Hasan Piker Says Some Socialist Candidates Are Weak on Foreign Policy

Hasan Piker, the left-wing Twitch streamer, said foreign policy is "probably the biggest area of weakness" for many elected officials, including "for some of the socialist cadre candidates as well."

He said it on his election-night stream Tuesday, shortly after playing the victory speech of Michigan's senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate Piker had campaigned for. He then set out what he thinks the left needs to do about it: build its own think tanks, its own policy shops and its own pipeline of staffers, so that progressive lawmakers are not left relying on advisers who oppose their views.

Piker named no one. He prefaced the remark by telling a guest who had worked on insurgent campaigns this cycle, "Not saying any of your candidates are like this, but I've worked with a lot of politicians." He offered it as a caveat inside a celebration, not as a break with the movement.

Hasan Piker on Politicians and Foreign Policy

Piker argued that voters give officeholders too much credit. "We assume that because they're in a position of authority that Automatically means that they have the sufficient knowledge to make decisions on foreign policy," he said, before saying bluntly that they do not.

He used a hypothetical bill on U.S. relations with Guatemala to make the point. A lawmaker who does not "know about Guatemalan affairs" will defer to whoever claims expertise, he said, and in Washington those people often hold positions the left opposes.

"Most of the people that don't know anything will just listen to their staff or they'll listen to the think tanks," Piker said.

El-Sayed said in his speech that Michiganders do not want their "money sent to do apartheid or genocide or war." On Iran, House Democrats have been united: when the House passed a resolution on September 15 directing the president to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran, all 213 Democrats who voted backed it, along with seven Republicans.

Piker Recalls Working for a Member of Congress

Piker based his argument about staff influence on his own experience. "When I work for a Congress person, they literally just asked the staff every morning how they should vote," he said, adding that this was often true even on issues that drew a flood of constituent calls. "They're just extremely lazy," he said.

That is one person's account, but research supports the idea that aides carry real weight. A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Matto Mildenberger and Leah C. Stokes surveyed senior congressional staffers. It found that they "systematically mis-estimate constituent opinions," and that aides who relied most on conservative and business groups for policy information had the most skewed views of what voters want.

The Think Tank Gap Hasan Piker Describes

"We don't have the" "parallel institutions," Piker said, while the other side has had "a hundred plus years of runway." He called for think tanks that "put out policy papers That offer these super simple turnkey solutions for our legislators."

The gap in money is large. Federal tax filings show the Council on Foreign Relations, founded in 1921, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies each spend many times what restraint-oriented groups do. That includes the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which brings together anti-war progressives and conservatives, and Defense Priorities.

Without a bench of its own, Piker warned, lawmakers end up taking bills written by lobbyists and outside groups. In his words, "this process makes you into a DC demon."

What Comes Next for Piker's Staff Pipeline

His answer is people. He described "the policy-minded folks the Socialists that are unironically coming from this community that are poli sci majors that are gonna graduate that are gonna go to the Hill." He urged them to staff progressive members and "work through the ranks in these institutions like Democratic Socialists of America," and perhaps one day to run for office themselves.

Piker's audience is now part of the story. Earlier in the campaign, Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan cited the streamer as one reason she endorsed Republican nominee Mike Rogers, and he told viewers Tuesday that being treated as a political "villain" showed how much influence they had gained.

El-Sayed, who has since offered to work with Donald Trump on some issues, takes office in January. Whether the institutions Piker described exist by then to help him and other new progressive members is a separate question.