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🌊 Two Visions for the Future of America

Hasan Piker’s reaction to Tucker Carlson sheds light on where American politics are headed

July 18, 2025

Hasan Piker and Tucker Carlson

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By Max Frost

Hasan Piker may be the left’s most prominent online commentator; Tucker Carlson, perhaps the right’s. 

Piker considers Carlson a fascist, white nationalist extremist; Carlson rails against “Marxists” like Piker on a daily basis. But the pair share a crucial point: A diagnosis of the plight of young Americans. 

This became clear in a viral clip from Piker’s show this week. 

Piker – the 33-year-old streamer notorious among Republicans for saying that "America deserved 9/11” –  released the clip as a video entitled, “TUCKER CARLSON IS MORE SCARY THAN TRUMP.”

The discussion provides an invaluable look at where American politics may be headed. 

Piker zeroed in on a clip of Tucker giving a speech: 

It's especially bad the young people can't afford homes. Let me just put a very precise point on this. If you want a measure of how your economy is doing, I personally favor eliminating GDP as a measure. I don't even know what that is
GDP? No. I don't know what even that is. The ‘total economic activity.’ Oh, no. No. My measure is really simple: I’ve got a bunch of kids. Can they afford houses with full-time jobs at like 27, 28? And the answer is no way. And the answer is that 35 year-olds with really good jobs can't afford a house unless they stretch and go deep into debt.

Tucker continued:

And I just think that's a total disaster. That's a complete disaster. Why? Two reasons. One, if people don't own things, they don't feel ownership of the country they're in and the country gets super volatile because people feel like they've got nothing to lose. When you have a lawn, trust me, you're thinking long term. Second, it's really hard to have a family without a house
Try to have three kids. You're not going to have three kids there. You can't
.Nobody wants to raise their kids in an apartment. People do it because they have to. Nobody wants to.

And he concludes: 

People want a little house, not some McMansion, just a little normal house. That is the actual American dream. And that is what is totally unattainable for young people.

Tucker later calls for deporting all illegal immigrants in the US. Taken together, he sets out a large part of the vision for right-wing economic populism in the US: Giving working-class people ownership of things, rejecting traditional economic benchmarks like GDP, and curbing immigration.

Piker then responds with the left-wing vision.

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Editor’s Note

The ascendant political forces in the US right now appear to be right- and left-wing populism, as embodied by Trump and MAGA and Democrats like Zohran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Do you all think these trends will continue? Will anything derail the rise of populism? Will the Democrats embrace it in 2028 or not? Let us know by replying to this email.

Also, a correction: Jerome Powell’s term on the Fed board ends in 2028, not 2026. Only his Fed chairmanship ends that year. Thank you to the reader who pointed that out. 

Thanks to those who wrote in about Jerome Powell. Here are a couple of the replies:

Lee wrote:

It's difficult to see such an important institution be so ravaged by the president. Looking at countries without an independent central bank, there's definitely not one I'd want to live in. 

And Shane from Texas wrote:

I think there are multiple issues here. Number 1, most of America has been struggling with inflation and stretching a dollar. The Fed is spending hundreds of million dollars on their facility which is a slap in the face to average Americans now,  saying that, I voted for Trump three times because I didn’t feel like I had a choice based on who was running against him.  I like somethings he has done and hate other things.  I hate that he acts like an impudent child at times and I would rather my president not call people dummies among other things.  It’s the pinnacle of unprofessional conduct.  Yet he has done some good things, but I think he needs to temper his public comments and not undermine the Fed to where it causes an economic meltdown.  This could have been handled in private meetings with Powell and had him step down.  Instead of publicly attacking him, because if I was Powell, I would be saying ok, bring it on we can drag each other through the muck publicly.  Even though Trump doesn't seem to mind muckraking unfortunately

And in case you missed them, find our past five stories below:

Thanks, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

—Max and Max