Ro Khanna: What the Democrats Need Is More Hasan Piker, You Know...

In public. But in private, the Democrats worry that Piker was just a bit too...aggressive in his language. Some actually still believe that killing your political opponents is wrong, and that communism is actually a bad thing, while others don't care much about either, as long as they have power, but they worry that normies don't like all that "blood running in the streets" talk. 

🚨 Ro Khanna Urges Democrats to Embrace Hasan Piker as He Calls for a Radical Transformation of the Democratic Party During an election-night conversation with Hasan Piker, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna revealed that fellow House Democrats had questioned his decision to appear on the streamer's Twitch broadcast. Khanna defended his appearance, arguing that Democrats should recognize Piker's enormous audience and influence among younger voters. He even expressed frustration that more of his colleagues have yet to recognize the political value of engaging with him. The conversation then shifted to what the night's apparent blue wave could mean for the Democratic Party's ideological future. Khanna argued that the Left's electoral performance demonstrated the political advantages of a strong progressive flank, while acknowledging that the party establishment would not simply concede the ideological battles ahead. “When it comes to taxing billionaire wealth and Medicare for all and free college and zeroing out aid to Israel and stopping military sales, there's still gonna be a fight.” Hasan took the discussion further, asking how Democrats could build a legislative agenda that would ensure Republicans never regain political power. Khanna responded by calling for a sweeping expansion of government, including a wealth tax on billionaires, Medicare for All, free college, and free childcare. He also warned Democrats against allowing the party's political consultants to impose an incrementalist approach to governing, arguing that electoral victories mean little without radical change. “I want a Democratic Party that's actually gonna transform the political economic system and our foreign policy.”

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) November 4, 2026

🚨 Ro Khanna Urges Democrats to Embrace Hasan Piker as He Calls for a Radical Transformation of the Democratic Party

During an election-night conversation with Hasan Piker, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna revealed that fellow House Democrats had questioned his decision to appear on the streamer's Twitch broadcast.

Khanna defended his appearance, arguing that Democrats should recognize Piker's enormous audience and influence among younger voters. He even expressed frustration that more of his colleagues have yet to recognize the political value of engaging with him.

The conversation then shifted to what the night's apparent blue wave could mean for the Democratic Party's ideological future.

Khanna argued that the Left's electoral performance demonstrated the political advantages of a strong progressive flank, while acknowledging that the party establishment would not simply concede the ideological battles ahead.

“When it comes to taxing billionaire wealth and Medicare for all and free college and zeroing out aid to Israel and stopping military sales, there's still gonna be a fight.”

Hasan took the discussion further, asking how Democrats could build a legislative agenda that would ensure Republicans never regain political power.

Khanna responded by calling for a sweeping expansion of government, including a wealth tax on billionaires, Medicare for All, free college, and free childcare.

He also warned Democrats against allowing the party's political consultants to impose an incrementalist approach to governing, arguing that electoral victories mean little without radical change.

“I want a Democratic Party that's actually gonna transform the political economic system and our foreign policy.”

Now, we have to admit up front that Ro Khanna is not the modal Democrat in Congress, so his call to have more Hasan Piker and less Fetterman is not, in itself, proof that the entire Democrat Party is moving in that direction. 

But every Democrat in Congress took note that Piker's candidates did very well last night and that the DSA had a very good night indeed. Open antisemitism and communism were on the ballot, and they won pretty handily. We can't fool ourselves about that, and the Democrats are sitting up and taking notice. 

UNDERCOVER: GAVIN NEWSOM SAYS THE DSA IS "GOING TO BE DOMINANT" AND "MAINSTREAM" IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! "The DSA, the energy and the desire and demand for bold change, not incremental change, is very much going to be dominant. I mean, that's going to be a mainstream Democratic movement. Absolutely. No question about that." That's California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, speaking to an undercover journalist while campaigning in New Hampshire. Asked by a "younger voter" who said "we don't want Kamala Harris, we want more democratic socialist policies": "No one is arguing to manage the status quo and fail more efficiently." "You can't play in the margins anymore. The system's broken. It's completely unbalanced, and we can't manage the decline. We have to completely reimagine."

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 26, 2026

In practical terms, this doesn't mean the Democrats will embrace Piker's ideology; it does mean the Overton Window has moved quickly and dramatically, enabling candidates in districts where ideology matters more than practicality to play to the worst impulses of the Left. 

As a guy who spends an awful lot of time thinking about ideology and believing deeply that it matters, let me acknowledge that for most Democrats, and even most politicians, ideology comes second to self-interest. There are plenty of reasons to believe that the majority of Democrats in office will choose stuffing money into the pockets of their clients over anything else. 

It might sound strange given their successes on Tuesday night, but this could be the start of a new rift in the Democratic Party. @petersavodnik argues that the Democrat's internal divisions cannot be papered over, even with a blue wave. Read his full piece: https://t.co/mavFGx4GlJ

— The Free Press (@TheFP) November 4, 2026

Peter Savodnik has a piece in The Free Press that rings true. He doesn't put it the way I would, that the Organized Crime Democrats are having to battle with the Bolsheviks, but the upshot is very similar.

The Great Democratic Crack-Up starts now. That may sound a bit odd, given the party’s historic thrashing of Donald Trump and the Republican Party on Tuesday.

Let me explain.

For months, the anger and divisions have been bubbling up—the uber-progressive left pushing back against what it views as a feeble and feckless Democratic leadership, the leadership trying to hold things together, and the bundlers in New York and Los Angeles and elsewhere raising oodles of cash. Georgia senator Jon Ossoff reeled in $115 million; Texas’s new Democratic senator James Talarico, $146 million; and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, $38 million—of which she gave $1 million to Democratic Senate contender Abdul El-Sayed. That spending paid off: The Democrats now control the House and the Senate. Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, the influencers and podcasters—who feed off the intraparty fireworks—have been lapping up the likes and views, with leftist streamer Hasan Piker becoming something of an issue on the campaign trail, and the pod bros emerging as the new Democratic kingmakers.

James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist who ran Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, said Tuesday that the party’s “civil war starts Wednesday”—the day after the election.

A Democratic consultant in Washington told me, “It feels like the Democratic civil war has already started.” He was referring to the trio of leftists who had just been elected to the House, and were backed by New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.

In the Democratic primary, two of those candidates had knocked off party stalwarts whose only crime was not being radical—not being obsessed with Israel, Gaza, the “genocide.” (On Tuesday, one of those candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier, posted to X that ending military aid to Israel wouldn’t be enough; what is needed is a “Palestinian right of return,” meaning the end of the world’s only Jewish state.)

The Democrats want their USAID back, and the color revolution people don't actually want the Bolsheviks to run anything; they are supposed to be just the ground troops. 

But Hasan Piker and the gang don't want to be cannon fodder; they want the power for themselves, and the battle for control over the Democrat Party has begun. 

It'll be interesting to see how this war plays out.