F*ck Third Way and the politics of mediocrity, cowardice and surrender.
Project 2029:
- Free Healthcare for all Americans
- Extension of the Child Tax Credit
- Re-organization and enforcement of the tax code to ensure that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes
- Expansion of the House to more seats- Removal of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries from any and all leadership responsibilities in perpetuity unto the end of time
- Free school lunch for all American children
- Outlawing corporate purchases of American homes
- DC/ Puerto Rico Statehood
- Appropriate border policies and enforcement
- National Non Partisan Redistricting Association
- Expansion of the Supreme Court to 13 Justices to match the 13 federal judiciary circuits
- Outlawing of the Shadow Docket
- Term Limits for all elected officials and judges
- Reduction of ICE into alternative depts. (no masked agents of the gov't)
- Decimation of any and all government contracts and subsidies for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Larry Ellison and any / all billionaires and associated companies who bent the knee
- Equitable representation in the House for the Native American Indian population
PS - And just for fun Robert Kennedy, Russel Vought, Kristi Noem and maybe a few others should be marched up to Capitol Hill to testify all day every day for as long as democrats control the House.
It's not a matter of purity tests, ideological purity, or Right Opinions. People like Piker, no matter how big the audience do rotten things to the Democratic or any other party.
I am an independent. I have voted "both" ways in the past and briefly toyed with Libertarianism. And I can tell you from experience, there are crazies in all parties, and a non-bipolar spectrum of views. As part of the broad Opposition, I can see that we do indeed have to accept people whose views are anathema to our own. Everything from Pete Buttigieg to Pritzker in Illinois, Jasmine Crockett in Texas, Tallarico, and a number of rising spokespeople of a decidedly younger generation. They all understand the danger confronting us, that it is in fact existential.
We do ourselves no good by embracing, or even tolerating voices that spout poison, as Piker certainly does. How is it any better that large numbers of people who dance with the ideology of hate, of putting others of a certain identity or ethnicity down, as less worthy of personhood - why is this any better than Trumpism?
By accepting the illiberal voices of unreason and resentment, we ourselves get coarser. Russians, for example, are so used to repression in so many ways, that many now only care about their own lives and immediate environment. The enemy is "other".
The "good Germans" of World War II were not without guilt. They too gradually accepted more and more putrid, disgusting craziness. They accepted it little by little, just incremental changes, a little at a time.
Now, we need sober-minded people beto be the voices of the Opposition. They need a quality the Ancient Greeks called "sophrosune," a balanced and mature understanding of the world. Sure, the whole world, and certainly the US, is on fire, and we need to wake up to the facts as so succinctly stated by Marc Elias of Democracy Docket.
I don’t know much about Third Way, and until recently, Piker was not on my radar, either. What I do know is that for well over a decade, Ive watched Republicans legitimize the most extreme voices in “their tent” until those were the only voices anyone could hear. They won elections, but that’s really all they’ve managed to really achieve beyond chaos (I’m sure the point for some). Extremism on the left does exist, and while right now, more threats come from right wing violence, this has not always been the case. Communism and socialism, like fascism and capitalism (which is the very worst, apparently) have long histories of fucking people over, and I’m tired of democrats pretending this isn’t true in order to bring in baby commies who, unlike the Vietnamese immigrant Piker insulted, have no idea that the left can bring on a version of political hell just like MAGA.
Like him or not. Hasan Piker’s critiques stem from liberalism’s failures on multiple fronts, including economic and foreign policy. Democrats who continue the tactics of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic may not only lose the country, but democratic government forever. It’s well past time for the party to get real and transparent about the party’s failures, not just about lost elections and those skeletons, but also how and why they failed to satisfy the needs and expectations of Americans when they controlled government and even when they’re in the minority and have very little power and responsibility and yet are dismal at the politics. They should reckon with their failure to provide a future looking narrative for the country that resonates with the people or a set of specific policy proposals that would excite their voters, but I guess they believe they can avoid disappointment by not trying and unfortunately, now, their voters have learned they avoid doing so to make no promises on things people want because the party can’t govern, even if far less catastrophically and destructively as Republicans do.
