PROPAGANDA: The CNN DSA Special Was Really a Hasan Piker Infomercial

Jorge Bonilla
August 2nd, 2026 11:18 PM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

On Sunday, CNN aired a “Whole Story” special on what it called “The Left Insurgency”, which is Elitist Media shorthand for the DSA takeover of the Democrat Party. The documentary, hosted by Donie O’Sullivan, promised to examine the “new generation” of Democrat voters and include some Democrat dissenters. In the end, though, the doc proved to be little more than a promotional vehicle for Hasan Piker, who infamously said that America deserved 9/11.

The documentary is bookended, in fact, by Piker. O’Sullivan opens the doc with their interactions at the 2024 Democratic convention and closes it out with Piker’s prediction that the 2028 Democrat nominee won’t be an Israel supporter. Following that initial interaction with Piker, first mention of David Hogg and a cringe-inducing chat with actress Cynthia Nixon at a No Kings Rally, one gets the first serious indicator that this is little more than a fluff piece.

 

 

DONIE O’SULLIVAN: The issues that Piker and Hogg were talking about back in Chicago have come to play a defining role in the fight for the future of the Democratic Party. 

PANEL MODERATOR: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? 

O’SULLIVAN: Hogg and Piker are now part of an insurgency. 

KAITLAN COLLINS: Hogg has pledged to spend millions funding primary challenges to what he calls “asleep-at-the-wheel Democrats.” 

O’SULLIVAN: Hasan Piker, who, to quote Politico…

BILL SAMMON: …is driving a wedge in the Democratic Party

O’SULLIVAN: …an insurgency against centrist Democrats, one that is challenging party norms. 

JONATHAN LEMIRE: These races do seem representative of the real struggle the party is going through right now post-2024.

O’SULLIVAN: And energizing young voters. 

BRIAN ROMERO: Abolish ICE, free Palestine, and tax the (...) rich.

O’SULLIVAN: An insurgency that hopes to spark a revolution in the Democratic Party.

O’Sullivan then goes on to establish the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as the heart of this insurgency, by “pulling the Democratic Party to the left”, a big downplay of the DSA agenda.

 

 

RALLY ATTENDEES: DSA! DSA! DSA!

O’SULLIVAN: At the heart of the insurgency is the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA is the largest socialist political organization in the country, and it's working to pull the Democratic Party to the left. 

RALLY HOST: Senator Bernie Sanders! 

O’SULLIVAN: Today, they are holding a rally here in the Bronx in support of their New York candidates.

BERNIE SANDERS: Thank you. It is not Bernie. It is you. It's all of us together. The work that you did to elect Zohran (Mamdani) as mayor will not only impact this city, it is reverberating all over the world. 

O’SULLIVAN: You're a democratic socialist. 

DARIALIZA AVILA-CHEVALIER: I am.

O’SULLIVAN: You've never run for office before. Darializa Avila Chevalier is one of the candidates running for DSA in New York.

AVILA-CHEVALIER: Folks need to be able to see themselves in the Democratic Party again. I, like them, have felt abandoned by the establishment that is sending all our money onto these foreign wars. We need folks who are willing to reinvest that money into our communities, into our babies, making sure that we have universal childcare, free public education from cradle to college.

It bears noting that there is no examination of DSA candidate Darializa Avila-Chevalier (DAC) beyond a carefully curated pair of quotes. There is no examination of her history as an organizer of the violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, or of her more radical policy positions. For that matter, there is no examination whatsoever of what the DSA actually stands for, except its opposition both to AIPAC and to the Democrat establishment. No mentions of the things they want to seize and/or abolish. Conversely, there is no mention of the DSA’s use for the Democrat Party as little more than a ballot access vehicle.

The first segment closes out with, you guessed it: Hasan Piker. Coming back from the break, we get O’Sullivan’s first mention of communism: not as the natural end result of the policies publicly espoused by the DSA, but by invocation of the ghost of Joe McCarthy, and the live Donald Trump.

 

 

JOE McCARTHY: One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many. 

O’SULLIVAN: Communism and socialism have long been bad words in American politics, dating back to the McCarthy hearings and the Cold War. America stood for capitalism. 

DONALD TRUMP: They use the word Social Democrat because it sounds so nice, but it's really communism you’re talking about. 

O’SULLIVAN: But that is changing. 

