In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here. Adolf Hitler was something of a piker compared to Mao, the greatest mass murderer in mankind’s history. It’s impossible to measure the misery, destitution, and death inflicted by the communist dictator. Was it 20, 30, 40 million dead? We don’t really know.For the sake of moral clarity, however, let’s concede that celebrating Mao is as grotesque as celebrating Hitler. No decent human being would do it. No decent society would normalize it.
Yet here we are. This week, streamer Hasan Piker delivered a speech at the College Democrats convention, donning a Mao-style suit, calling for the purging of centrist bourgeois elements from the Democratic Party to great applause.
In the past, Piker has said he “never would and never will criticize Mao Zedong, he is one of the great leaders of this world.” He’s broadcast in front of Mao’s portrait at Tiananmen Square, holding a Chicom flag, claiming, “I don’t have any kind of patriotism in my heart for America.” A fan of Islamic terrorism who believes America deserved 9/11, Piker likes to share cringy pictures of himself pretending to read Lenin’s “What Can Be Done?” In any reasonable era, someone of Piker’s moral and intellectual disabilities would be ostracized, branded an unhinged lunatic, and compelled to live on the fringes of society like George Lincoln Rockwell or the Unabomber. Piker, though, is a power broker on the modern American Left. Even a few years ago, accusing a Democrat of Marxist leanings would have sparked great indignation. Today? Democrats campaign with Piker. Once-respected institutions invite him to pontificate on history. Leading progressive media outlets such as Pod Save America and The Bulwark treat him as a normal political operative, never grilling him on his support for an ideology that’s put tens of millions of people into the ground. Many more elected Democrats have welcomed Hasan-style “democratic socialists” — the preferred euphemism of modern communists — into their “big tent” than criticized them. They do so because polls find young people increasingly prefer the red-green alliance of Islamist and communists to anything resembling traditional American political coalitions. Theoretically, at least, they prefer collectivism to markets. They prefer protest and “action” to debate and governing. They prefer violent theocratic regimes such as Hamas to free capitalistic nations such as Israel. The Overton Window is in warp drive. When President Donald Trump stood at Mount Rushmore on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary, delivering an unapologetically patriotic speech, he threw in a few words to denounce this rise of communism as “a mortal threat to American liberty.”This greatly offended many in the media. “GOP reboots the Red Scare as young Democrats embrace socialism,” an Axios headline read. “Red scare revived as Trump leads push to attack Democrats as ‘communists,’” says the Guardian. “Trump is trying to start a new Red Scare,” says MSNow. “Why does Trump keep talking about ‘communism’?” asks CNN. Streamer Hasan Piker hands his energy drink to producer Mauricio Miranda before going on stage to speak at a campaign event for Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
