«You can’t actively act like things are perfectly fine when things have not been fine for Americans for quite some time,» the leftist influencer told Newsweek.
Democrats have been been doing some deep soul searching, and plenty of finger pointing, in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’ decisive election loss.
Some liberals have suggested that the key takeaway from the 2024 election is to build the left’s version of Joe Rogan. There were several things that contributed to Donald Trump’s massive victory among young men, but none were discussed with as much fury and fervor as his appearances on the podcasts and livestreams hosted by Rogan, Theo Von, Adin Ross and the Nelk Boys.
On the left, there’s precisely one influencer who commands such a large following.
Hasan Piker, a progressive Twitch streamer with 2.8 million followers, drew 313,413 viewers for his Election Night livestream. H was the third most popular streamer, and also the only non-conservative streamer, to break into the top 10 livestreams that night. So Piker knows a few things about existing in the so-called «bro» space.
Unfortunately for Harris and the Democrats, «You can’t podcast your way out of this problem», Piker told Newsweek on Friday.
The 33-year-old influencer said it would do the Democratic Party little good to just flood the podcast market with eight other versions of the popular Pod Save America show, a liberal political podcast hosted by a crew of former former Obama aides.
«That’s not the problem», said Piker, who would be somewhat to the left of the Pod Save boys. «People like me exist. I had one of the largest election night coverages out there.»
The real issue that Democrats are up against is the ideological divide between it’s base and the rest of the party. For Piker, the aphorism that Republicans fear their base and Democrats hate their base has never rung more true.
«Republicans can get away with taking advantage of that space», he said, emphasizing that there are billionaire GOP mega donors who share the same interest as right-leaning influencers which leads to «cross-pollination.»
«But that same ecosystem doesn’t exist on the left. It barely exists for Pod Save America. CNN and MSNBC barely even cross-pollinate», Piker continued. «The liberal and, I guess, ‘progressive’ outlets have completely shut off the independent media rom entering their sphere of influence. And besides that, there is a deep ideological divide.»
For months, Piker has warned Harris’ campaign that its failure to represent the voters who would cast their ballots for the Democratic nominee would lead to its collapse. He stressed that Democrats need to move more to the left and to stop trying to court moderate Republicans and center-right voters, who proved again on Tuesday that they would not budge for Harris.
