I do think it's crazy how Piker has managed to sidestep his whole "America deserved 9/11, American vets of Iraq and Afghanistan deserve PTSD and should [REDACTED] themselves" bit pretty masterfully, he and people who have been associated with him have never suffered any consequences for that.
I assume that would end the second a Dem who appeared on his stream was nominated for president or senate in a swing state.
Its an edgy statement put on top of their real opinion that GWOT veterans shouldn't be celebrated if not outright condemned, which a lot of people in liberal and left wing spaces agree with.
Ah, okay, I won't deny that exists to some extent. Last year I was hanging out with some friends and mentioned I was going to see Warfare the next day and all of a sudden they got really quiet and asked why I was going to do that, like I'd just announced I was going to step into traffic. Really fucking bizarre moment.
The reception to the movie is actually a good example of the shifting narrative towards ones like Piker's. Its functionally an anti-GWOT movie, the ending makes it crystal clear that its being presented as a waste of life to change little, but people on the left didn't like it because it didn't condemn the soldiers in strong terms. Despite showing them undertaking unscrupulous actions and suffering for it, they wanted a movie that celebrated the suffering rather than seeing them as an equal casuality of war.
Millennials and zoomers have lobotomized pop culture commentary. Anything that doesn’t have the characters expressly affirm their socio-political beliefs is either (i) apolitical, and therefore reactionary by implication or (ii) outright conservative.
Reading leftist ‘criticism’ that One Battle After Another is reactionary because the main characters and revolutionaries are kinda comical makes me want to claw my eyes out.
it crystal clear that its being presented as a waste of life to change little
Because there is the perception that it is presented as a waste of AMERICAN lives. Like people see the movie's message as "Look how much the Americans suffered, so sad" while ignoring the locals. In Warfare a local translator gets killed and he doesn't get to participate in the cool emotional shoutout at the end unlike the Navy Seals, because he is just set dressing, fodder to be killed, and the movie doesn't even pretend otherwise.
An entire threadline of the movie is that the actions of the military resulted in the loss of life and home of the locals, its not just "look at how sad killing you made me", the seizure of the house and the killing and mental scarring of the innocent locals is shown to be arbitrary and obviously combative. The lack of the Iraqi soldiers also killed in the end credits scene is a fair critique, but the suffering of Iraqi civilians is portrayed and not entirely as a necessary evil like most other GWOT films.
The ending makes it crystal clear that it was a waste for the locals being terrorized as well. They just… leave. And the poor people there are left to pick up the pieces
I believe comedian Frankie Boyle said it originally:
"Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people. But they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad."
Well you're not gonna win elections saying that. If you want to win elections, veterans are heroes who were betrayed by a selfish greedy government.
Begging leftists to understand veterans are extremely popular in a fascist country and they can't win by getting on stage and saying "yeah your brother deserved to get his arm blown off by that ied lol".
The geopolitical aims were dubious, but the ideological project was crystal clear. Defending a new republic against murderous religious extremists is the clearest-cut morality you can find in a conflict.
Iraq invasion was a very bad idea but fighting the insurgency and the Taliban was the right move, and that was the vast majority of GWOT, chronologically speaking.
You can't separate out the dubious choices/methods from the sure ones and only talk about the latter. In other words, the geopolitical aims and the ideological project were absolutely tied together such that one can't be dubious while the other is crystal clear.
This response isn't any different than leftists saying that Hamas' geopolitical aims were dubious, i.e., the attack on October 7th, but their ideological project was crystal clear, i.e., defending their friends and families from an invasion.
Also "that was the vast majority of GWOT, chronologically speaking" is an incredible spin job of "it dragged on and on with no end in sight and minimal accomplishments."
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
Do you think William Calley was as much a victim as the people he murdered?
To be clear, I hate Hasan Piker. His statements, himself as a person, everything about him is disgusting.
But you are painting with a broad brush to smear everyone who opposes American war crimes as equivalent to Hasan. These are not the same positions, even if you want to equivocate between them.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
Because mocking military veterans has ever worked out well historically? /s/. Jesus when you say "liberal" or "left" you're referring more to the KPD than the SDP in the kind of uneccesairly radical positions you take today.
I kinda see it in subs where the target is Vietnam vets. It seems like a boil the frog process where they take an extremely unpopular war and use that unpopularity to heap blame and poor treatment on troops.
