This guy’s dad is the former VP of a multibillion dollar Turkish conglomerate, as well as the secretary of a government department. Mom and Dad were able to fly to their other home in NJ to give birth so he’d get US citizenship. His uncle is the founder and owner of TYT Media and gave him his media career. He went to Rutgers. He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills. This is by definition not the kind of person who can be a voice of the People. Saying “I recognize my privilege” over and over, while living his lifestyle, doesn’t negate his privilege and complete lack of real-life experience outside of the curated garden of the wealthy. He gets paid obscene amounts of cash to sit in his bedroom and word-vomit for 9 hours a day. Why are his unending opinions taken so seriously? He gives me strong controlled opposition vibes.
Citation needed.
Hasan has the same knowledge as an average poster on this website. The average poster doesn’t know the differences between Mao and Lenin or China and USSR. Half the posters on this site don’t even understand the disagreements between the movements they claim to like.
Hasan literally would tell you this is nerd shit as a deflection when asked (same thing that Felix from Chapo does cuz it’s cool not to know basic history about the thing you claim to be). Hasan literally doesn’t know how to employ the basics of journalism. When pinned against the wall Hasan will admit that he’s entertainment. What you’re mistaking for knowledge is the fact that he reads leftist news aggregators all day and his chat is literally one. That’s not knowledge that’s chattering.
Hasan’s strength is that he can understand what vaguely center-to-center-leftish normies vibe with and find convincing, he’s a filter, but there’s no real depth there.
Half the responses in here are like “he’s organizing the working class” which is the lulziest shit ever because for some reason y’all think organizing is posting memes and streaming.
There’s no alternative to Hasan right now in the left online space. Look at the top streamers on election day. They’re all right-wing except for him. We’re going to have to start with people like him, AOC, or Bernie if we want to move the needle in this country. Organizing 20 people in your local communist book club doesn’t matter if your movement is constantly demonized in the media and never grows. I don’t think some in the left seem to understand how important propaganda is, and yes, even online. Even Lenin worked on newspapers.
Not saying he’s anything close to Lenin, but no one else is in the position to step up right now. It’s going to take someone with enough money to not have to rely on mainstream media companies to say the shit he does, and the aesthetic to reach the Gen Z people and normies all the other guys are reaching. Other people can’t afford to be kicked out of the DNC for talking to Palestine protestors like he was. Right now the only people I can think of on the left with any outreach are a couple niche podcasters and academics doing a couple YouTube vids.
Fun fact I watched Hasan’s election day stream so keep that in mind as you read my reply!
The beginning of this argument reeks of “there is no alternative to capitalism”. We do not have to accept things simply because there is no “better” popular alternative. This is the argument that Democrats use to bully and denigrate voters.
Firstly, Lenin and Hasan are worlds apart. Lenin’s propaganda was hard theory. Hasan is vague “I want things to be better”. Lenin never shied away from putting his chips down on the table in tough intra-left questions. Hasan doesn’t even address any tough intra-left questions, he’s not even at that level. Lenin literally lead the 1905 Revolution after being out of prison for 5 years. Hasan has been posting for more than 5 years and hasn’t really moved the political needle in this country appreciably.
Hasan is the Jon Stewart of anyone that’s left of “progressives”. The same non-ideological criticisms of Stewart apply directly to Hasan. Jon Stewart hasn’t done very much to move that needle either. Popular entertainment is important to have people be open to ideas, but it does not equal political activity. Hasan is actually worse than Jon Stewart in this regard because Hasan hasn’t even made his own brand of political rally unlike the lib Jon Stewart.
Organizing history in the US shows you don’t even need propaganda, you just need to meet people where their at and talk to them about what their problems are. “Winning Gen Z” is such a Democrat beltway insider tactic that’s consistently a loser. Charging those with the least experience in the world to change it is quite literally the best way to fail, it’s not a surprise that “youngism” has been the call of the Democratic party on the ground despite having a gerontocracy that controls the party. There is simply no real durable through line from Hasan to making socialism. He’s just a guy people watch.
There is no theory of change or path to power here. You have literally foreclosed that yourself by pointing this out. Hasan is an entertainer, and he softens views but it literally does not translate into power because in our system the left is structurally disenfranchised.
Hasan does not address this. It’s simply hand waved away.
To put this another way, we don’t have a democracy. There has been consistent popular overwhelming majority grass root support for many social welfare programs in the US over the last 30 years, M4A, rescheduling marijuana, etc.
This doesn’t translate into change, because of the structures of our system. Hasan could make 66% of the country believe n socialism overnight and nothing would change because the theory of change that underpins that assumption is wrong about the structures of the US government.
It’s the same problem that Bernie had. His theory of change did not account for the reality of the political structure. Which is why both of his campaigns failed. There was no answer to that, it was simply hoping for the best and ignoring the possibility of the worst rather than having a contingency for it.
For all the hate that you get for people like Jon Stewart or Voldomir Zelenskyy they are literally the logical ends that Hasan can rise to. That’s pretty much it, and in reality anyone who actually knows Ukranian politics knows that Zelenskyy’s personal political views have almost nothing to do with Zelenskyy’s decisions anymore because he’s so structurally compromised by the Ukranian political arrangement and the geopolitcal arrangement that you could replace him with a random off the street and more or less the same outcomes would occur. So President Hasan would be as libbed up as possible.
Hasan is a great entertainer and but he trafficks in the most basic understandings of shit, that’s what makes him a great entertainer. There’s nothing happening outside of the basics. The idea that “if only people knew” is not powerful in reality, because people know, people feel it, that’s the whole argument of Marxism the sociological philosophy. In this day and age everyone has the tools and materials to educate themselves for this stuff. It’s not the 20th century where you have to figure out how to get your hands on printed materials of Marx or whoever. This shit is freely available at marxists.org, libcom.org, Wikipedia, etc. The amount of people that go through that is minuscule compared to the amount that watch a Hasan stream.
Hasan is the perfect example of Wittigenstien’s Ladder, because the type of person who becomes a “big boy socialist” through Hasan effectively would agree with criticisms of Hasan despite liking him. Once you start to do actual organizing and actual mutual aid you see how fake the online shit is. The majority of his audience are more involved with his beef with H3 than they are involved with actually doing good works.
It’s great that people’s personal journey to leftist organizing might have started with Hasan, but that’s a small percentage of the people in his orbit. Hasan himself would be leery of claiming to be some great leftist guy, his party line is the same as ChapoTrapHouse, this isn’t news, this isn’t organizing, this isn’t leftism, this isn’t real, this is entertainment.
A lot of the defensiveness in this thread is literally based on the personal and not the systemic, it’s incredibly parasocial and incredibly toxic to the growth of the people who are putting themselves in that position. For many Hasan’s worth is a mirror of their own worth, that’s what parasocial relationships are.
Make your point by insulting the intelligence of the people you’re trying to make your point to
Very smart move
You seem to believe that I think I can convince others.
I think I cannot because the love and defense of Hasan doesn’t come from an objective place at all. I’m merely shitposting. There are people deifying him in this thread and all over the internet.