Antisemitism has found a comfortable home in American politics, and the fight over where to draw the line is now being waged inside the Democratic Party itself. In a recent essay for American Thinker, author Judd Dunning argues that the hatred of Jews has been dressed up in the language of political sophistication, allowing people who would never tolerate racism against other groups to rationalize anti-Jewish bigotry as a matter of principle.
The essay centers on the October 7, 2023 attacks, when Hamas and other terrorists crossed into Israel, killed approximately 1,200 people, and took 251 civilians hostage, including Americans. The United Nations later found reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the attacks and against hostages in captivity. Dunning argues that what should have been a moment of universal horror instead became an opportunity for some to reframe the victims as villains.
The Torres letter
Enter Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres, who Dunning praises as a rare figure willing to confront extremism from his own side. In a letter to Amazon and Twitch, Torres called popular streamer Hasan Piker “the poster child for the post-October 7th outbreak of antisemitism in America.” The letter cited Piker referring to Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” describing a Jewish man as a “bloodthirsty pig dog,” and saying “it doesn’t matter if rapes happened on October 7th.”
Piker’s rhetoric, Torres argued, is being amplified by Twitch to millions of viewers. Dunning contends that this is not mere vulgarity but a symptom of a deeper ideological disease: when you divide the world into oppressors and the oppressed, facts that complicate the narrative cease to matter. Rape becomes irrelevant when it doesn’t fit the story. Murder becomes excusable when the victims are on the wrong side of the political ledger. Terrorism gets reclassified as “resistance.”
A bigger pattern
Piker’s controversies extend beyond Israel. He has declared that “America deserved 9/11” and said he had “no issue” with Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization linked to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 American service members. Dunning notes that Piker has presented himself in the imagery of Vladimir Lenin and called the collapse of the Soviet Union one of the great catastrophes of the 20th century.
What makes this more than a social media scandal is Piker’s growing influence in Democratic electoral politics. He campaigned for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary and will face Republican Mike Rogers in November—a race that could help determine control of the U.S. Senate. El-Sayed called Piker’s remark “dumb” but dismissed criticism of their relationship as “gotcha politics.” Piker itself presented El-Sayed’s victory as evidence that his movement is gaining national strength.
Free speech and blowback
The backlash has been real. The University of Washington canceled a Piker appearance scheduled for its 2026-27 Speaker Series, citing a failure to meet the necessary standard of rigor, while Piker claimed his criticism of Israel was the real reason. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, defended Piker on free-speech grounds and communicated her concerns to the university.
Dunning is careful to draw a distinction: Piker has the right to speak, but that right doesn’t protect him from criticism. The constitutional question, he writes, is not the same as the moral question. And the moral line should be clear.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer and Republican Congressman Mike Lawler introduced a resolution condemning antisemitic rhetoric by prominent online personalities, specifically naming Piker and Candace Owens. They called on public figures and social media platforms to reject the normalization of antisemitism regardless of its ideological origin. Antisemitism doesn’t become acceptable when it’s repackaged as revolutionary socialism.
The enemy inside the gates
For Dunning, the real enemy is not a race or religion but an ideology that rationalizes cruelty by categorizing people into groups—colonizers, capitalists, Zionists, oppressors. Once individuals are replaced by categories, he argues, cruelty becomes easy to excuse. That is what the post-October 7 explosion of antisemitism is revealing: a willingness among some to explain why victims were implicated in their own murders.
He also takes pains to note that criticizing Israeli policy is not the same as antisemitism. There is a vast moral and intellectual gap between questioning a government and celebrating the murder of Jews. October 7 shattered the bargain by which Israel was told it must absorb threats and rockets to avoid destabilizing the region.
The Democratic Party now faces a decision. Torres understands the stakes, Dunning argues, because he is fighting the battle inside his own coalition. Piker’s politics are moving from the fringe into the mainstream of the party’s activist infrastructure, and El-Sayed’s victory makes that question unavoidable.
“October 7 happened,” Dunning writes. “The rape, murder, and kidnapping were real.” Neither Palestinian suffering nor opposition to Israeli policy justifies antisemitism or excuses Hamas. That should be an easy line to draw. Ritchie Torres has drawn it. The disturbing question is why so many others still cannot.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/08/the-radical-stupidity-of-antisemitism-the-enemy-inside-the-gates/