Hasan Piker Is Flirting With the Revolution

The Twitch and YouTube star Hasan Piker understands what pushes people to commit acts of political violence. But does that understanding tip over into appreciation? In this episode of “Interesting Times,” Ross Douthat and Piker debate why Piker’s post-liberal rhetoric attracts criticism from the right (and results in the occasional platform suspension) and why Americans’ changing attitudes on Israel feed his “revolutionary optimism.”

• 02:14 - Life during and after Twitch
• 10:45 - The Hasan Piker worldview
• 15:57 - “Revolutionary violence”
• 20:13 - Is it hyperbole or incitement?
• 30:48 - Hasan’s Luigi Mangione coverage
• 41:35 - The danger in pushing taboos
• 51:52 - Anti-Zionist advocacy and Hasan’s Turkish background
• 1:08:00 - “Revolutionary optimism”

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

A full transcript of this episode is also available on the Times website.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.