First off they fucked up from the jump. “Litmus test culture” outside the “mainstream “? What the hell is “the mainstream “? Taking the blame for Trump is BS. The voter owns that. The mainstream is batshit crazy and not pandering to them like Trump does is not a fault. They knew who they voted for. Least surprising surprise on the planet. They chose crazy lying evil hateful assholes. They revel in it. What is the answer? Fuck them and take care of our own. They will circle the drain with orange Satan.
Unlike Third Way, I'm excited that progressive Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, announced that Hasan Piker would campaign with him on college campuses. I'm looking forward to El-Sayed and his fellow anti-Israel progressive Mallory McMorrow splitting the progressive vote in the Michigan primary, so that Haley Stevens is the Democratic Senate candidate.
I had never heard of Hassan Piker until the Third Way hit piece came out with all these supposed “quotes”. I have watched a bit of Hassan Piker, and also Jack Cocchiarella. I suggest instead of everyone continuing to play telephone, read the recent article by Aaron Regunberg in The New Republic (https://newrepublic.com/article/208412/hasan-piker-interview-third-way-el-sayed-centrist-critics), and listen to their conversations yourself. They both have YouTube shows. These are bright, articulate young men, with nuance. They are sickened by the cruelty and dehumanization of Palestinians. I think they have a point. I don’t believe anyone can justify cruelty simply because they have experienced it themselves.
There is a BIG difference between going on someone's podcast to discuss issues and inviting that person to come out and campaign for you. The latter implies endorsement. NEVER endorse the horribles--the misogynists, the bigots, the antisemites--on the Left. Never. Full stop.
“But Piker has also said some offensive things. He can be crass and cocky and kind of annoying. He has hesitated to support Democrats he views as too moderate, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden.
And then there are his comments about Jews and the Middle East. He often blurs the line between thoughtful anti-Zionism and antisemitism—a problem that Democratic leaders have grown increasingly worried about as the situation in the Middle East grows more unstable”
Seems like some folks at The Bulwark are a bit confused about what Zionism is. Let me help.
The inhabitants in Israel are the children and grandchildren of the last surviving Jews in the Eastern Hemisphere. After centuries of oppression, murder, rape and child theft in EVERY COUNTRY Jews have lived outside the U.S. and Canada, after a 20th Century that was the bloodiest and deadliest for Jews even before the Holocaust, after EVERY COUNTRY in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East made it clear there was no safe place for Jews to live, after all of that, the last survivors said enough is enough and reclaimed their homeland of Israel. Zionism is the belief that it was only fitting for the last Jewish survivors in the Eastern Hemisphere to reclaim their homeland since it was not possible for the populations of EVERY COUNTRY in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to stop oppressing and killing their Jewish populations.
Anti-Zionism is the belief that the life Jews led before the reclaiming of Israel was perfectly fine and that Jews outside the U.S. and Canada should be forced back to lives of oppression, murder and child theft. How anyone thinks there is any part of that belief that can be “thoughtful” is to their discredit.
Those who argue the creation of Israel forces Palestinians to pay for the sins of Europeans, are simply ignoring that 700,000 Jews fled from EVERY Arab country leaving all of their possessions behind because Jews were not able to live safe lives and as free people in Arab countries. To argue otherwise is to simply reinvent a different history--sort of like a 2020 Trump voter who denies Trump lost (frankly just between you and me, I find the most sycophantic Trump voters and the hard core Anti-Zionist types to have a lot more in common than either wants to admit, but that is a post for another day).
Piker’s comments about Jews are unacceptable to me, and I am a strong critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and the course down which he has taken Israel. The correct course for a Democratic candidate of similar views, IMO, would be to go on his show, on the condition that he will give an opportunity to the candidate to explain that position: why Israel has a right to exist like any other nation-state; why its course under Netanyahu is wrong, and why Jews, both within Israel who oppose Netanyahu and outside it, should not be blamed for him. Because that discussion can take up a whole podcast and suck all the oxygen out of the room, the ground rule should be that it occupies no more than a quarter of the time, with the rest to be spent on topics they can likely come closer to agreeing upon.
