the way, especially on New York Times. I mean this is not.

[Ross Douthat]

But You, I'm sure you will be talking about it all day. Some of us, though, don't have the same stamina. So I'm just going to ask a last question off that point.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Right.

[Ross Douthat]

You're talking about parallels between the Israeli situation and the US Situation. You're talking about the idea that the Israeli situation represents fascism facing resistance. The US Situation. Obviously, lots of people on the left consider Trump a fascist. This is a very dark narrative. And one of my recurring sort of themes over the last month has been watching the left as an outsider and seeing it go dark, in effect get really, really pessimistic. So I want to ask you about that, about nihilism and despair. You have a worldview that has a very bleak vision of the US Empire as a global force.

[Hasan Piker]

I wouldn't say that.

[Ross Douthat]

Okay, so tell me, tell me why you're optimistic. Let's end there.

[Hasan Piker]

So what I constantly, and I see this as well, I think nihilism is a major problem in, in the increasingly alienated, increasingly isolated, permanently online generations that are born into a universe where they just have an iPad in front of them from the start.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

And that nihilism is born out of our inability to make changes, meaningful changes in the system. One example I will use is like the Black Lives Matter protest that took place. Black Lives Matter protests took place. A lot of people in the aftermath of these lockdowns were very frustrated. They, they, they saw something that was so patently unjust and they wanted to make demands. They did all of the right things. They protested. Some of those protests actually with police intervention, in some instances turned even violent.

[Interviewer/Moderator or Producer (brief interjections)]

Right.

[Hasan Piker]

Many people were arrested as a consequence of this. But the broad majority of the protests were started off peacefully. And the argument was perfectly reasonable. We have to do something about the unfair practice of policing in black and brown neighborhoods and the systemic racism that exists within the criminal justice system. And it's an argument that I also, of course, agree with. Now. After that, they also then turned around and voted. They voted for the Democratic Party. Joe Biden won over Donald Trump. There was a period of celebration, but no change actually came. The same structures of oppression existed. And the Democrats actually presented an alternative. They spent most of their time criticizing the activist born defund the police movement without trying to understand exactly what that meant basically for the political normie, they did everything by the book and no change came. What do you expect in the aftermath of that? But nihilism, My solution to that has always been to maintain revolutionary optimism. I tell people not to succumb to nihilism all the time. I tell people to maintain revolutionary optimism. And the reason why I say that is because I myself understand how change takes place, how long it takes for actual systemic change, seismic shifts to take place in society, even in a democratic one that maybe is a theoretical democracy but doesn't actually abide by the democratic wishes of the majority. I know that these things take time. And one thing that I have seen that has given me tremendous confidence has been the attitude, the societal attitude on the issue of Israel. I think the sheer brutality of Israel's conquest over the Palestinians, what I and the international community now recognizes as a genocide, has, I think, made people, in spite of the media sanitation, made people reflect on that and made people recognize the truth. So that actually gives me a little bit of hope that I think people do have the capacity to see exactly what's going on and have the capacity to recognize right from wrong and to demand change, no matter how impossible said change feels.

[Ross Douthat]

Hasan Piker, thanks so much for joining me.

[Hasan Piker]

Thank you for having me.

[Ross Douthat]

As always, thank you so much for listening. Just one last thing before we go. I want to remind listeners that you can access this show on the main New York Times app, which I really encourage you to download. You'll find every New York Times podcast on the app, not just Interesting Times, so much more, as well as reporters reading their own stories and everything else you've come to expect from the New York Times. You can subscribe directly to this show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to access every single episode of Interesting Times so far. I know. Imagine the bounty. Thank you again for listening. Interesting Times is produced by Sofia Alvarez Boyd, Andrea Batanzos, Raina Raskin and Victoria Chamberlain. It's edited by Jordana Hochman. Our fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Original music by Isaac Jones, Aman Sahota and Pat Mc McCusker, engineering by Sophia Landman, mixing by Pat McCusker, audience strategy by Shannon Basta and Christina Samulewski. And our director of Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.

[Interviewer/Moderator (possibly Ross Douthat or another host)]

Sam.