‘Microlooting’ Encouraged in NY Times Podcast With Hasan Piker, ‘New Yorker’ Writer
“I’m pro stealing from big corporations, because they steal quite a bit more from their own workers.”
The dumbing down of America continues, and the story I’m about to write is going to send a lot of heads crashing to desks while trying to pinpoint exactly when it all started going so wrong.
Many of us remember the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, where Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters tried to justify the looting being done by rioters in her crime-ridden congressional district by stating that “There were mothers who took this as an opportunity to take some milk, to take some bread, to take some shoes. Maybe they shouldn’t have done it, but the atmosphere was such that they did it. They are not crooks.”
But that wasn’t all:
Later, she told a Times reporter: “One lady said her children didn’t have any shoes. She just saw those shoes there, a chance for all of her children to have new shoes. Go**amn it! It was such a tear-jerker. I might have gone in and taken them for her myself.”
We’ve seen countless examples of elected Democrats promoting this behavior in the years since, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blaming a 2020 New York COVID-era crime wave, where as many as 43 people were shot in one week, on poor people being so desperate that they had no choice but to steal:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shrugged off New York City’s frightening rise in crime, suggesting that tough times are forcing parents into committing petty theft to feed their kids.
“They feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens) said last week on a virtual town hall for constituents that was broadcast on her official Facebook page.
And the looting we saw during the 2020 George Floyd riots that same year was excused away in the name of “social justice.”
During the Biden-Harris years, when crime rose and we were seeing a steady stream of videos of smash-and-grabbers, along with news reports of thugs walking into Walgreens stores, calmly filling trash bags with merch and exiting without being stopped, we were reliably informed that, hey, crime isn’t that bad. It’s just your imagination.
Well, folks, I’m sorry to say that in the year 2026, the left has advanced to another level of downplaying theft and justifying it when it does happen.
We can thank The New York Times for clueing the rest of America in on what’s apparently become a growing trend on TikTok and elsewhere of bragging about and applauding “microlooting” – described as another form of “political protest” against corporations for the crime of making a profit.
And the cherry on top is that this is not really about encouraging poor people to do it because they allegedly “need” to, but instead middle-class and well-off folks, as a way of politically virtue signaling against rich CEOs or something.
this entire opinion piece is just each person one-upping the other with high school-level performative bernie-isms about how stealing is cool. it’s actually impressive how dumb they sound. “microlooting”. incredible stuff the nyt is platforming here pic.twitter.com/YWmh7WBOMO
— Eric Wallerstein (@ericwallerstein) April 23, 2026
It’s really hard to pick out a place to start with how cringe and disgusting this was, with Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman, millionaire Democrat darling Hasan Piker (partaking in the Times’ latest effort at trying to normalize him), and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino (who reportedly lives comfortably in a $2.5 million NY brownstone) just casually talking, laughing, and justifying petty theft as a form of striking back at “the man” like it was and should be a completely normal, rational, acceptable thing like driving or walking your dog.
I’ll start with this exceedingly stupid comment from Piker, and we’ll go from there:
Spiegelman: Would you encourage stealing in the same way from a Zohran Mamdani-run, city-owned grocery store with lower prices, and why?
Piker: No, I would not, because I feel like that’s taxpayer-funded, it’s union labor, and the prices are also adjusted regardless.
Piker apparently doesn’t realize that it’s those same taxpayers and union workers who will have to pay higher costs at other grocery stores when the prices inevitably go up due to the “microlooting.” Stupid on steroids here, and it just got worse:
The NYT just gave three commentators a page to agree theft is fun and cool. One wants bank robberies back because crypto is boring. Another cheers on Louvre thieves (a public museum!) and steals on Whole Foods. Surprised the toothpaste is locked up?https://t.co/06Z2b6Hl2G pic.twitter.com/JhATmLywMT
— Luis Garicano 🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@lugaricano) April 22, 2026
"You can steal from Whole Foods if you forgot something on your first trip and don't want to check out again" is a wild philosophy.
Some of the "system is rigged" rhetoric implies you're always being taken advantage of, so it's fair to steal back.https://t.co/j3P3H2KxEm pic.twitter.com/TzelxKSr2p
— Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco) April 23, 2026
Hasan Piker: “If you steal from the poor, you become rich. If you steal from the wealthy, you go to prison. There’s only one direction where you can do unlimited theft. Wage theft is the most consequential amount of theft that takes place in the United States of America” pic.twitter.com/uqbWocubFU
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) April 23, 2026
Hasan on if he supports stealing from Whole Foods in his discussion with The New York Times
"I'm pro stealing from big corporations bc they steal quite a bit more from their own workers..one thing that might even help ur ethical dilemma..the automated process that they design,… pic.twitter.com/9RZKDPsa1l
— yeet (@Awk20000) April 22, 2026
“What about the argument that if everyone starts stealing, Whole Foods Market will eventually raise prices?”
Piker: “Full chaos, let’s go. I’m also in favor of fast, free buses and government owned storefronts.”
“Would you encourage stealing in the same way from a Mamdani… pic.twitter.com/v8mRRoK4Ml
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) April 24, 2026
Real New Yorkers furious over 'microlooting' writer's shoplifting at local Whole Foods: 'She is rich…I am not' https://t.co/ltzC0xoE1N pic.twitter.com/e6y3VsHUsc
— New York Post (@nypost) April 23, 2026
👆🏾This shit is why the rest of society has to wait for staff to unlock a case to buy toothpaste
I hope Whole Foods rolls the security tape and finds some evidence of theft (but of course, Mamdani’s NYC probably wouldn’t prosecute 🙄).
