Influencer and left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker is introduced during a campaign rally for Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong on Aug. 2, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hong, a democratic socialist in the state legislature, has seen an uptick in recent poll numbers. (Joshua Lott/Getty Images/TNS)

It shouldn’t have taken this long for prominent Democrats to confront their party’s antisemitism problem. But left-wing influencer Hasan Piker apparently crossed a line.

Even before the 2026 primary election season began, many leading Democratic officials had buried their heads in the sand, telling themselves that their party, nor its activist left, were hostile to Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state or to Jewish people. They’ve insisted that the issue is Jerusalem’s wartime conduct in Gaza, especially that of longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for years has closely aligned with the Republican Party. There’s some truth to that, as I’ve reported.

But that’s just a small part of what’s been festering inside the Democratic Party. Major candidates for Congress have paraded around with Piker, a Twitch streamer with over 3 million followers on the platform, and Democratic voters have nominated primary candidates who are aggressively critical of Israel — and only Israel — and traffic in antisemitic tropes. Their rise is jeopardizing the Democrats’ historically strong bond with Jewish voters, a key component of their liberal coalition.

Piker, 35, has been streaming his program (long-winded rants, really) for the past six years. He regularly expresses antisemitic........

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