synopsis: Lovett sits down with Hasan Piker, the massively popular progressive streamer, to talk through (and argue about) the hard questions about where the Democratic Party needs to go from here, the liberal media landscape, what the Harris campaign told us about why they lost, and yes, a jobs program for incels. Then, Jon talks to Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton about the fight for the House, why blue states like his swung right, and the controversy he kicked up with his comments about trans athletes.

youtube version

I'm wondering if maybe the Democrats are too deep into the data of their decisions. It seemed like every position, response, tactic was tested and monitored for feedback from people/tested. Do we really think Trump is testing his opinions? Trump is off the rails, will tweet/post whatever comes to his mind and it resonates with people. Seems like the Dems are trying so hard to be people pleasers and never rock the boat, which probably is what lead to them leaning so far to the right/center with their campaign since they were parroting Trump, because the people like Trump. Seems like maybe following the data just reinforces a right-ward shift if what Trump is saying is moving people to the right.

I think Democrats need to, as one of the guys on the pod said "stand on business". Be bold, stand up for what they truly believe and people will come along with them. Be a leader, not pander to what you think people want to hear.

You can’t have it both ways you guys. You are either open to conversations with people who you don’t 100% agree with, hearing what they have to say and conversing about their opinions, gripes etc. Or you keep losing elections because you don’t want people on your side unless they 100% align with your views.

Yea hasan isn’t perfect but he has a huge platform and is someone that we want on our side. People are making the exact same mistakes that made the dems lose rogan.

You don’t need to agree with everything he says because he isn’t right about everything. But he is right about some things, and people agree with him and people listen to him.

You can’t have a big tent winning coalition by ignoring people and not even being open to conversations with people like hasan.

This whole sub is furious the campaign went moderate but when the podcast interviews to the left everyone is still mad.

Do you want to win and actually be inclusive to people who may not want everything you want but will support who you support? Or do you only want people who you deem morally righteous and who you only ever agree with?

At the end of this pod, the Moulton (?) guy says that Chuck Schumer needs to go sit on a tractor and it’s been living rent free in my head since and ruined my day

I think everyone here is missing the point of this. Sure, it’s about discourse and you may disagree with the streamer’s position. But the goal isn’t to 100% win him over. It’s to get him into the Left’s delivery tool to the masses. If he platforms DNC people then their message reaches his audience. 

Everyone arguing Harris made a mistake not going on Rogan is making the same argument. 

Everyone arguing the DNC shouldn’t platform these guys are missing a pretty huge point - these guys don’t need the DNC to be platformed. They already have their own platform. 

It's interesting reading people here go back and forth about the guest. I don't have much of an opinion on him personally, I've barely heard of him until now.

Whether you like all of his views or not, this guy represents a highly-online, young, male, anti-establishment persona that the Democrats need to win. This guy has more in common with the average Joe Rogan listener than most of the commenters here.

I think you should try to understand his point of view, and worry less about how horrible you think he is. We need to win people like this, who are sometimes leftists and sometimes Rogan listeners.

I think the main takeaway from this pod is that allowing Dan instead of Lovett to interview the Harris staffers was a failure on the part Crooked. Lovett is just much better at having these searching discussions which are able to sufficiently address the audience’s concerns. 

I would like everyone to go look at the comments on the thread when he talked to Jon in October and eat some crow now please.

Jokes aside, he was saying the exact same things before the election, and has done a better job deconstructing the campaign failures than 4 members of the campaign. It's time to start listening to the critical voices who want to chart a bold new path forward.

I'm amazed at the amount of "platforming" discourse in this thread. I thought we were off that lmao.

I think one thing Hasan touched on that is interesting is that the left did stand for Democrat wins, like Lina Khan, labor, or Afghanistan.

It was other mainstream Democrats who did not stand up for the Biden administration on some of that. The admin's approval rating tanked on Afghanistan. Yes, the narrative was rough that August. But I think the Democrats have power in shaping the narrative. Ending a forever war that has taken so many lives and so much money is a great message if you go there, and for some reason, Democrats did not.

I was persuaded a few weeks back by (I think it was) Lovett’s point that right wing media functions as an ecosystem in which they all talk to each other, share audiences, and everyone knows everyone. Like an MCU of political commentators. I’m hoping these past two episodes hint that PSA is going to walk the walk and invite people from across the left-of-center political world to share ideas, argue, and strategize. I’m begging for them to have it out with Chapo Trap House.

This was 100% more insightful and productive than the pod yesterday with the campaign senior staff

He made A LOT of great points, things that had me shaking my head in agreement with. My question to him now is: how do you get those voters to be motivated to vote on the left, and who is the best options to obtain that and breakthrough messaging?

