OPINION:
“So my question is, when you say Hamas is 1,000 times better, do you mean that?” Jon Favreau, a speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, asked socialist influencer Hasan Piker on his podcast, “Pod Save America.”
“I mean it. I think it’s a rhetorical move because it frustrates a lot of people. I’ve also said I’m a harm reduction voter, I’m a lesser evil voter, and therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” Mr. Piker deadpanned.
A few days later, Mr. Piker was speaking at Yale University.
“The fall of the USSR was one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century,” he explained to students. “The U.S. has produced disaster after disaster after disaster.”
Mr. Piker’s Twitch streams include statements such as America “deserved 9/11” and a liberal Zionist is akin to a “liberal Nazi.” He has defined ultra-Orthodox Jews as inbred and has said his favorite flag is Hezbollah’s.
The Democratic Party has enthusiastically embraced him.
Last week, Mr. Piker campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. Mr. Piker was invited to the 2024 Democratic National Convention to cover Kamala Harris. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, has appeared on his Twitch stream several times, and possible 2028 Democratic hopefuls, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rahm Emanuel, have volunteered to be interviewed by him.
Rep. Ro Khanna, California Democrat, said he had no regrets about appearing on Mr. Piker’s show and said he would do it again.
“The lesson of the last election is we’ve got to be out there,” Mr. Khanna explained to NBC’s Kristen Welker. “We’ve got to engage. It’s a complex, messy, multiracial democracy. I will defend my views, but the people who are saying, ‘Don’t engage,’ will cost us future elections.”
So, there you have it. To win elections, Democrats believe they need to cave to their radical, terrorist-loving, American-hating base.
Graham Platner, who sports a Nazi tattoo and is a self-labeled “antifa supersoldier,” is leading Maine’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate and was recently endorsed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernard Sanders and Ruben Gallego.
On Wednesday, the Jewish Insider unveiled now-deleted Reddit posts by Mr. Platner repeatedly praising tactics used by Hamas in a 2014 ambush and killings of Israeli soldiers.
“From a strictly professional standpoint, this was a damn fine looking and successful raid against a superior opponent,” Mr. Platner marveled.
He is winning.
So too may Analilia Mejia, a liberal who is running to replace New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill in the House of Representatives.
She was the only candidate in the Democratic primary to raise her hand when asked whether she agreed with human rights groups that say Israel has committed a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Ms. Mejia served as Mr. Sanders’ national political director during his 2020 presidential campaign and was endorsed by him, Ms. Warren and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
The energy of the Democratic Party has moved away from the center-establishment and toward socialist, Hamas-sympathizing radicals.
A Gallup poll from February found, for the first time, that more Americans sympathized with the Palestinians than with the Israelis. Among Democrats, the gap was significant, with 65% who sympathized more with the Palestinians and 17% with the Israelis.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that 85% of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate voted to block arms sales to Israel this week amid our joint war with Iran. When Mr. Sanders first brought the resolution over the summer, about half of Senate Democrats voted in favor.
Even more notable: Not one Democratic senator considering running for president in 2028 voted in favor of arms sales to Israel. The resolution was ultimately voted down by Republicans who said the move would embolden Iran and call into question American reliability in the Middle East.
What was once considered a fringe element of their party, the antisemites, is now controlling Democratic national policy.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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