Rohit Chakrabarti, a political outsider in San Francisco, held a packed rally at City Nights, drawing support from progressive figures like Jamaal Bowman and left-wing commentator Hasan Piker. The event, titled 'Change the Party,' criticized the Democratic establishment for failing to counter Trump's authoritarianism, with Piker endorsing Chakrabarti's combative approach and invoking socialist rhetoric.
is an outsider to San Francisco politics who has not been welcomed by the city’s political establishment, progressives and moderates alike. On Thursday evening, Chakrabarti’s “Change the Party” rally drew many hundreds of attendees who packed City Nights, a nightclub in SoMa, to the brim.
Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” blasted from the speakers while attendees waved “Fight Trump” and “Lower costs” signs in the air. Jamaal Bowman, former representative for New York’s 16th District, flew in for the event, as did Darializa Avila Chevalier, Angela Gonzales-Torres, and Melat Kiros, who are running for seats in the House of Representatives for New York City, Los Angeles and Denver, respectively.
“We have to completely change the direction of leadership of the Democratic party. We need a Democratic party that knows how to fight to stop authoritarian rule,” said Chakrabarti. But the biggest draw, and most controversial aspect, of the night was ostensibly not Chakrabarti, but Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing commentator who has over three million followers on Twitch, andwaited to speak with Chakrabarti before the rally, the candidate was backstage, in the middle of streaming with Piker.
At the rally, Piker’s comments echoed Chakrabarti’s.
“We deserve a better party that will put your interests first,” he said. He likened Chakrabarti to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who was elected mayor of New York City last year, and reappropriated a popular Maoist slogan: “We can let a thousand Zohrans bloom,” Piker said. as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, has positioned himself as a combative foil for mainstream Democrats.
While his campaign is staunchly anti-Trump, he has taken particular aim at the Democratic Party and what he calls its failure to stop Trump’s authoritarianism.
“We ruffled some feathers with the Democratic establishment,” said Chakrabarti to the roaring crowd. “And I’m glad we did. ” When asked how he plans to build trust with voters who may not know him, Chakrabarti said he is focused on getting as much face time with voters as possible.
“I’m not part of the local political establishment,” Chakrabarti said. “The way that we’ve been running this campaign from the start is to be as physically available as possible. We’ve done more public events, more direct voter contact, more conversations with real people in San Francisco than any of my opponents — I think all my opponents combined at this point.
”to get his name out, is also turning to social media and its influencers: On Thursday night, Chakrabarti took interviews with both members of the press and members of what his campaign dubbed “new media,” content creators and internet personalities with millions in combined followers. The content creators filed in line waiting to speak to Chakrabarti backstage to get a few dedicated minutes with the candidate.
But Piker is the most popular and has subsequently drawn the most ire from moderate Democrats here. Supervisor Matt Dorseythe same day as the rally asking the San Francisco Democratic Party to condemn Piker and reject any attempt to “change” the Democratic Party to align with Piker’s views. in which the streamer called a Vietnamese refugee a “fucking idiotic old lady” for opposing communism and supporting President Donald Trump. that “while my sentiment is vulgar,” his statements have been taken out of context — he is streaming for much of the day, after all.
And on Thursday, no one in the hot and crowded room seemed to pay much attention to Dorsey’s flogging. The crowd was more focused on stump chants like “Abolish ICE,” “Tax the Rich” and “Medicare for All. ” While flyers posted around the city had advertised a planned counter-protest outside the rally, no one showed up.
“There’s a lot of people who didn’t want me to be here today from the San Francisco Democratic Party, from numerous astroturf organizations that put fliers all around San Francisco,” Piker said on stage. But, he added, “not a single person showed up to protest. They have the money and interest, but we have the people.
” — the Tenderloin, Richmond, Sunset, Bayview, and the Mission to provide free, first-rate neighborhood reporting.stand out — it’s our biggest strength, and we intend to bring that to every neighborhood we cover.adding a reporter to one neighborhood for one yearKelly Waldron is a data reporter at Mission Local. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism and earning a master's degree from Columbia Journalism School.
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