Haz Al-Din

Haz Al-Din (; born 1996) while former American Communist Party member Danny Shaw referred to his real name as Ali "Haz" Hammoud. American political commentator and activist who has served as the inaugural chairman of the American Communist Party (ACP) since 2024. He is active as a livestreamer on YouTube, Twitch, and Kick under the Infrared brand, which he uses for political discussion and debates.

Al-Din espouses left-conservative, left-populist, anti-Zionist, illiberal, and Russophilic views, and is a supporter of Marxism–Leninism with particular admiration for the Soviet Union and China. He is critical of positions across the political spectrum, particularly liberalism. Al-Din is known for his harsh, confrontational, and often provocative public image, with Infrared growing in notoriety through debates, aggressive rants about his political views, and clashes with both audience members and fellow political influencers.

Al-Din and fellow political commentator Jackson Hinkle are closely associated with MAGA Communism, which Al-Din describes as a strategy which attempts to consolidate the MAGA base away from "false consciousness" and towards communism. The strategy has attracted controversy, with critics labeling it an opportunistic rebranding of communism to appeal to disaffected conservatives. American author Alexander Reid Ross has described MAGA Communism as a fringe movement that attempts to blend conservative-populist rhetoric with socialist terminology. immigrants who had fled the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and settled in an Arab-majority part of the state. he later embraced Marxism–Leninism and developed an interest in Chinese political philosophy, particularly Xi Jinping Thought.

American Communist Party

In July 2024, Al-Din, Jackson Hinkle, Christopher Helali, and others founded the American Communist Party (ACP) following a split in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), in which they accused CPUSA of revisionism for its endorsement of the Democratic Party in the 2024 election.

On February 23, 2025, Al-Din, Hinkle, and Helali attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the third Secretary-General of Hezbollah, as representatives of the ACP.

Political positions and ideology Al-Din is a self-described supporter of left-wing politics, critic of right-wing politics, and a staunch advocate for the Marxist–Leninist stances promoted by the American Communist Party. Al-Din has said that despite significant disagreements, he has incorporated the "rational kernel" from the philosophies of Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin and German existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger, arguing that their critiques of liberal modernity provide essential insights for constructing a post-liberal socialist order. He holds left-populist, left-conservative, and illiberal positions.

He advocates for a socialism in one country, adopting the view originally espoused by Joseph Stalin that class struggle and Marxism–Leninism must be understood as national in form and internationalist in content. Mirroring Stalin's own views in Foundations of Leninism, he claims that true international solidarity is "based on a solidarity between [sovereign] nations", and that national sovereignty is fundamental to developing socialist movements in individual countries.

Al-Din supports Russia, China, and North Korea, which he describes as resistant to Western imperialism. He has supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, framing it as a necessary challenge to Western hegemony, and has advocated for closer China–United States relations. but rather describes it as a provocative political slogan and as a populist strategy which attempts to consolidate working-class members of Donald Trump's MAGA movement away from false consciousness and towards communism. Critics of MAGA Communism have labeled it an opportunistic rebranding of socialist ideas to appeal to disaffected conservatives and right-wing extremists, with it being described in The Guardian as a "deranged fringe movement" and by Jungle World as "Not left, not right, but fascist".

Observers from Vice News and Compact Magazine have argued that MAGA Communism lacks ideological consistency, and is more of a cultural provocation than a coherent political movement. A Tech Transparency Project investigation identified his Twitch channel as one of multiple platforms amplifying Russian state-aligned misinformation, including claims about the de-Nazification of Ukraine and false allegations of Western-backed biolabs in Ukraine. The Financial Times also reported on his content moderation disputes, highlighting his involvement in spreading narratives aligned with Russian foreign policy and his subsequent removal from multiple platforms.

In April 2024, Al-Din co-hosted the Free America to Free Palestine event in Dearborn, Michigan, alongside Jackson Hinkle, discussing strategies for influencing U.S. foreign policy and achieving Palestinian liberation. The event, which attracted controversy due to its anti-Zionist rhetoric and alignment with MAGA Communism, was covered by Newsweek for its unorthodox political messaging. CNN said pro-Russia and anti-Israel rhetoric were key themes of the event.

In 2024 Al-Din and fellow American Communist Party member Jackson Hinkle were booed off-stage at an event co-sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) at Emory University which featured pro-Palestinian activist Norman Finkelstein. Al-Din attacked audience members in a speech where he accused attendees of being responsible in the spread of Zionist and imperialist propaganda.