Third Way is a joke. Piker may also be a joke although I don't know enough about it him other than that he is a twitch streamer and bizarrely young people prefer to get their news from that medium. The Dem big tent should be big enough for both but if third Way wants to exit on their own, no one from the grass roots is going to stop them because of their big money corruption. Third Way should certainly lose influence whether they exit the tent or not.
Given the atrocities Israel+US are carrying out in the middle east critics of US+Israeli foreign policy like Piker will see an uptick in influence. The solution is to stop bombing children and not celebrating it like evil psychopaths. Then people like Piker will lose relevance.
Thank you but I don't want to make my position specifically about Piker or any other "influencer".
The idea that the modern internet has supercharged talk-radio style dynamics whereby talented randos with no special access to information or expertise spout whatever is on their mind and for arbitrary network effect reasons gain massive political clout is itself problematic in my view.
The dynamic we are seeing with Piker is what I would call accidental relevance.
- Some microinfluencer feels passionately about topic X even when topic X is not in the news.
- They collect a niche subgroup of followers who are drawn to a specific editorial filter
- Then at some point their pet cause blows up because real world shit hits the fan and the topic becomes very high salience
- The microinfluencer suddenly looks like Nostradamus and becomes very famous.
Right now Third Way types who are the corrupt corporatist and AIPAC wing of the party are panicked. Because I/P is the most salient item in the news, critics of Israel are gaining relevance and they wish to cancel them.
I reject that. They ought to provide actual arguments that address the crisis at hand namely the massive war crimes everyone can see.
They can't and they know this. So they distract by engaging in vile slander against someone who's actually looking at this situation in exactly the way you desire.
F*ck Third Way and the politics of mediocrity, cowardice and surrender.
Project 2029:
- Free Healthcare for all Americans
- Extension of the Child Tax Credit
- Re-organization and enforcement of the tax code to ensure that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes
- Expansion of the House to more seats- Removal of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries from any and all leadership responsibilities in perpetuity unto the end of time
- Free school lunch for all American children
- Outlawing corporate purchases of American homes
- DC/ Puerto Rico Statehood
- Appropriate border policies and enforcement
- National Non Partisan Redistricting Association
- Expansion of the Supreme Court to 13 Justices to match the 13 federal judiciary circuits
- Outlawing of the Shadow Docket
- Term Limits for all elected officials and judges
- Reduction of ICE into alternative depts. (no masked agents of the gov't)
- Decimation of any and all government contracts and subsidies for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Larry Ellison and any / all billionaires and associated companies who bent the knee
- Equitable representation in the House for the Native American Indian population
PS - And just for fun Robert Kennedy, Russel Vought, Kristi Noem and maybe a few others should be marched up to Capitol Hill to testify all day every day for as long as democrats control the House.
It's not a matter of purity tests, ideological purity, or Right Opinions. People like Piker, no matter how big the audience do rotten things to the Democratic or any other party.
I am an independent. I have voted "both" ways in the past and briefly toyed with Libertarianism. And I can tell you from experience, there are crazies in all parties, and a non-bipolar spectrum of views. As part of the broad Opposition, I can see that we do indeed have to accept people whose views are anathema to our own. Everything from Pete Buttigieg to Pritzker in Illinois, Jasmine Crockett in Texas, Tallarico, and a number of rising spokespeople of a decidedly younger generation. They all understand the danger confronting us, that it is in fact existential.
We do ourselves no good by embracing, or even tolerating voices that spout poison, as Piker certainly does. How is it any better that large numbers of people who dance with the ideology of hate, of putting others of a certain identity or ethnicity down, as less worthy of personhood - why is this any better than Trumpism?
By accepting the illiberal voices of unreason and resentment, we ourselves get coarser. Russians, for example, are so used to repression in so many ways, that many now only care about their own lives and immediate environment. The enemy is "other".
The "good Germans" of World War II were not without guilt. They too gradually accepted more and more putrid, disgusting craziness. They accepted it little by little, just incremental changes, a little at a time.