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: You understand, I think rightly, this is a social democracy. This is not Gulag socialism. This is not the Soviet Union socialism. 

HARRY ENTEN: Socialism, on the other hand, up like a rocket. Look at this. 2 in 3 Democrats have a favorable view of socialism. 

O’SULLIVAN: Capitalism is even less popular among young people. 

DAVID HOGG: If politicians want to know how to get elected, it is not complicated. Do your job and represent the people. Not the special interests buying out our elections. 

What I think a lot about is the fact that if we do not start making our political system work for people that feel like they are living in a broken promise where they've done as a generation everything we've been told on average, right? We've gone to college at some of the highest rates of anybody, of any generation in American history. Contrary to popular belief, we've actually voted at the highest rates of any generational cohort at our age in American history. Consistently.

There is a fascinating juxtaposition here between the McCarthy quote, the recent palatability of socialism among the younger set and the Hogg line about his generation going to college at the high rate. The institutional rot in our academic institutions has proven McCarthy right!

In a disgusting aside, O’Sullivan lumps the shooting of President Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk along with the assassination of the United Health CEO- all the purported work of anti-capitalists who lost “belief in the system.”

 

 

O’SULLIVAN: Often, when belief in the system collapses, civil unrest and violence follow. 

JOHN BERMAN: The CEO of United Health Care was murdered this morning.

The record reflects that the motive for the assassination of Charlie Kirk was overwhelmingly hatred over Kirk's positions on transgenderism. Someone who purports to combat disinformation should be aware of that.

The first mention of Democrat opposition to the DSA takeover comes in at the 27-minute mark: a sit-down with James Carville.

 

 

O’SULLIVAN: Mr. Carville, nice to meet you. I'm Donie O'Sullivan. 

One might think all the energy and excitement about a new generation of candidates might be a cause for celebration within the Democratic Party. 

JAMES CARVILLE, WIELDING A BEIGNET: This is what I call a sign of advanced civilization.

O’SULLIVAN: But not for party veteran James Carville. How are you feeling about the midterms? 

CARVILLE: I feel very good. The only thing that can derail us, we could nominate some of the wrong candidates in the wrong place and not be as successful as, I hope.

O’SULLIVAN: The wrong candidates. What do you mean by that? 

CARVILLE: All right, let's take in Michigan. And El-Sayed is highly competent, but he's way left. I see challenges from the quote, “progressive left,” unquote, and these people are too hard headed to know that they're not popular. People don't like them. And, but if you get a skewed turnout in a primary, you might end up losing a race that you should have never lost in the first place. 

O’SULLIVAN: When you say “progressive left,” you sort of- there's a tone of contempt there.

CARVILLE: Yeah. Yeah. So you were very wise. I hope the camera was able to pick up the contempt. 

O’SULLIVAN: This is high definition. Yes. 

CARVILLE: They don't win elections. They never run against Republicans. They just run against other Democrats. And their only message is, “we're going to blow everything up.”

After some more Democrat dissent over antisemitism concerns and several additional doses of Piker, O’Sullivan balances things out by highlighting Cori Bush’s attempted comeback, and with David Hogg depicting AIPAC support as a moral evil comparable to that of the NRA. 

After a chat with the Pod Save Obama bros who talk themselves into submitting to the DSA takeover, the doc closes out. Viewers get an upbeat depiction of the DSA candidates and a quick rundown of the issues- particularly Israel. The dissenters get a closing argument but the last word belongs to: you guessed it, Hasan Piker, predicting that the 2028 Democrat nominee will not be “pro-Israel in any way.”

 

 

O’SULLIVAN: Will you endorse the 2028 candidates if they are pro-Israel in a way that you don't like? If you ultimately are about defeating fascism in this country as you describe it surely. Shouldn't you get on board with whoever the main candidate is? 

PIKER: Luckily, I don't think I'll have to make that calculation at all, because there is 0% chance that whoever the elected Democrat is that wins the primary will be pro-Israel in any way, shape or form. You'll see.

This documentary was not so much an exposition of the threat faced by the Democratic Party as it was a call to submission. There is no other purpose this slop could possibly serve given O'Sullivan's treatment of the subject matter, the individuals he chose to elevate, its timing ahead of the critical Michigan primary and the lack of coverage devoted to what the DSA actually stands for.

Donor Privacy Policy