Peter Laffin says it’s not ‘Islamophobic’ to question el Sayed’s ties to Hasan Piker

Peter Laffin has a point that shouldn't need making, but here we are. Hasan Piker isn't some obscure figure whose politics you'd need a research team to uncover. He's a guy with millions of followers who has said plenty of things over the years that would end most careers in mainstream politics, and he and Abdul el Sayed have a public, friendly relationship. Pointing that out isn't a slur. It's just describing reality.

The reflex to call this Islamophobic is doing a lot of work to avoid the actual question, which is about judgment, not identity. Nobody is asking why el Sayed is Muslim. People are asking why a Senate nominee is chummy with a streamer known for the kind of commentary that gets clipped and mocked across the political spectrum, including by plenty of people who have nothing to do with Islam one way or the other. Swapping in a bias charge when someone raises that is a pretty transparent way of shutting down a conversation the campaign would rather not have.

Voters get to weigh who a candidate associates with. That's not a new standard invented for this race, it's how politics has always worked, for candidates of every background. If el Sayed thinks the relationship is defensible, he can defend it. Calling the question itself bigoted just tells us the answer isn't an easy one.