It shouldn’t have taken this long for prominent Democrats to confront their party’s antisemitism problem. But left-wing influencer Hasan Piker apparently crossed a line.

Even before the 2026 primary election season began, many leading Democratic officials had buried their heads in the sand, telling themselves that their party, nor its activist left, were hostile to Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state or to Jewish people. They’ve insisted that the issue is Jerusalem’s wartime conduct in Gaza, especially that of longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who for years has closely aligned with the Republican Party. There’s some truth to that, as I’ve reported.

But that’s just a small part of what’s been festering inside the Democratic Party. Major candidates for Congress have paraded around with Piker, a Twitch streamer with over 3 million followers on the platform, and Democratic voters have nominated primary candidates who are aggressively critical of Israel — and only Israel — and traffic in antisemitic tropes. Their rise is jeopardizing the Democrats’ historically strong bond with Jewish voters, a key component of their liberal coalition.

Piker, 35, has been streaming his program (long-winded rants, really) for the past six years. He regularly expresses antisemitic views and sympathizes with Hamas, approving of the Islamic terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack that resulted in more than 1,000 civilians being kidnapped and murdered. And yet some liberal activists still hail Piker as the Democrats’ solution to iconoclastic podcaster Joe Rogan, who’s viewed as instrumental to President Donald Trump’s White House encore.

In more of the same from Piker, recently he blamed American Jews for the rising hatred and violence directed at them in the US. He declared the phenomenon the inevitable result of their support for Israel and presumably the Washington-Jerusalem alliance.

“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action,” Piker said on a recent livestream. “You’re running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as the Jewish ISIS and you’re saying, as Jews, this all we care about. You’re making antisemitism worse.”

Democrats, who have been slow to recognize what’s happening in their midst — or too afraid to say so — are now belatedly speaking out. Because Piker has been spouting antisemitic and anti-Israel nonsense for at least last year.

“It does concern me that it took the better part of a year for Democrats to widely denounce Hasan Piker,” Halie Soifer, chief executive officer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told me.

Some of the initial statements issued by leaders after Piker’s latest comments failed to call him out by name or deem him and his ilk persona non grata in the Democratic Party. But soon after, the avalanche of comments expressed a sense of urgency and didn’t mince words.

“Hasan Piker’s dangerous and hateful language targeting Jewish Americans has no place in our civil discourse,” Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a potential 2028 presidential contender, said as part of a lengthy X post.

Pro-Israel Democrats have welcomed this development.

Denunciations of Piker from top Democrats are even flowing in Michigan, despite the political risk to the party’s prospects for retaining an open Senate seat in the Wolverine State (and possibly, any chance of winning a majority in the chamber this November). But Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee who campaigned with Piker before his primary win, has declined to disassociate with the video streamer and downplayed his latest antisemitic remarks.

“We’re still waiting for Abdul El-Sayed to denounce him,” Soifer lamented.

El-Sayed isn’t unique. At least a handful of Democratic candidates, often but not always self-described socialists, have either campaigned with Piker, appeared on his Twitch streaming program or defended his participation in their party’s politics.

Tolerance of antisemitism, if not rank Jew hatred, and growing antipathy to Israel has become more prevalent among younger voters broadly as well as those who have backed candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, in particular. That toxic political brew has contributed to congressional Democrats becoming less supportive of US military aide and weapons sales to the Jewish state at a time when the Middle East remains as dangerous as ever.

The trend threatens to fracture the Democratic Party’s relationship with American Jews, most of whom are liberal and have supported Democrats over Republicans up and down the ballot for decades.

Democratic operatives typically minimize such peril and emphasize the fact that the party’s presidential nominees have earned roughly 60% to 70% or more of the Jewish vote in almost every election since 1928, with some exceptions. But they’re now conceding that the party’s antisemitism problem is veering into dangerous political territory that could eventually cost Democrats Jewish support at the ballot box, to say nothing of the moral implications.

“I am very concerned,” Kathy Manning, board chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel, a group that works to elect pro-Israel Democrats, told me. “The jury is still out.” (Manning is a former North Carolina congresswoman.)

Criticism of Israel, its actions, government, leaders, policies, conduct of a war in Gaza it did not start — Did I leave anything out? — is not illegitimate. It’s as American as, well, you know the cliché. And yes, the Republican Party and the populist right are experiencing a similar, troubling rise in antisemitism and anti-Zionism. I’ve written as much here, here and here.

But none of that excuses what’s plaguing Democrats.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of "In Trump's Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP."

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