Now, we need sober-minded people beto be the voices of the Opposition. They need a quality the Ancient Greeks called "sophrosune," a balanced and mature understanding of the world. Sure, the whole world, and certainly the US, is on fire, and we need to wake up to the facts as so succinctly stated by Marc Elias of Democracy Docket.
I don’t know much about Third Way, and until recently, Piker was not on my radar, either. What I do know is that for well over a decade, Ive watched Republicans legitimize the most extreme voices in “their tent” until those were the only voices anyone could hear. They won elections, but that’s really all they’ve managed to really achieve beyond chaos (I’m sure the point for some). Extremism on the left does exist, and while right now, more threats come from right wing violence, this has not always been the case. Communism and socialism, like fascism and capitalism (which is the very worst, apparently) have long histories of fucking people over, and I’m tired of democrats pretending this isn’t true in order to bring in baby commies who, unlike the Vietnamese immigrant Piker insulted, have no idea that the left can bring on a version of political hell just like MAGA.
Who knew that Illinois had barbeque?
Like him or not. Hasan Piker’s critiques stem from liberalism’s failures on multiple fronts, including economic and foreign policy. Democrats who continue the tactics of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic may not only lose the country, but democratic government forever. It’s well past time for the party to get real and transparent about the party’s failures, not just about lost elections and those skeletons, but also how and why they failed to satisfy the needs and expectations of Americans when they controlled government and even when they’re in the minority and have very little power and responsibility and yet are dismal at the politics. They should reckon with their failure to provide a future looking narrative for the country that resonates with the people or a set of specific policy proposals that would excite their voters, but I guess they believe they can avoid disappointment by not trying and unfortunately, now, their voters have learned they avoid doing so to make no promises on things people want because the party can’t govern, even if far less catastrophically and destructively as Republicans do.
Jeezus. Hope the The Bulwark isn't becoming just another tool of AIPAC.
First off they fucked up from the jump. “Litmus test culture” outside the “mainstream “? What the hell is “the mainstream “? Taking the blame for Trump is BS. The voter owns that. The mainstream is batshit crazy and not pandering to them like Trump does is not a fault. They knew who they voted for. Least surprising surprise on the planet. They chose crazy lying evil hateful assholes. They revel in it. What is the answer? Fuck them and take care of our own. They will circle the drain with orange Satan.
Unlike Third Way, I'm excited that progressive Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is running in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, announced that Hasan Piker would campaign with him on college campuses. I'm looking forward to El-Sayed and his fellow anti-Israel progressive Mallory McMorrow splitting the progressive vote in the Michigan primary, so that Haley Stevens is the Democratic Senate candidate.
A successful Democratic presidential campaign in 28 will include an "Hasan Piker Moment".
Still a lot of confusion about the difference between the tail and the dog.
I had never heard of Hassan Piker until the Third Way hit piece came out with all these supposed “quotes”. I have watched a bit of Hassan Piker, and also Jack Cocchiarella. I suggest instead of everyone continuing to play telephone, read the recent article by Aaron Regunberg in The New Republic (https://newrepublic.com/article/208412/hasan-piker-interview-third-way-el-sayed-centrist-critics), and listen to their conversations yourself. They both have YouTube shows. These are bright, articulate young men, with nuance. They are sickened by the cruelty and dehumanization of Palestinians. I think they have a point. I don’t believe anyone can justify cruelty simply because they have experienced it themselves.
There is a BIG difference between going on someone's podcast to discuss issues and inviting that person to come out and campaign for you. The latter implies endorsement. NEVER endorse the horribles--the misogynists, the bigots, the antisemites--on the Left. Never. Full stop.
“But Piker has also said some offensive things. He can be crass and cocky and kind of annoying. He has hesitated to support Democrats he views as too moderate, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden.
And then there are his comments about Jews and the Middle East. He often blurs the line between thoughtful anti-Zionism and antisemitism—a problem that Democratic leaders have grown increasingly worried about as the situation in the Middle East grows more unstable”
Seems like some folks at The Bulwark are a bit confused about what Zionism is. Let me help.
