Hasan Piker on Thursday struck back at critics who condemned him for saying the United States is worse than the al Qaeda terrorist network, claiming that Republicans and “the elites” are terrorizing people with “Gestapo” force.
Piker is a Twitch streamer who gained prominence this year as a surrogate for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed and other socialist-leaning candidates across the country. More moderate and establishment Democrats have distanced themselves from him due to his history of provocative statements, with his latest claim on The Axios Show that the U.S. is “worse” than al-Qaeda on Thursday stoking further controversy.
As Republicans and Democrats alike criticized his al Qaeda take, Piker took to social media to defend himself in a series of posts on X, saying that President “Donald Trump and the Republican Party are Epstein-class terrorists.”
“Trump is murdering fishermen off the coastlines of South America, we continue to arm Israel’s belligerence, we are choking Cuba to death for no reason, we are terrorizing our own neighbors with an unaccountable gestapo force,” Piker wrote in another post. “The modern day Republican Party is ‘Y’all Qaeda.’ Also TRUMP ARMED al Qaeda in Yemen when he was president THE LAST TIME!”
Piker reposted several videos of Republicans, including el Sayed’s GOP rival Mike Rogers, criticizing the al Qaeda comment. The Twitch streamer offered his own commentary on the pushback, saying, “I give a nuanced answer about acts of terror this admin has caused and they clickbait it.”
“He asked, i gave a nuanced answer. we’ve armed al qaeda since 9/11, we made its former commander the president of syria,” Piker said in one post.
“Our elites terrorize the entire world while ordinary americans continue to foot the bill,” he said in another. “We spent trillions ‘fighting’ the terror we created to provide cover for our oil barons stealing 3rd world resources. it only amounted to more death overseas, more poverty at home. all while the MIC ballooned. no houses, no hospitals, no schools-just a growing crisis of homelessness, underemployment and diseases of despair in the wealthiest country on earth.”
Piker has faced backlash from some Democrats concerned that his association with their party will backfire in battleground areas such as Michigan due to his controversial positions. But Piker explained Thursday that his main priority isn’t to elect Democrats, but a long-term strategy to unlock “class consciousness” in the United States, which he said he is doing partly through deliberately making “incendiary” statements.
In an MS Now Clock It interview, Piker said he is seeking to reverse “very clear calcified attitudes that people have about what America represents,” and that he believes people across the country are the victims of an oppressive system and “violence” against them that has been “made to be invisible.” He said his goal is “to remind people of their class position” by “identifying the enmity that many people in America also feel as a part of their daily experience.”
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“I’ve always wanted to foment class consciousness in America because I feel like a lot of people in the working class in this country don’t recognize themselves as being a part of the working class, where they [instead see themselves as] entrepreneurs,” Piker said. “There’s a famous quote … that I always point to: ‘Socialism will never work in America because the working class do not see themselves as an exploited proletariat, but temporarily embarrassed millionaires.’ And I feel like that’s so perfectly illustrative of the way that many Americans see themselves.”
“Sometimes you have to put forth your beliefs regardless of whether or not they are going to be the most appealing, and I think the successes of the pro-Palestine movement in terms of how much of a sea change that has taken place in the American consciousness issue in the last three years is proof of that reality,” he added. “[If] you continue your advocacy, people will inevitably recognize that perhaps you weren’t wrong all along.”