The shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has prompted a flood of threats from conservatives toward those on the left, including one person known for holding debates with Kirk.
Twitch streamer and influencer Hasan Piker was scheduled to debate Kirk at Dartmouth Political Union in a few weeks. Piker's feed is filled with threats against him — enough to make him want to pause his public events until people calm down.
Speaking to Politico Magazine, Piker acknowledged that it's "one fear that’s always in the back of your mind when you engage in any sort of political advocacy when you do these events."
"I received death threats even before this, all the time, nonstop," he explained. 'It’s almost seen as a part of the industry."
Death threats aren't new to him, just as they weren't to Kirk, but "watching that unfold in real time was devastating," he said.
He will likely give some time for the "temperature to lower a little bit," and hopes to continue doing events similar to those he did with Kirk.
"While it feels like there’s an air of vengeance right now, with a lot of people immediately being like, 'Well, we got to go and kill people,' even naming myself and saying, 'We’re going to go kill Hasan in retaliation,' there are a lot of people that are just very angry and frustrated, and want to redirect it toward those who they believe are responsible for this," said Piker.
"There’s a social contract that everyone abides by," he continued. "When they consistently feel like that social contract is getting violated with regular frequency, oftentimes due to the structural violence that they experience — poverty, things of that nature, the affordability crisis that people are experiencing, housing is incredibly costly, health care is incredibly costly. The only method of upward social mobility throughout history has been to get a college education. That’s incredibly costly. Everything seems unaffordable."
"Everything seems worse than it was for the previous generation," Piker added. "And I think that’s what we have to solve. If we don’t solve that, people are going to continue to grow frustrated and angry. People are resentful. People are more malleable, more susceptible to radicalization and they are more willing to act out in a violent manner when they feel like there’s no hope, there’s no other option."