The inhabitants in Israel are the children and grandchildren of the last surviving Jews in the Eastern Hemisphere. After centuries of oppression, murder, rape and child theft in EVERY COUNTRY Jews have lived outside the U.S. and Canada, after a 20th Century that was the bloodiest and deadliest for Jews even before the Holocaust, after EVERY COUNTRY in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East made it clear there was no safe place for Jews to live, after all of that, the last survivors said enough is enough and reclaimed their homeland of Israel. Zionism is the belief that it was only fitting for the last Jewish survivors in the Eastern Hemisphere to reclaim their homeland since it was not possible for the populations of EVERY COUNTRY in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to stop oppressing and killing their Jewish populations.
Anti-Zionism is the belief that the life Jews led before the reclaiming of Israel was perfectly fine and that Jews outside the U.S. and Canada should be forced back to lives of oppression, murder and child theft. How anyone thinks there is any part of that belief that can be “thoughtful” is to their discredit.
Those who argue the creation of Israel forces Palestinians to pay for the sins of Europeans, are simply ignoring that 700,000 Jews fled from EVERY Arab country leaving all of their possessions behind because Jews were not able to live safe lives and as free people in Arab countries. To argue otherwise is to simply reinvent a different history--sort of like a 2020 Trump voter who denies Trump lost (frankly just between you and me, I find the most sycophantic Trump voters and the hard core Anti-Zionist types to have a lot more in common than either wants to admit, but that is a post for another day).
Piker’s comments about Jews are unacceptable to me, and I am a strong critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and the course down which he has taken Israel. The correct course for a Democratic candidate of similar views, IMO, would be to go on his show, on the condition that he will give an opportunity to the candidate to explain that position: why Israel has a right to exist like any other nation-state; why its course under Netanyahu is wrong, and why Jews, both within Israel who oppose Netanyahu and outside it, should not be blamed for him. Because that discussion can take up a whole podcast and suck all the oxygen out of the room, the ground rule should be that it occupies no more than a quarter of the time, with the rest to be spent on topics they can likely come closer to agreeing upon.
A big tent yes - but there must be no room for bigotry.
My thoughts exactly.
What’s the role of AIPAC in supporting Third Way and other groups in discrediting Hassan and other anti-Israel leftists?
That's a great question. I'm not a huge fan, but Breaking Point tracks AIPAC spending.
Third Way is a joke. Piker may also be a joke although I don't know enough about it him other than that he is a twitch streamer and bizarrely young people prefer to get their news from that medium. The Dem big tent should be big enough for both but if third Way wants to exit on their own, no one from the grass roots is going to stop them because of their big money corruption. Third Way should certainly lose influence whether they exit the tent or not.
Given the atrocities Israel+US are carrying out in the middle east critics of US+Israeli foreign policy like Piker will see an uptick in influence. The solution is to stop bombing children and not celebrating it like evil psychopaths. Then people like Piker will lose relevance.
Read this article:
https://newrepublic.com/article/208412/hasan-piker-interview-third-way-el-sayed-centrist-critics
Watch some of the interviews with Piker. Decide for yourself.
Thank you for posting this, I don't know much about Piker but it sure sounds like his critics are taking his comments way out of context.
Thank you but I don't want to make my position specifically about Piker or any other "influencer".
The idea that the modern internet has supercharged talk-radio style dynamics whereby talented randos with no special access to information or expertise spout whatever is on their mind and for arbitrary network effect reasons gain massive political clout is itself problematic in my view.
The dynamic we are seeing with Piker is what I would call accidental relevance.
- Some microinfluencer feels passionately about topic X even when topic X is not in the news.
- They collect a niche subgroup of followers who are drawn to a specific editorial filter
- Then at some point their pet cause blows up because real world shit hits the fan and the topic becomes very high salience
- The microinfluencer suddenly looks like Nostradamus and becomes very famous.
Right now Third Way types who are the corrupt corporatist and AIPAC wing of the party are panicked. Because I/P is the most salient item in the news, critics of Israel are gaining relevance and they wish to cancel them.
I reject that. They ought to provide actual arguments that address the crisis at hand namely the massive war crimes everyone can see.
They can't and they know this. So they distract by engaging in vile slander against someone who's actually looking at this situation in exactly the way you desire.