He somehow seems to think, still, that he can shape the Democrats. "If I thought there was a viable 3rd party do you think I would be voting for them? Fuck no" he says, after scolding someone in his chat, calling them an ultra, for calling him out for his continued connection to the democrats.
But lets think about this for a second...
how the fuck
do you build
a fucking party
do you do it by voting for, another party
do you do it by telling people to vote for another party
or do you do it by building A FUCKING WORKING CLASS PARTY
LIKE FUCKING LENIN SAID
I don't really understand what Hasan thinks these Democrats are supposed to "DO" in this situation. "They're not DOING it!" he yells. What is "IT"? Go against their class interests, defy the fundamental laws of capital and somehow break free of their social relations through pure force of will? His proximity to the Democratic Party is what breeds this weird fucking obsession he has.
"These guys are mad because they talk to ME and not their Pedo sex cult leader, that's why they're mad". What if they didn't talk to you, though? What if tomorrow they just stopped talking to you at all? What if the only reason they talk to you AT ALL is that they know that you have a huge fucking audience, and you are actually effective at moving people to the left? So instead, they give you cookies and treats, they give you access and interviews, they let you into the DNC, they give you access to candidates, like Zoran.
I really do think at this point, that he is being catfished by the Democratic Party. That they understand that he is an effective communicator, and they have somehow convinced him that if he just keeps at it, he can one day kick that football for real.
This is defiantly not true. I'm very well aware of his activities in that time frame I watched him nearly weekly. I am a highly critical supporter of his work. One pattern that is clear is that while Hasan dogs on Democrats regularly his only recourse for you the viewer is to put pressure on the Democrats.
This video, which I can't tell if you've watched or not is him explaining his position with the party and his goals with engaging with the party. He's explained this before like in his GQ article. He is self aware that his efforts here are fruitless or are so far fruitless. Yet he makes it very clear that "if there was a 3rd party worth engaging with" he would do that instead. This is a total fallacy however, stuck in this chicken or egg situation where Hasan isn't interested in 3rd parties until just the right one comes along, or until someone else builds it. That's the implication here by his own words.
His advocacy remains untouched by this critique I have. In this space he is by far the leader and the flag bearer for Palestine advocacy. Though the reaction to his advocacy I would have hoped would clue him in to this idea that he's spinning his wheels. Do people like AOC or Sanders or the squad really bring him a platform? Wouldn't he be mostly talking to like minded liberals in those circles? What is the delta between a Sanders supporter and Hasan in terms of their ideas really? Palestine obviously. On all other issues though, roughly the same. Again, I can't say enough about the things I love about Hasan's work. His willingness to put his body out there is heroic. His commitment to interviewing the marginalized and exploited is commendable. His willingness to put his money where his mouth is and fund labor movements, excellent.
His last big push electorally was for Zohran Mamdani. One of the things that he continues to point to regarding Zohran is that his ideas won. Yet he hasn't replaced the billionaire head of police Jessica S. Tisch and likely won't, he's hired a liberal zionist as the Office to Combat Antisemitism, and is endorsing Brad Lander over Alexa Aviles. Now that last point is pragmatic I'll say, but you can't help but look at it and think it must sting for Aviles.
We have to let Zohran cook a little still. But these feel like bad omens. How long until he's been made into origami like the rest? Has anyone asked him about Maduro? And listen, I'll be the first to tell you I was supporting Zohran to win. I would again. The thing is however, these developments are not surprising. Universal Child Care is still a great step forward.
We are still left with the question of what happens with the 100,000 people Zohran mobilized. How many of them did Hasan steer there? This isn't the worst place to start you political life, however, you are now hitched to a Democratic mayor. What I'm saying is that I don't expect Zohran to continue to agitate against the system of capitalism like he once did. That's 100,000 people who didn't get funneled into a working class party that would continue their political education and activities beyond the campaign. Sure, that group formed their own entity in an attempt to try and hold his feet to the fire but, I don't have high hopes for that.
Some gains will be made for NYC but just like sewer socialist before him, the policies of Mamdani will be vulnerable to the next candidate who takes his place. Considering how much Mamdani is shaped by the mayoral role, as opposed to how much HE can shape the mayoral role, its hard to say what his legacy will really be.
This leads me back to my central issue. Why spend our time and energy on a party that is so capable of imposing itself on those who dare enter its ranks? What good does it do if we drip feed in these progressives?
There won't be a working class party worth engaging with if we don't engage with working class parties. The Democrats are not a working class party. You can not reform them into one. They have to much inertia to allow that to happen.
edit: I actually want to pre-run this commentary with a statement and a question. 1) I think we're actually quite close in our opinion of Hasan, and I'm very much not trying to be hostile, I like seeing you around Hexbear a lot, just wanted to make sure that got across. 2) If you could puppet Hasan, what would you be having him do and say, and why do you think that would be more effective at raising the most people's political consciousness beyond socdem/berniecrat than his current proportions of commentary and engagement with sitting/running politicians?
This is absolutely not the case. He most commonly urges his viewers to join organizations and organize. He has told people to join DSA or PSL and to stop thinking of politics solely in terms of elections. I don't think it's reasonable to say that his actual advocacy for people is to put pressure on the Democrats. I don't think he's deluded into thinking that he can single-handedly pressure Democrats into change. But he does know that he is the largest popular voice for more radical socialist politics and the Democrats are significantly closer to the levers of state power, so at the very least engaging them brings his ideas up to them for his viewers to watch these politicians fail to embrace proletarian politics.
