Hasan Piker’s China trip and a gifted copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book stirred an online reaction, touching on the history of Maoism, the symbol’s violent legacy, and the embrace of communist imagery by certain progressive circles.
Hasan Piker, a well-known left-wing streamer with millions of followers and a history of controversial statements, drew attention while visiting China after being handed a copy of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. He reacted on stream with visible excitement, which quickly became fodder for debate about symbolism, history, and political taste. The moment lit up social feeds because the book carries a brutal historical weight that can’t be ignored.
Mao Zedong’s rule and the Cultural Revolution are linked to policies that caused mass suffering, with historical estimates placing the death toll in the tens of millions. The article notes Mao is “responsible for the deaths of up to 100 million of his own people through famine, purges, and targeted killings,” a figure that underscores why Maoist imagery remains deeply controversial. That brutal reality sits behind every aesthetic nod to the Little Red Book.
The “Little Red Book,” formally titled “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung,” was published in 1964 and contains hundreds of short passages on class struggle, war and peace, discipline, criticism and self-criticism, imperialism, and how to be a good communist and citizen. It became one of the most widely printed works in history, second only to the Bible in circulation, and it includes lines meant to normalize militant political action, including “Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The book was effectively mandatory for citizens under Mao, with daily study often enforced by severe consequences.
On a livestream in China, Piker accepted an English copy and gushed about it aloud. “Thank you so much. This is incredible. Wow! This is literally what I talked about on the stream, like the first day. I was like, ‘I want one of the English copies of the OG red book,'” Hasan Piker told the person who gave it to him during a livestream in China. “This is really, really special.”
Piker’s reaction wasn’t just about a souvenir; it became shorthand for a wider conversation about where parts of the progressive movement are headed. His visible embrace of the book’s aesthetics and rhetoric feeds into concerns that a subset of left-wing activists now favors revolutionary imagery and language that history shows often leads to catastrophe. That’s why conservatives and many moderates find moments like this alarming rather than harmless.
The streamer’s China visit included other eyebrow-raising incidents, including a reported interaction with Chinese authorities who asked to inspect his phone to ensure he wasn’t mocking the government. Observers noted that Piker appeared to gloss over the authoritarian nature of the regime while openly soaking up its pageantry, such as attending a flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square. That behavior raises questions about selective outrage and the instinct some public figures have to celebrate regimes that oppose American values.
Beyond one person’s livestream, the episode is tied to a political trend among certain progressive factions now trying to reshape the Democratic Party from the left. The report connects this energy to figures like Zohran Mamdani and others who challenge party establishment figures, suggesting they are no longer content with influencing policy from the fringes. For Republicans, this feels like a warning: a vocal group pushing radical aesthetics and rhetoric could push the party toward policies that clash with mainstream American values.
The broader point is cultural as well as political. Embracing symbols tied to authoritarian violence sends a message, intentional or not, about what ideas someone is willing to celebrate. That message matters when the people doing the celebrating have national platforms and influence over younger audiences. Conservatives argue that public figures should be judged for the symbols they elevate and the historical realities those symbols represent.
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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