Watch someone like Twitch's it-boy Hasan Piker talk about politics on his stream for an hour, and you'll realize two things. One, you're never getting that hour back, and two, he is incredibly talented at skirting obvious truths to misdirect the conversation into something that benefits his perspective.
In fact, if you step back and listen to a lot of left-leaning "influencers," you'll realize this is a talent they all seem to have in spades.
It's a strategy that works very well in the moment because it often leaves people who aren't trained in the art of BS-fu to come up with a response that addresses this new point when they were prepared to answer another. The issue is that when the stream ends and the lights go off, the questions and issues that were avoided are still on the table.
Leftist influencers are often lambasted for what they say, and rightfully so, but more often than not, it's what they don't say that should — and often does — get even more scrutiny. What they avoid talking about is usually what erodes public interest in their perspectives and exposes them as frauds or grifters.
Since before Donald Trump's election, the left has been trying to find its influencers. The desperate quest to find the left's "Joe Rogan" has been met with some interesting results. Interesting, but never good.
Piker was at the top of the list, but it quickly became clear that while the leftist fanboys on Twitch might like him, no one else does. Indeed, if you watch Piker for long enough, you'll come to find he's kind of a weird, obsessive, angry person who is both fearful and hateful of his audience, and is locked into saying and doing whatever he can to make sure he pleases the radicals that have attached themselves to him to remain in his comfortable bubble.
There've been others the left tried to elevate to no success. They wheeled out a string of Gen-Z kids they trained from youth to be influencers, like Harry Sisson. They attempted to make it seem like he was a grassroots Gen-Z supporter of the Democrat Party, but it became clear he was an astroturf attempt to convince younger people to support the Democrats. Sisson and Co. ended up being so cringeworthy that I'm pretty sure they ended up pushing young voters away.
Sisson suffered much the same problem as Piker. Absolute adherence to the leftist narrative and agenda, no sign of original thought, and what he avoided saying became louder than what he was saying.
Then, of course, you have other contenders trying to rise up. Dean Withers is the poster child of Gen-Z leftism, styling himself as a "debate bro," while being over-dramatic, easily triggered, and — once again — doing his absolute best to avoid addressing inconvenient points, sometimes going so far as trying to dox callers on his show live on air to have CPS take their children away.
Read: Watch: Gen Z TDS Sufferer Attempts to Dox a Father to Have CPS Take His Children Away Live on TikTok
Now, another has risen in Zee Cohen-Sanchez.
LMAO! Democrats have a new plan to save their failing political party…create a 'leftist @charliekirk11 '
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 11, 2025
pic.twitter.com/hvNTK53mfo
As Charlie Kirk himself points out, it's more than just setting up a booth on a college campus and arguing with people. He sacrificed a lot, traveled almost non-stop, exhausted his body to breaking points, and all while enemies tried to bring his efforts down through various means. Building TPUSA has taken a long time to do, and required back-breaking work to do it.
Is someone on the left capable of that? I'm not entirely sure, and it seems even Cohen-Sanchez is asking for the DNC to put up funds to create it, meaning another astroturf organization that will ultimately suffer from the same problems because leftist influencers can't get around the same problem they all have: The truth hurts them.
Instead of addressing the harm of illegal immigration directly, they resort to platitudes and virtue signaling about helping the less fortunate, effectively dismissing the crime, murders, rape, and trafficking in the process, and making their moral high ground look insubstantial.
They won't address the transgender issue when it comes to women's spaces and sports, including stolen awards, unfair conditions, and even sexual assaults against women, to — again — resort to guilt-based arguing about oppression and bigotry, most of which is based on lies anyway.
The same can be said about their race-based arguments. They don't want to tackle the hard truths about black-on-black violence, the effects of welfare and handouts on the black community, or anti-white racism that has created unpopular programs like DEI-based policies.
These influencers can't succeed because addressing these issues with any honesty immediately loses them the hearts and minds they want to capture.
The right rarely has this issue because we're not trying to create an idealistic Utopia; we're just trying to use what works to create the best civilization we can. If a fact is incontrovertibly inconvenient, then it's a sign that what we were doing wasn't working, and it's time to move on.
Think of it this way: The left is constantly firing from a fixed position, while the right's strategy is "fire and maneuver." Leftists might be dug in, but it's not hard to flank them. They lose battle after battle because this is how they fight ideologically.
Until the left ditches its radicalism and becomes a bit more centrist and willing to compromise, it will never find its "influencer."
