Hey folks—I know not everyone gets a chance to catch Rush Hour live, so I’m going to start including a link to each episode right here in the blast. That way, if you missed the show or just want to hear it again, it’s only a click away.
VIEW HERE:
Look out for the Rush Hour link Tuesday – Saturday in your Daily BS email blast.
The Democratic Party keeps insisting it is the party of working people, black voters and ordinary Americans. But every so often, one of its rising stars—or one of the online celebrities Democrats have decided they cannot live without—says the quiet part loud enough for everybody to hear.
That happened again with Hasan Piker, the radical left-wing streamer who campaigned with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Piker has become popular with prominent Democrats because he attracts a large, young online audience. Rep. Ro Khanna has appeared with him. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has embraced him. El-Sayed campaigned alongside him and has refused to disavow him.
On Friday’s Bo Snerdley’s Rush Hour, I played a clip that black voters—especially those who continue voting reflexively for Democrats—deserved to hear for themselves.
During an angry, profanity-filled livestream, Piker declared:
“I don’t give a f— what black people care about. ‘Oh, black people care about this. Black people care about that.’ Shut the f— up. That’s not how politics works.”
When viewers accused him of racism, Piker responded with heavy sarcasm, invoking lynching while berating his critics and telling black activists in his chat to shut up.
No, Piker was not literally calling for the return of lynching. He was sneering at people who accused him of ignoring black voters. But that context does not make the exchange flattering. The revealing portion was his open contempt for the very idea that what black Americans care about should carry weight in Democratic politics.
“I don’t give a f— what black people care about” is not exactly the inspirational message Democrats will be putting on convention banners. But when it comes from somebody with access to AOC, Khanna and a Democratic Senate nominee, the liberal media suddenly develops a hearing problem.
Imagine for one moment that a major conservative host had said the same thing. CNN would have broken into regularly scheduled programming. MSNBC would have assembled a panel of eleven people to discuss the “historical echoes.” Every Republican who had ever appeared on the host’s program would be ordered to denounce him before breakfast.
But Piker is useful to Democrats. He has an audience. Therefore, the usual rules apparently do not apply.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins directly asked El-Sayed whether he planned to renounce Piker. El-Sayed replied:
“I’m less focused on folks who are campaigning with me, more focused on the folks I’m campaigning to.”
That was a beautifully polished way of saying no.
Democratic politicians have perfected this maneuver. When asked about somebody outrageous on their own side, they suddenly become deeply concerned with “the issues” and refuse to be distracted. When a Republican’s second cousin once liked the wrong Facebook post, however, they demand a congressional investigation.
The Piker controversy is not an isolated embarrassment. It is a symptom of a Democratic Party becoming more comfortable with radicalism while losing contact with the voters it claims to represent.
Even David Axelrod—the strategist who helped put Barack Obama in the White House—can see the danger. Discussing the party’s socialist candidates, Axelrod pointed to Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong and her past call to “abolish Thanksgiving.”
“I don’t think you’re going to get a whole lot of Americans excited” about that, Axelrod observed.
No kidding. Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite holiday. Any candidate campaigning against turkey, stuffing and family dinner has already lost my vote before we reach taxes, crime or foreign policy.
Axelrod also admitted that parts of the Democratic Socialists of America platform seem “completely ludicrous.” That is quite a concession from a loyal Democrat—but it reflects a reality the party’s leadership keeps trying to avoid.
Democrats claim theirs is a “big tent.” The trouble is that the tent is increasingly filled with socialists, anti-American activists and professional grievance merchants, while police officers, tradesmen, churchgoing families and working-class voters are quietly shown the exit.
Former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin explained the problem in plain English. Asked why he left the Democratic Party, Manchin said it had changed into something he no longer recognized:
“You spend more time, more effort, more resources on able-bodied people capable of working that don’t work or won’t work than those who do. You lost the working person because you forgot they’re the ones that got you where you are.”
Manchin also listed three beliefs that once would have been unremarkable in either party: America needs control of its border, a strong national defense and respect for police officers.
Today, saying those things inside the Democratic Party can get you labeled a reactionary.
This is how Democrats lost working people. They did not wake up one morning and discover that millions of Americans had mysteriously become extremists. The party changed its priorities.
It began speaking more about academic theories than grocery bills. It treated border enforcement as cruelty, police officers as suspects and patriotism as something requiring an apology. Then it invited wealthy college radicals to lecture working Americans about their “privilege.”
Now the same party is embracing candidates associated with the Democratic Socialists of America while wondering why its support outside progressive enclaves keeps shrinking.
The problem is especially insulting for black voters. Democrats still expect overwhelming black support every election, yet some of the party’s loudest new influencers feel perfectly comfortable dismissing what black people actually think.
Black Americans are supposed to show up, vote Democrat and remain quiet while progressive activists decide which concerns are sufficiently fashionable. Crime in the neighborhood? Don’t mention it. Illegal immigration’s effect on wages and public services? Wrong question. Failing schools? Here is another lecture about pronouns.
But if a radical streamer with powerful Democratic friends says he does not care what black people think, the political and media establishment looks the other way.
That is not representation. It is political ownership—and more black Americans are beginning to recognize the difference.
There was much more in Friday’s fastest hour in American media, including President Trump’s response to the possible prosecution of Anthony Fauci, the fight over birthright citizenship and birth tourism, and the appeals court ruling temporarily blocking aboveground construction of Trump’s proposed White House ballroom.
But the larger thread running through the hour was accountability: Fauci’s accountability for refusing to answer Congress, the courts’ accountability when they stretch their power and the Democratic Party’s accountability to voters it has taken for granted.
If you missed Friday’s Bo Snerdley’s Rush Hour, listen to the full show on the Red Apple Podcast Network. The clips are worth hearing—not merely because of what Democratic politicians and their allies said, but because of all the questions they still refuse to answer.
