The Democratic Party

Time to Take Away “Hasan the Hun’s” Hot Mic

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Let me just start by saying I think “Hasan the Little Bitch” is an asshole. Now that we got that out of the way, I think you can guess how I feel about Democrats appearing on his show. I do not believe America deserved 9/11, I do not think the state of Israel should be disbanded, and I have no interest in this loser’s “outreach to masculinity.” There, all done.

Now that I’ve buried the point, let’s get to it- of course the Democrats are screwing up their handling of him. The electorate is locked in right now on things that matter to them- health insurance prices, gas prices, housing prices, personal debt, and things that impact them every day. 95% of the electorate doesn’t know who Piker is or care very much about his Gaza fetish. Even some of the 5% lack very deep thoughts on these matters. Piker has 3 million Twitch followers and 1.7 million YouTube followers, which combined together don’t quite reach 3% of a Presidential electorate, assuming there isn’t any overlap. Until people started arguing about him on Twitter, I had no idea who he was, and I’m in that 5%.

The fact that we are spending time on him is wasteful. The fact that we have elected Democrats seemingly coming out against him at the same time makes him look too important. We have spent much of the last decade doing this. Let’s be clear, Kamala Harris did not lose in 2024 because of leftist agitators or some coordinated effort to withhold votes from her. She lost because Democrats lacked standing and credibility with “normie” voters and let’s face it, she is a Black woman running in a country that has a racist and sexist undercurrent in it’s electorate, not to mention 5+ years of Republicans framing her as stupid, soulless, and extreme. It’s more comforting to blame extremists like Piker and Mamdani, and they don’t help, but it’s also a fictional story.

The only winner in this saga is Piker. He’ll grow his audience from the attention of being a martyr. He still won’t capture an audience large enough to be a true kingmaker of any kind, but let’s not let math get in the way. The correct response for *the party* is to simply ignore this vile loser. Nobody that believes we deserved 9/11 is going to vote for Democrats in 2026 or 2028. Let this man grift off of his audience in the relative obscurity he belongs in. We really don’t need our own Charlie Kirk.

The System the Democrats Insist on Saving Isn’t Worth the Saving

/ Rich Wilkins / 3 Comments

A week ago today, Congressional Democrats sure had some real leverage. The Republican Party controlled the White House, both houses of Congress, every agency in the government, and the courts, but needed Democratic votes in the Senate to pass a funding bill to keep the government open. Senate Democrats half the ability to kill the completely partisan House spending plan and force a bipartisan plan that rolled back much of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. If Republicans refused to make an agreement, Democrats could have walked away and left them holding the bag. After all, the offer on the table was absolutely nothing at all. Trump told them to pound sand.

By now you know what happened. Chuck Schumer’s Senate Democrats, fearing that Trump’s White House would destroy the government if they let it shut down, sent 20% of their caucus over to bend the knee. They took the offer of nothing and gave the Republicans a hand. In the week since, the Trump Administration has still managed to burn down the government. He signed an executive order to basically close the Department of Education. He held an infomercial for Tesla at the White House. They ignored a court order to halt deportations without having hearings to determine if the people being deported were even immigrants or not. They even took down Jackie Robinson’s biography page at the Department of Defense, saying the Hall-of-Famer and veteran of war fell under their anti-DEI policy. It turns out that regardless of whether the Democrats voted to fund the government or not, Trump was going to Trump.

We just had a four year Presidency where the underlying theme was restoring normalcy. It turns out the public was completely not interested. This shouldn’t be that shocking. Basically since 9/11, public polling has said the American public almost constantly feels our country has been on the wrong track. It turns out that terror attacks, Enron, Iraq, priests molesting kids, a bank crash, Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme, school shootings, the Patriot Act, Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, COVID, Me Too, Epstein, celebrities stealing PPP loans, opioids, inflation, a broken immigration system, wars in the Ukraine, Syria, and Gaza, and probably lots of bad shit I’m forgetting, has left people feeling as though the world is in decay. It turns out that giving us some unchecked social media, cryptocurrencies, and trash reality TV isn’t making us feel better. Returning to normal doesn’t sound that appealing. Being the party that insists we’ll make it normal again doesn’t help much. Maybe, just maybe, burning it down in the name of a fight over something, like maybe Social Security and Medicaid, would be pretty appealing.

Democrats need to lay out some sort of new vision. Many people who were loyal Obama voters 15 years ago have given up on the product being offered. Responding to banks melting down our economy with a bailout and not jail sentences in the name of a better regulatory system for the economy we have wasn’t it. Responding to people without health care with a better system to buy health care doesn’t excite people. Responding to a crooked student loan system by giving people some forgiveness while leaving the system in tact, only to predictably have it struck down in court, wasn’t popular. Responding to a broken and unfair immigration system with some executive orders and hoping it went away, well you get the point. Continuing to put up some smart, corporate, highly educated Congressional candidates who promise to “run the system better” and maybe throw around some buzz words like “empathy,” is about as appealing as Taco Bell leftovers in your fridge from two weeks ago. The status quo blows, and everyone knows it. Not one fucking halfway normal human being wants to “bend the cost curve” on health care, they want greater coverage for less money out of their pockets.

The Democrats had a chance to demand some good things a week ago, and they passed on it. They passed on it because they were afraid that if they shut down the status quo they’ve spent a generation defending, we would be worse off. Most of the public thinks we’ve been worse off for many years. All the shock to the system they were afraid of, we’re getting anyway. Say whatever you want about Trump, at least he can tell which way the wind is blowing.