Controversial leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker argued that the ‘American Empire’ is in a righteous, inevitable decline.
Hasan Piker addressing the YPU. (Credit: Sygne Stole)
Emily Akbar
Campus Reporting Editor, The Buckley Beacon
On Tuesday evening, the Yale Political Union hosted the leftist political commentator Hasan Piker to debate the resolution “Resolved: End the American Empire.” Piker, who began his career as a journalist for the progressive The Young Turks show, is best-known for his daily streams on that platform Twitch, where he has amassed around 3 million followers. Indeed, Piker’s appearance drew a full house in Sterling-Sheffield-Strathcona’s lecture hall.
Piker is often the subject of scrutiny from past controversial comments, which include when he once said America “deserved” the September 11 attacks, though he later apologized. He has also been accused of antisemitism, having been a vocal critic of Israel. Last week, Piker campaigned with Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, a progressive candidate who caught flak from Jewish and right-wing political groups for appearing with Hasan during the event.
Last Friday, Senator Rick Scott of Florida criticized the YPU for choosing to host Piker, and called for the Trump administration to revoke Yale’s federal funds in response. Scott referenced one of Piker’s comments he made on Twitch when he urged his followers to “kill Rick Scott” for committing the “largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history.”
On X, Scott wrote, “This is WILD. I spoke at the Yale Political Union last year on why we need to buy made in America products. Now, they are hosting a guy who said I should be killed. An elite private university that hosts an antisemite who says a Senator should be killed, capitalists should be killed, and the U.S. deserved 9/11, shouldn’t get ONE CENT from taxpayers.”
Piker’s opening remarks in a packed Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall, drew on history, explaining Piker’s understanding of the phases of the American empire. According to Piker, the American empire began with the Spanish-American War and expanded significantly after World War II. During the Cold War, he argued that interventions under the guise of anti-communism really prioritized corporate and geopolitical interests. One of his examples of unjust U.S. intervention included when the CIA organized a coup d’etat in Guatemala in 1954 on behalf of the United Fruit Company. He characterized the intervention as the CIA diplomatically and economically isolating Guatemala to throw out its socialist government, condemning the country to poverty and corporate exploitation.
The reception of Piker’s message appeared mixed. Some strongly worded statements drew stomps of agreement from the crowd, while others invited disapproving hisses. “It is my personal opinion that the contemporary world is moved by the ideas that served as the foundation on which Hitler rose to power,” Piker proclaimed, to which the audience responded in a wave of hisses.
A few moments later, Piker drew stomps of approval after saying, “In place after place, time after time, the United States can never settle down its imperial bloodlust, this forever hunt for manifest destiny. We can draw a straight line from indigenous massacres of the early United States to the 20th century killing fields that we have created in the third world.”
Quoting figures like founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, and Ghanaian socialist Kwame Nkrumah, Piker argued that U.S. imperialism is tied to capitalist expansion. He explained how the system benefits “parasitic international capital” and not ordinary people. Domestically, he argued that Americans are bearing the cost of the empire due to rising living costs and increased policing.
Piker also asserted that the decline of the American empire is inevitable, citing a loss in credibility and internal crumbling exacerbated by the Trump administration.
“And one of the lessons that not only we are learning, but the rest of our security partners are learning, is that in the absence of soft power, the 800 military bases that we have all around the world can very quickly turn into 800 separate invasions, or in the case of the Gulf nations, it can turn into missile sponges at the behest of Israel almost overnight,” Piker warned to a hissing audience.
In preparing for this decline, Piker said, “Empires never die quietly, and we must end the American empire regardless, but we must manage the retreat of a superpower from the world stage. This is a challenge for our time. Actually, this is the challenge for our time, because if we do not do this, then the American empire will come to an end in a much more violent way, a curse on future generations that we must avoid at all costs.”
Kai Shan Kwek-Rupp ’28 of the Progressive Party argued against the resolution, claiming that the American empire is greatly preferable to any other type of empire. Kwek-Rupp explained that the American empire extends beyond military presence, but is also evident in technology, finance, and economics, citing American satellites to the U.S. dollar. Kwek-Rupp also argued that Piker lacks a “theory of power,” as he fails to address that the fall of the American empire would lead to the rise of a new one.
“Power does not evaporate. And I think it’s telling that he would agree with me when he says that it was a tragedy that the USSR fell, because suddenly there’s a power vacuum, and there were real big problems that sprouted from that. I would posit the fall of the American empire would lead to a very similar situation,” Kwek-Rupp argued.
“Mr. Piker, because you like Mao so much, I’ll end with a quote of his that I think you would do well to study,” Kwek-Rupp said before quoting the Chinese revolutionary in Mandarin, drawing a loud, approving reaction from the crowd. “Did you get that? It’s political power grows out the barrel of a gun. We do not want a violent world due to a power struggle when American empire falls.”
Kika Dunayevich ’29, in a rebuttal to Kwek-Rupp’s speech, argued that America has sustained a violent and imperialist order that has setback the climate crisis, supported the Israeli state, and participated in coups worldwide.
“This barbarous monstrosity, this regime of terror and destruction and death that we have created, must be destroyed,” Dunayevich said.
Bryce Falkhoff ’29 of the Party of the Right spoke in the affirmative and argued that the American empire is already “dead.” Falkhoff, however, claimed that “empires are inherently good” which solicited gasps from the audience.
“When conflicts can be simplified down to ‘in-groups’ and dehumanized ‘out-groups,’ forcing other nations under one ‘in-group’ is bound to reduce out-group villainization and conflict, ” Falkhoff explained. “The world needs dominance for peace and if this is a sort of utopic end, then certainly the ends justify the means,” he furthered.
In Piker’s closing remarks, he acknowledged that there is always going to be power, but what we do with that power is what is most important.
“I say we put the power back in the hands of many. Rather than, if a dictatorship is inevitable, I’d rather have it be a dictatorship of the proletariat,” he concluded, echoing a famous Marxist phrase.
The resolution ultimately passed 54-31 with 3 abstaining.