Abdul el Sayed opposes Hasan Piker after Michigan Democrat calls him a ‘hack’ and ‘dangerous’

he actually said the quiet part out loud. Calling Hasan Piker a "hack" and "dangerous" is not a controversial take, it's just accurate, and it's a little remarkable that a Democratic Senate nominee felt he had to say it at all. That tells you something about where the incentives sit in that party right now. Piker built an entire brand on being the streaming left's id, and putting up a picture of a sitting state senator while musing about Jews in America crossed a line that shouldn't need a debate.

What's actually newsworthy is the reaction it produced among other Democratic lawmakers, because it means el Sayed wasn't out on a limb by himself. Jeremy Moss got singled out for being pro-Israel and Jewish, and instead of that being treated as obviously beyond the pale from the jump, it took a pileup of criticism to get there. That's the pattern now. Something ugly gets said by a big-platform commentator, and Democratic officials have to decide in real time whether distancing themselves is worth the online blowback that follows.

We'd take el Sayed's stance more seriously as a turning point if it weren't so clearly reactive. Piker has a long track record of this kind of rhetoric, and the applause from the streaming left never really slows him down. It's good that a nominee drew a line. It would be better if the party didn't need one of its own candidates to draw it for them.