I didn't watch this video, I watched the stream it was cut out of when it was live. I should explain how I view Hasan's content. I've been interested in studying the socialist politics himbo for the last several years, since he is the largest voice espousing a more radical politics than is in the mainstream. I don't have a Twitch account; I don't chat or leave comments on his videos. I'm generally anathema to defend him other than correcting (really, really common, even on this site) misinformation because I think that crosses a line of parasociality that robs one's ability to be separate from the pack mentality. So I am very familiar with his commentary and coverage over the last four or five years, but I do my best not to become invested in defending him parasocially.
I keep asking, and I'm not sure you've given me an answer, what exactly do you want him to do different though? I mean we're comrades in some sense right, I've seen your advocacy around hexbear, I really appreciate your commentary and what you choose to post. I'm not being hostile when I ask this, do you genuinely think that this guy that can barely organize his own travel and stream setup has the skillset to like start and run a viable ML party or something? Like are you just wanting him to be aggressively pro-PSL and refuse to ever talk to Democratic Party politicians or something like that? You say he's not interested in third parties, but when they organize an action, he covers it. He regularly uses coverage from Code Pink and BT News, and I know you know this. Both of whom were also at, for example, the Zohran Mamdani election results party. He tells his audience usually when a particular protest has been organized by PSL.
Yes, the majority of squad voters are not engaged with socialist political commentary and Hasan's commentary is much more consistently progressive and to the left than theirs. He is regularly critical of AOC and Bernie when they do fuck-ups, even parts of, for example, that recent Munich Security Conference speech that AOC did that libs were gushing over. A lot of those voters only encounter Hasan's commentary when he interviews a Bernie or an AOC, and they're literally elected officials. I think it's ludicrous to suggest that elected congresspeople aren't bringing a guy like Hasan a platform. Do you think that when Sanders goes on Fox News, he's grateful for Fox News platforming him because he wouldn't be listened to otherwise? So I would say no, he wants to talk to the liberals that follow AOC and Sanders but haven't had their political consciousness raised any further specifically because he is trying to reach them with more radical agitprop, this has been his stated intentions. The delta between a Sanders supporter and Hasan himself in terms of their ideas is the amount of political consciousness. If every Sanders voter was where Hasan is, we'd have the numbers to build a revolutionary PSL cadre tomorrow. It is also much more than Palestine. I don't think that effectively enough credits criticisms of those many parts of necessary development in the U.S. that Sanders ignores, and certainly is ignorant of his overall coverage of foreign policy. Sanders always starts his milquetoast foreign policy statements of any variety, Palestine or otherwise, with the requisite dehumanization of other peoples and the rejection of their states as sovereign and legitimate. Hasan's commentary always shits on Sanders doing this.
I don't know if you've seen this coverage, but Hasan's commentary on all of these was negative. Do you think he'd make a better difference by tossing out support for Mamdani entirely? I would describe his overall support of Mamdani as critical support.
Zohran? Yes, at first he had said that Maduro and Diaz-Canel were dictators. His statement about the kidnapping of Maduro was that it was bad, but of course this is betrayed by his earlier condemnation of Maduro as illegitimate. Hasan covering Zohran on Maduro? Also yes, his coverage of Mamdani's statements about Venezuela and Cuba was negative, but noted that Mamdani's opinion isn't overall majorly impactful since he's a mayor of a city and doesn't have much real influence over U.S. foreign policy.
To heighten contradictions and raise people's political consciousness. When Zohran does good things, that's a win for socialism. When Zohran does bad things, that's an obvious limitation of these bourgeois political parties within a bourgeois dictatorship. For Hasan's project of doing entry-level agitprop wherever the popular energy is the most left, it makes sense to engage with anything that pushes his audience towards believing that better things are possible.
In short, I don't understand what exactly you want to see Hasan do different? If you think that refusing to entertain Democratic Party politicians or wouldbe politicians would have the overall effect of a large push left among the population, then I think you'd be wrong. Engaging with these people broadens his audience generally. But he's a political commentator and news commentator, not an accepted strategist for any party, not a member of any particular party apparatus. If the flaw of DSA is trying to get these executive positions like NYC mayor without having the legislative base in Albany to avoid having to make concessions to the NY state Democratic Party apparatus to get the agenda done, then that's on DSA's organization. What should Hasan do different about that bad strategy though? He already criticizes DSA too.
Again, I think we have very similar feelings on all of these policies, I didn't mention most of what you had to say about Zohran and what he might and might not do because I agree entirely with your analysis. You said that "if there was a 3rd party big enough to engage then I would" is fallacious, but DSA grew itself large enough to compete in elections like Mamdani's on its own, not because Hasan supported them into growth. And then he started engaging with their electeds. But one does not organize a party via Twitch streaming.
I agree but there's no better solution. The PSL is weak. The DSA is weak and filled with baby leftists. The green party hasn't won an election higher than Mayor of towns with 10k people. There is no working class party and expecting Americans to start one is foolish. Americans are stupid, ignorant, and selfish. I know, I live here 🙃