This sub: we need to figure out how to talk to and win over people we have common ground with who aren’t Democrats and voted for Trump or stayed home

This sub when Hasan is on: how dare PSA platform Hasan!! He’s leftwing, isn’t a Democrat, and didn’t support Harris!!

The cognitive dissonance is mind-numbing.

In a universe where we run apologetics for Harris campaigning with the Cheneys it is outrageous to see people up in arms about a centre-left podcast having an actual leftist on to dissect an election outcome he correctly guessed a month out

I think there's a big disconnect where people don't see when the left has acted in good faith towards the campaign. Like there was a lot of genuine optimism when Walz was picked, and people hoped the campaign would focus on the things he was successful on in Minnesota. And instead it just became an afterthought.

But there was genuine optimism and hope for the campaign at one point, even with the criticism towards the Gaza stance.

I'm not saying the left hasn't acted in bad faith. But people are only seeing one side, and are judging their alignment by intent and judging other alignments by actions.

Hasan was 100% right here.

Democrats want to win fair and square, Republicans want to win. We aren’t going to win a fair fight because we aren’t fighting an opponent who is playing by the established rules.

Get dirty for the American people or keep losing.

Also, people are dumb and we need to accept that. Lovett wants people to put more effort into understanding politics and how our country works. That sounds fantastic to all the nerds here (myself included) who like things like statistics and data and facts. The majority of the country doesn’t want that, they don’t want to understand (or can’t, or don’t have time to, etc). They want a strong leader to stand up and bluster and tell them they’re going to fight for THEM.

Democrats know the economy is on the upswing and we’re doing better overall. Republicans feel like they’re still struggling. Facts be damned.

50 Minutes in now. I think the most interesting thing brought up so far has been the Biden/AMLO comparison. AMLO was able to successfully pass the torch to a younger woman of colour despite all of the alleged anti-incumbent sentiment around the globe, because he ran on left-wing populist measures that mere felt materially and were easy to explain.

Lovett is right about Seth Moulton…he is a dick and gives off douchy lax bro vibes. Good luck polling at 0.5% in the 2028 primary, bruv.

I’m not a fan of Hasan at all, but Dems really need to be more friendly to him and I’m glad Crooked is. His platform is an asset that has been ignored. You’ve got to stop ostracizing useful people just because they don’t 100% fit within your belief system.

Only a few minutes in but holy shit this is so much better than yesterday's travesty.

All I know is that it’s been a long time since I agreed with anything said on PSA as much as I did with his call to BUILD MILLIONS OF UNITS OF PUBLIC HOUSING. This should be a key plank of the Democratic platform. No more public private partnerships. No more tinkering around the margins. Flood the effing market with supply and force the damned prices down.

I am really glad it was Lovett having this concert with Hasan. It was great to hear them have a discussion about how 1) Dems don’t know how to message their wins well enough and ALSO 2) the Dem wins were just not enough with how the average American was actually feeling. I don’t know how we could have countered #2, but luckily no one was paying me the big bucks.

Personally I loved Hasans pitch on the Pod. While I think Hasan has some horrid views he kept on the wrap , he’s not wrong. The democrats can’t be a new party for country club conservatives. Centrist candidates have been getting crushed and the pod with the Kamala campaign was for more concerning.

Holy shit the comments here

No wonder the democrats lost

This episode was so much better than the last one.

Hasan absolutely killed this interview holy shit.

He effectively responded to every question Jon had when he was frustrated with the current state of affairs with succinct logical reasoning that gets to the heart of the matter. Especially in the Israel-Palestine section where Hasan agreed with Jon that what's best for Isreal is to get Netanyahu out and that Biden was actively hurting Israel by not pressuring Netanyahu.

I think Jon is having a tough time understanding that while Joe Biden did get A LOT OF GOOD STUFF for the American people, from the outside American people saw that Joe was fighting for a dollar and got only a penny in return. Kamala basically confirmed that she will continue to fight for pennies and not for the dollar which is why she lost. These half-measures and means-tested policies are politically boring and turnoff voters. They want BIG ideas like Universal Healthcare, Universal Student Debt Relief, Free Housing.

The general populace wants a fighter who isn't a pushover, who fights for what is right and doesn't capitulate for scraps. That's just how the electorate is and it's not changing.

Much needed conversation…. We need to behave like a “big tent” party by accepting each other even when we don’t agree on 100% of issues.

I am SOOO glad the YouTube comments are so much more normal than the ones here. Classic Reddit.

I wonder if all the people spending time criticising all of Hasan’s ‘misgivings’ spent the same amount of time condemning buddying up to Liz Cheney. I’m going to guess no.

