Dem Rep. Hillary Scholten Shreds Hasan Piker for Targeting Jewish Lawmaker

August 25, 2026
6:12 am

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Rep. Hillary Scholten’s rebuke of Hasan Piker lands like a warning shot across the bow of the far-left’s increasingly open hostility toward Jewish lawmakers who refuse to denounce Israel. By calling out Piker for spotlighting Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss on a livestream, Scholten is drawing a line that many Democrats have been reluctant to touch: the moment when “criticism of Israel” morphs into targeting individual Jewish politicians for their faith and heritage. For the 2A community, this episode is a reminder that the same ideological currents pushing to delegitimize Jewish self-defense abroad are the ones that frame American gun owners as inherently suspect for exercising their own right to self-defense at home. The optics matter. Piker’s audience skews young, online, and primed to view any pro-Israel stance as moral failure; when that rhetoric singles out a Jewish lawmaker by name and image, it echoes the historical pattern of painting Jews as disloyal or dangerous for prioritizing their community’s security. Gun owners have watched parallel language used against them—portrayed as extremists for owning the very tools that historically protected minorities when governments would not. Scholten’s pushback suggests even some Democrats recognize that once a political faction normalizes the idea that certain citizens forfeit legitimacy for defending their own, the slope gets slippery fast. For Second Amendment advocates, the takeaway is strategic as well as philosophical. Coalitions built on mutual respect for self-defense—whether that means a Jewish state’s right to exist or an American citizen’s right to keep and bear arms—are more durable than temporary alliances of convenience. When prominent voices on the left begin policing their own ranks against ethnic scapegoating, it creates breathing room for pro-2A messaging that emphasizes individual responsibility over collective punishment. The faster that norm reasserts itself, the harder it becomes for any faction to paint either gun owners or Jewish Americans as acceptable targets.

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The optics matter. Piker’s audience skews young, online, and primed to view any pro-Israel stance as moral failure; when that rhetoric singles out a Jewish lawmaker by name and image, it echoes the historical pattern of painting Jews as disloyal or dangerous for prioritizing their community’s security. Gun owners have watched parallel language used against them—portrayed as extremists for owning the very tools that historically protected minorities when governments would not. Scholten’s pushback suggests even some Democrats recognize that once a political faction normalizes the idea that certain citizens forfeit legitimacy for defending their own, the slope gets slippery fast.

For Second Amendment advocates, the takeaway is strategic as well as philosophical. Coalitions built on mutual respect for self-defense—whether that means a Jewish state’s right to exist or an American citizen’s right to keep and bear arms—are more durable than temporary alliances of convenience. When prominent voices on the left begin policing their own ranks against ethnic scapegoating, it creates breathing room for pro-2A messaging that emphasizes individual responsibility over collective punishment. The faster that norm reasserts itself, the harder it becomes for any faction to paint either gun owners or Jewish Americans as acceptable targets.

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