Democrats fighting over Hasan Piker face accusations of falling into a Republican trap

As the multi-day Democratic Party fight over association with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker continues, the party’s progressive flank and even some centrists fume that party leadership has once again lost the plot. Just under a dozen members of the party’s elected officials in Washington have made statements condemning Piker in the past week over two individual comments Piker made on-stream about the September 11 attacks and the backlash against Jewish supporters of Israel, both of which he argues are being taken wildly out of context. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pledged in an interview this week to “continue” speaking out about Piker and comments he claimed were antisemitic. At the same time, Piker remains a popular figure among younger Democrats and those Democratic candidates who’ve been supported by the left-wing pundit have firmly refused to back away from him, denouncing the criticism as dishonest smears. Piker himself has denied charges of anti-Semitism, and apologized for offending viewers with his remarks about 9/11. All of this is occurring under the spectacle of a national media frenzy surrounding Piker and the Democratic Socialists of America, whom journalists have made the focus of their questions to Democrats of all stripes. And some Democrats
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