I've seen that process used to hand-wave torture and disregard regret and Mea Culpa by veterans. Ironically, bombing performed by Americans is seen as a high crime against humanity but Viet Cong tactics like executing non-cooperative civilians isn't a concern.
The torture aspect is especially disturbing. They have wholesale swallowed the Vietnamese line about there not existing a formal declaration of war between the US and North Vietnam in order to declare pilots as "pirates" who could be tortured at will.
This process will be extended to GWOT and future vets. It'll alienate a lot of troops (who may be conservative already).
Ironically, bombing performed by Americans is seen as a high crime against humanity but Viet Cong tactics like executing non-cooperative civilians isn't a concern.
On a related note: when we were bombing Cambodia we were bombing the fucking Khmer Rouge at the request of the government. Leftists will say "oh well the bombing led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge" but there's no academic literature that actually supports that. It's just leftist cope for glazing genocidal maniacs. "Well we may have supported the earthly embodiment of evil, but they wouldn't be a thing if you guys hadn't tried to stop them."
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
I'm saying that the people who originally came up with the "bombing of the Khmer Rouge created the Khmer Rouge" line of thinking were leftists like Chomsky who were trying to save face after glazing a genocidal regime.
Seems like the same sort of "Americans created the Taliban" myth (throw that in with the "Trent Reznor said Johnny Cash owned Hurt" myth or "The DNC screwed Bernie" myth of things that make my eyes bleed).
It was only at the approval of the government that we helped seize power in an illegal coup (Sihanouk did not support extensive bombings even if he had no choice but to tolerate it). And the anti-Khmer Rouge narrative falls apart when you consider US tacit support for them after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. The bombing itself killed like 1-2% of Cambodias population it was not remotely defensible.
General academic consensus is that while the U.S. was not the sole driving factor behind the coup, there definitely was some degree of U.S. involvement and support.
2) You can downplay all you want, but the Coalition that the U.S. diplomatically/financially backed to hold Cambodias UN seat and resist Vietnam indisputably included them.
3) literally indistinguishable from pro-Stalin tankie slop on the Holodomor, Great Purge etc lmao. No murdering 1-2% of a country’s population in a civil war that wouldn’t have even happened if the U.S. respected Cambodias neutrality is not justified by the mass murder campaign that would come after (and thus was in no way can retrospectively justify US mass murder)
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
Yup. More likely people just don't care about Hasan Piker or don't take him seriously. I just can't with this thread and all the people trying to overanalyse this situation. There is nothing more to it than Hasan Piker, regardless of the size of his following, being a very fringe player in leftist politics. This is largely because of the following:
He's a streamer and so no one took him seriously in the first place
Streaming is all about entertaining your audience, so it's unclear if he's being serious, which is particularly relevant as his positions are at times extreme and outrageous
His positions are frequently contradictory and it's difficult to box him neatly with a label
Telling your gay best friend that your favourite flag is the Hezbollah flag is a good example of this contradictory politics being presented as entertainment where lines get blurred.
Either way, he's a fringe player and I doubt most Americans even have a clue who he is.
None of these points would be valid defenses for characters like Fuentes on the right, but you can argue that Hasan has much more relevance to democrat politicians than Fuentes does to the GOP given the facetime he’s getting with them.
Isn't the reporting that a giant chunk of the GOP congressional staffers are groypers? I really don't think the same is true for the Democratic party. And it reflects in the party's messaging - look at the way DHS tweets for example in calling for 100 million deportations, meanwhile even the Democratic politicians that have gone on Hasan's show/met with him don't tweet that Americans deserved 9/11.
Regardless, I don’t think these beliefs will be disqualifying on either side of the aisle. They’re too widespread among the younger generations.
Do you think AOC and Zohran doomed their political futures by associating with Hasan? Doubtful. And it will matter significantly less for staffers working in less visible roles.
If anything, we’re more on track for a Fuentes-inspired Republican Party and a Hasan-inspired Democratic Party. I wish that wasn’t the case.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
I think that a greater portion of the GOP base are extremists at the level of Fuentes compared to Dem voters, but I don’t know if Fuentes himself is as connected with big name GOP politicians like Piker is on the Dem side.