Maybe post images of her theft at checkout🤣 pic.twitter.com/8ZnrdgeJuv— David Razin (@DhRazin) April 24, 2026
I just cancelled my subscription to @NewYorker. I'll be shoplifting it from now on. Fair is fair, @CondeNast https://t.co/YdriCd7dhA
— Robert Pondiscio (@rpondiscio) April 23, 2026
But don’t you dare confront them over their lunacy:
Jia Tolentino who boasted about shoplifting RAGES when confronted at $2m home https://t.co/PhSUwLilym via @DailyMail
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) April 24, 2026
So Democrats and their media allies have now gone from “crime is not that bad” to “it’s okay to casually steal in your everyday life as long as you’re trying to make a political point.” This is modern progressivism in action, folks, with the “progressive” part meaning progressively worse.
For anyone who wants to subject themselves to the full podcast, it’s on YouTube here.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
Hmm, I seem to recall getting my butt tanned for microlooting in an earlier century. I’m sure my dad would have been OK with it if I had thought to explain that I was just applying social justice.
I’m for introducing public caning as punishment for retail theft. I’d like to see those people pull this stunt in Singapore.
As a Turkish Muslim, Hasan Wanker should be familiar with the penalty for thievery, under Islamic law — amputation of a hand.
seriously, why am I paying for things anymore? Obviously I am the sucker.
I encourage everyone to break in to these aholes houses and take whatever you want. Food out of the fridge? Sure! Designer clothes? Nice! The family pet? Go for it!
The pet? No. You don’t know where that thing’s been.
Ok, in the spirit of Sam Brinton you can take the designer clothes.
Democrats have maintained some version of this attitude since the French Revolution.
This is such stupid logic. So I should go bag an extra dozen eggs in my self checkout “for the workers”.
Make it make sense.
‘logic’ like this is ‘sense’ to Dems of today.
I’m pretty sure high shoplifting levels at a business doesn’t translate to higher wages and benefits for workers.
And these same jackholes are the ones pitching tantrums that stores lock everything up.
“One lady said her children didn’t have any shoes. She just saw those shoes there, a chance for all of her children to have new shoes.”
If they’d stop tossing each other’s shoes up to hang on overhead utility wires, maybe they’d still have some to wear.
Nothing says my children need shoes like pilfering a big screen tv from a big box store,
Based stores now preparing signs:
WARNING: MICROLOOTERS SUBJECT TO MICROBEATINGS
Well Soros DAs won’t press charges against anyone who steals less than 1k. I suppose that only applies to non-whites. Hell for all I know the figure is likely 10k now. When considering that fact it’s not surprising that the progressives tolerate so called microlooting.
Vile people raising the costs paid by honest people. The businesses’ workers will also be harmed by lesser wages and fewer benefits.
So does that mean micro shooting these looters is ok?
Asking for a friend.
I don’t think Piker realized he endorsed extra judicial means administered by individuals, on the spot, as they see fit within the context of their world view. Gonna be interesting to see how their goofy rhetoric plays out in the real world. No whining when some self employed bodega owner saws a hand off shoplifters, follows the 3 S principle or worse decides to do what Maynard (the owner of the Crown Pawn Shop) did with unruly patrons Butch and Marcellus in Pulp Fiction.
He realizes.
Just like the rest of the left, he just thinks that his side is the only one that will be ‘allowed’ to use violence.
Maybe, though I don’t think it’s about ‘sides’ so much as lack of awareness of how provincial they are and how different the rest of the Nation is from their insular cocoon. In the rest of the USA, outside the coastal areas and biggest 20 metros, away from their bubble of smug fellow travelers that sense of entitlement isn’t gonna fly. What some Jack leg may get away with in NYC won’t turn out the same in Jacksonville Fla, much less Jacksonville Alabama. These folks generally restrict their behavior to places the culture/society has declined and their nonsense is either tolerated or carries near zero consequences.
It’s the literary conceit called “pastoral.” All morality and wisdom exists in the lower classes. In this case, imitating blacks.
Country club communists. “Revolutionary” cosplayers. Evildoers. Idiots. Hypocrites. Parasites. Enjoying comfortable, wealthy lives, from their $2.2 million Brooklyn brownstones and $2.7 million Hollywood homes. Profiting off of media platforms that were built by corporations.
Hasan Wanker is wearing designer eyeglasses, an Apple watch, and a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt. Truly, this Islamofascist/Muslim supremacist piece of excrement is a man of the proletariat!
Flip the tables on these communist/Islamofascist reprobates. Anyone who comes into contact with them should rob them. See how these communist/Islamofascist idiots like it, when they’re the ones being robbed and stolen from.
And, Spiegelman comes across as an equal disgrace, here — the grand-daughter of Holocaust survivors, yukking it up with a Jew-hating Islamofascist/Muslim supremacist/communist.
I seem to recall from my first Econ class at Hillsdale that extensive “microlooting” will result in extensive “macro losses” that will wreck the entire economy beyond repair. And morons, bums, and lazy idiots like Piker, Tolentino, and Spiegelman, all of whom are trust fund brats, have zero idea of what it takes to start, build, maintain, and build a business to provide whatever needs to be replaced.
Speaking of microlooting, Piker is worth at least 8 million according to publicly available sources. Have fun with that little fact.
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