Hasan Piker Is the Enemy

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Thursday, April 23, 2026

 

The lefty streamer repeatedly made clear he is disdainful toward the fundamental rules that keep our society together.

 

Contrary to the mewling declaration of that eternal political weathervane, Ezra Klein, it seems clear to me that the most apposite way to describe the online left’s latest darling, the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, is, indeed, as “the enemy.”

 

In a rambling group chat that was filmed and transcribed by the New York Times this week, Piker repeatedly made it clear that he is disdainful toward the fundamental rules that keep our society together. Inter alia, Piker defended the murder of the United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, whom he deemed to have been guilty of “a tremendous amount of social murder”; suggested that he would happily “steal a car” if he “could get away with it”; and laid out a complex framework for when it is acceptable to shoplift (when the victim is “big corporations”) and when it is not (when the victim is “taxpayer-funded” with “union labor” and “adjusted prices”). Also “okay,” per Piker, is “I.P. theft, stealing movies, things like that.”

 

To which Piker’s interlocutors, the Times’ Nadja Spiegelman and the New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino, responded, “Wow, that all seems utterly psychotic, have you considered getting professional help?”

 

Nah, I’m just kidding. In reality, Tolentino responded by explaining that she is opposed to “profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive” actions such as “getting iced coffee in a plastic cup” or flying on airplanes for pleasure, but that she is supportive of selfless, moral, collectively constructive actions such as “blowing up a pipeline,” and Spiegelman responded by saying, “I can relate to what you were saying, Jia. It is so hard to live ethically in an unethical society.”

 

Is it? I must confess that I do not find it so. But then, unlike Piker, Tolentino, and Spiegelman (what a peculiar law firm that would make), I do not spend my days sitting on sofas pondering aloud whether it would be proper to rob the Louvre. No doubt this makes me some sort of plodding, unfashionable reactionary, but I am rather steadfastly of the view that the norms that the Times’ trio are hoping to dismantle are the core nonnegotiable building blocks of our civilization. It is not, in fact, acceptable to murder people because you think they are “social murderers.” It is not, in fact, acceptable to steal cars if you can “get away with it.” It is not, in fact, acceptable to shoplift if the store in question is owned by a “big corporation.” And no, blowing up pipelines is not, in fact, a “thing that should be legal that isn’t.”

 

John Locke contended that all individuals possess a natural right to “life, liberty, and property,” and, as a guiding principle, this has served us pretty well. It has not, of course, ended political debate or forced us into universal accord. But it has established the rule that one does not get to infringe upon those things simply because one has deemed oneself exempt. Hasan Piker seems to believe that his reference to Friedrich Engels’s “social murder” concept is extremely clever. In truth, it represents nothing more than solipsistic special pleading. If permitted to do so, everyone could play this game. Piker’s argument is that, by allocating resources as he did, Brian Thompson “killed” people. But one could offer precisely the same justification against politicians who run the government health-care systems that Piker covets, or against contractors whose budgets do not perfectly inoculate their apartment buildings against arson — or, if one were to fixate upon his refusal to donate his wealth to the world’s poor, against Piker himself. In this country, we do not leave it up to each person to determine to what extent each individual is murderable; we insist upon a blanket rule. To chip away at that dictum, even rhetorically, is to play with ancient fire.

 

The same goes for carjacking, shoplifting, and “IP theft.” It is entirely irrelevant whether we are discussing Citarella, Jimmy’s Roadside Grocery, or the Greater Manhattan Unionized Cooperative; stealing is verboten. Morality notwithstanding, this injunction provides us with the predictability that is necessary for our culture to flourish. Hasan Piker does not strike me as a particularly thoughtful person, so it is probable that, like so many affluent would-be revolutionaries, he has falsely assumed that the stability he enjoys every day is an intrinsic feature of the natural world. It is not. Each time he receives a payment, or swipes his credit card, or interacts with his accountant, he is mindlessly assuming that the rules about which he is so painfully glib will hold fast. If, as he insisted twice, it is acceptable to steal from Whole Foods, then there is no good reason that it is unacceptable to steal from Hasan Piker. Relative to most, both are rich, but, thankfully, that is not our standard. If it were, our society would become chaotic within a matter of weeks, and it would not be the privileged who paid the highest price for that.

 

The central conservative insight is that civilizations are fragile and that it takes constant effort to sustain them. Cretins such as Piker, Tolentino, and Spiegelman are free to emit their bilge without formal sanction, but they are not immune from the judgment of the sober. There are many words to describe figures whose worldview calls for the dismantling of the architecture that keeps us all secure, and, for my money, “enemy” is as good as any other. If heeded, Hasan Piker would walk us straight off the cliff. Yes. “Enemy” it is.