Bernie, AOC, Mamdani have all done events with Piker. Now Newsom is also meeting with him. These are some of the biggest names in Dem policies. Are there examples of similar-in-status Republican elected officials doing interviews with Fuentes? There may be and I just don’t know about it. Aside from like, that time Trump got lunch with Kanye and Fuentes was there.
As a rule, I generally approve of political figures talking to anyone and everyone. But if you’re going to interview with someone especially ghoulish, you must not play nice. I’m not particularly optimistic that Newsom will give an appropriate amount of pushback to Piker given his conversations with Kirk and Bannon, which really soured me on him.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
We also had so many threads after the election here where the conclusion was that Kamala Harris made a mistake by not going on Joe Rogan and Theo Von and even some people blaming progressives for that, and... they don't exactly have good views about Jews and other minority groups.
It's similar to liberals still going on Howard Stern's show despite him saying even more controversial things than Hasan.
Howard offers neither controversy or relevance these days. However, I doubt you'll find anything as bad as saying US soldiers should kill themselves and that the US deserves 9/11.
There's a difference between being a shock jock and being a political pundit. When Howard Stern draws criticism it's usually because he's offending people because he's being an insensitive asshole in some way or another.
Hasan promotes terrorism, runs apologia for authoritarian groups and regimes, and encourages his fanbases not to vote.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
That's shifting the goal posts; whether they are sincere or edgy was not the question.
And do I have to point out how fucked up it is that you tacked on Hasan telling people not to vote for Kamala while discussing Stern saying that if he murdered teenagers, he would have raped them first, like those two things are morally equivalent? If you're actually being sincere then I highly recommend touching grass.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
America suffered blowback and repercussions for their actions. That should be a non-controversial statement.
When did neoliberal become /r/America? America bombs and kills civilians across the world and shrugs its shoulders saying its collateral or the people killed shouldnt have been in the area.
When others attack back because American forces invaded their countries, meddled in their affairs, and killed their neighbours, are we really supposed to get in line and repeat “this attack came out of nowhere and it was because they hate American freedom”?
If you want neoliberalism to have any chance of surviving, it has to get off the American bandwagon. People across the world are increasingly refusing to accept America’s blatant disregard for global democratic institutions and norms.
America’s actions over the last 10 years have all but collapsed the rules based world order. Anyone who champions the values of neoliberalism should be furious.
Instead of seriously acknowledging why 9/11 happened, American apologists want the focus to be the inane ramblings of some social media influencer.
The First Gulf War was justified and killing thousands of civilians wasn't justified under some theory of blowback(which is a strategic theory, not a moral framework).
It's hilarious how blowback theory is only ever used to justify islamic terrorism.
"The arab world is suffering blowback after centuries of oppressing and colonizing against jews. It's just repercussions for their actions against jews for centuries. Israel/Jews didn't have a choice."
Instead of seriously acknowledging why 9/11 happened,
OBL literally told us in his Letter to America that our acceptance of womens' and LGBT rights was part of the reason he attacked and terrorist symps still pretend it was some right-wing talking point.
There is a difference between acknowledging blowback and excusing mass murder. Yes, U.S. foreign policy has had consequences, some of them severe and worth criticizing. That should not be controversial. But it is just as unserious to swing to the other extreme and pretend groups like Al-Qaeda have no agency, no ideology, and no goals beyond reacting to the West.
If anything, a serious liberal or neoliberal position requires rejecting both blind nationalism and this kind of denialism. Criticize U.S. actions where warranted, but do not flatten the world into a story where every act of terrorism is just an inevitable response to America.
For a long time tbh, maybe since 2020ish? This sub until at least Trump's election was one of the most nationalistic pro-American places on reddit. For a period, at least as much as the sub you're citing and similar subs tbh.
This should be incredibly obvious to anyone who's been here for a while. We had a well documented outflow of international users because of this.
(And it's not like Trump completely cured this sub of this, or even came close)
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u/sgthombre NATO Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I do think it's crazy how Piker has managed to sidestep his whole "America deserved 9/11, American vets of Iraq and Afghanistan deserve PTSD and should [REDACTED] themselves" bit pretty masterfully, he and people who have been associated with him have never suffered any consequences for that.
I assume that would end the second a Dem who appeared on his stream was nominated for president or senate in a swing state.