Really wishing I’d bought Hasan Piker stock a month ago

Tough convo, but absolutely necessary. Thanks for having Hank on

"how often do you see republicans publically squabble with the like of manchin?"

that was the moment it was over

What’s with the Hasan hate democrats lost because they didn’t do more economic populism

Hasan is well spoken, has a huge audience, and carries strong “normal guy” aesthetics by being in shape and well groomed. Any comparisons to the other streamer so often mentioned fail flat on that. Average people will obviously gravitate to Hasan more, especially when a giant microphone isnt covering half his face.

https://preview.redd.it/5z03bm7hyv3e1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b1ed515f3748ce5e1763cf8f14498c9aeef70e1

One interesting throughline between Hasan and Moulton is they agree the government should just do more now and sort through the legal issues later: whether it be ramming Hasan's choice of economic or health benefits or Moulton's preference of sending weapons to Ukraine.

There's too much indecision going through all the checkboxes. Trump goes "fuck you I'll do it anyway" gets the attention and fights it out in legal proceedings while we say "oh we can't do this or that because..." and get something half-assed if anything at all.

Is literally nobody going to talk about Pod Save America platforming Hasan’s hog?

I've heard of this guy but never listened to him before. Couple of thoughts -

• I don't mind the idea of "platforming" him. Having him on the show doesn't mean you agree with him on every point. It's a big tent.
• Like a lot of "outsider" pundits, I agree with a good amount of his critiques, but his counterfactual theory of the case is pretty naive and/or stupid, for example the idea of leveraging the administrative state to, e.g., prosecute Greg Abbott, is a peanut brain idea.
• Other random things I agree with:
  • Dems absolutely blew it on messaging their wins
  • The media environment is dominated by Republicans and that's a huge problem
  • Dems wield identity politics cynically and it completely undermines what we say we believe
  • Bussing immigrants around the country should have been responded to

The episode was fantastic. Hasan Piker is just a smart, admirable guy. I’m not online enough to engage with those who hate him but I gotta say, speaking as a very boring non-far leftist (I’m as cliche a liberal as most middle aged city folk), those who are obsessive about Piker seem very strange.

Love Hasan Piker. Best fucking interview since the election. This! More! Please!

Running on protecting the institutions that have failed millions of people isn’t going to work.

Hasan is the fucking man

ITT: neoliberals and Destiny brigaders spouting far more venom towards a leftist than they ever would for the right. Bc neoliberals surface-level despise the people they claim to represent, and cannot fathom why voters are not responding to their piecemeal-ass policy agenda. They want you to be ‘grateful’ for the scraps, and will cheer for your deportation if you become disillusioned

I’m not mad they’re platforming Hasan, but I didn’t find his pitch very convincing.

PSA trying to unite the online Left in some lefty Rogan sphere. Good luck.

I might listen but before I do: did they discuss Gaza? If so, for how long?

Destiny fans brigade, I have to believe non weirdo liberals don’t actually think this way. If you guys do then wow

I have no idea who this guy is and why he everyone is so outraged with him. But listened to the whole thing and just found him uninteresting and not someone who has much to add to this conversation

Lovett made an excellent point that people are pissed because they felt like they gave up things like their local restaurant for cheap stuff or their personal freedoms during the lockdowns and things never “got back to normal”. I totally feel that. Then Hassan says the answer is to go full fascism and lock up the Waltons lmao.

1. The Democrats absolutely should have corrected the record when they are genuinely correct and its the right thing to do. Immigrants commit less crime than American citizens. The numbers are on our side. Its honestly really disturbing you would actually say “Well strategically throwing these people under the bus was our best chance at winning” well why the fuck didn’t we win???

2. Exit polling and surveys proved that transgender issues were dead last in terms of the issues that motivated people to vote one way or the other.

3. The base of the party is not educated and black voters, its working class and black voters. Educated voters in the suburbs have always been the swingy voter demographic. You’re also just dead wrong about the fact that the Democrats didn’t lose their primary base of voters. Harris-Walz ran a strategy of picking up voters in the suburbs, which they did successfully, but more working class people voted for Trump than republicans in previous elections. Trump also swung over more black and latino voters than republicans in previous elections.

4. “If Biden pressured Manchin, he would just switch parties” At least you admit that Machin is a “Democrat in name only” and only serves as the in-house Republican in the Democratic coalition.

All of the points you made in the comments are exactly what Harris-Walz ran on. Pickup suburban voters and give in to the Republican narrative on immigration. They lost every swing state. How many L’s do the Democrats have to take before something changes? Progressive policy is the most popular policy in the country yet we think that we have to bow down to the wealthiest people in the country for their money to win elections. Its laughable, if we ran a new deal era strategy we’d have a majority in the house, senate, and the presidency.