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Hasan Piker may be a major name in online political media now, but when he got his start at The Young Turks, a network co-founded by his uncle, Cenk Uygur, he was a young, loud guy looking to make a splash in the online political discourse. Dave Rubin, who formerly worked on The Young Turks, recalls Piker as “a big dude” who was “really loud.”
“[Cenk] just put Hasan on air, even though virtually everyone there wanted to be on air,” Rubin recalled in a conversation with Fox News Digital. Rubin said that most of the staff at The Young Turks wanted to be on camera, but “once [Hasan] just showed up, he just got on camera. Cenk just gave him the keys to the kingdom and I guess he became some sort of personality since then.”
While Piker has continued to profess anti-capitalist and progressive views, while building an audience of loyal followers, Rubin later had a political epiphany and realigned himself with the right. In a 2017 PragerU video, Rubin explained that the Left had gone from being “progressive to regressive,” pointing to cancel culture and calls for censorship, among other things.
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Rubin said he was not surprised that Piker had gone from Twitch streamer to what he called the “brain trust” of Democratic Socialists. “The Rubin Report” host explained that he saw Piker as filling a void for the Left as the Right saw a rise in online personalities. Rubin also pointed to the ways in which Piker differed from the typical left-leaning personalities, which he said have made the Twitch streamer resonate with young people.
“There weren’t that many entertaining new people on the left online. As I said, the right had this rich group of people that was growing and growing and going, whether it was Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or me or Steven Crowder or whoever it might be. There was this long list of people. The left had a couple people…. They were all sort of dorky, effeminate, weird, kind of limp-wristed, low testosterone,” Rubin said.
“And he came on, and again, he’s big, he kind of jacked, you know, he wears his fancy clothes, he is aggressive, it’s not really what progressives are,” he said.
Beyond Piker’s physical presence and media rise, Rubin argued that the streamer’s ideology is anchored in an aggressive critique of Israel, something that he said has become more common among left-wing personalities. He argued that progressives “have an endless obsession and hatred of Israel,” which he said “is just an extension of hatred of the Jews.”
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“You don’t have to agree with everything any government does or anything else, but when you have no standards for any other country, and then you hold only one country to any standard whatsoever, and that country happens to be the place where the Jews live, maybe it has a little something to do with Jews,” Rubin said.
Piker has faced accusations of antisemitism and sparked backlash with a recent comment about Jewish Americans’ support for Israel.
During his Aug. 20 stream, Piker said, “People don’t f— with Israel any longer. And if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they’re singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone will come around and take action not against Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
Several lawmakers condemned the remarks, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who campaigned with Piker, responded to the streamer’s remarks, saying “I believe all Americans deserve the right to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence.”
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Rubin believes that one of the reasons behind the focus on Israel is that “Jews don’t fit into the intersectional calculator.” He said that, while Jews had been historically persecuted, their success in America has made it so they don’t fit the mold of an “oppressed minority” the way other groups do.
“If you’re an oppressed group that’s not oppressed, it debunks their whole ideology,” Rubin said.
According to Rubin, the central hypocrisy comes down to Piker’s lifestyle versus the beliefs the streamer professes to hold. This dynamic, Rubin warns, could leave Piker’s audience bearing the consequences of his ideas.
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“I have no doubt he lives like a capitalist while promoting socialism and he won’t be eaten by the revolution the way some average kid who gets confused by his ideas and then probably gets out there and does something stupid will,” Rubin said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Piker and The Young Turks for comment.
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