Infrared (Haz)

Haz Al-Din, known online as "Infrared" and often simply as Haz, is an American streamer and self-styled Marxist-Leninist theorist who rose to prominence in the early 2020s through long-form political commentary on YouTube and other streaming platforms. He is most closely associated with the concept of "MAGA Communism," a provocative framing he helped popularize, which argues that communists in the United States should seek to win over the disaffected, patriotic working-class constituency drawn to right-wing populism rather than cede that base to the political right. His project blends an orthodox, explicitly pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin reading of Marxism-Leninism with an appeal to American nationalism, a combination he presents as "patriotic socialism."

Intellectually, Haz situates himself within the tradition of dialectical and historical materialism, and his commentary is marked by a philosophical register unusual among online political personalities, drawing on Hegelian dialectics and continental philosophy alongside canonical communist texts. He is a vocal proponent of multipolarity and anti-imperialism, defending states such as Russia and China against what he characterizes as American and Western hegemony, and he frames domestic American politics through the lens of a decaying liberal order that both mainstream parties serve. His arguments frequently target liberalism and what he calls "woke" identity politics, which he portrays as a distraction from class struggle and an obstacle to building a broad working-class movement.

Haz has been an organizer within online communist circles, associated for a time with efforts to institutionalize this current before internal splits, and his influence is felt mainly through the streaming and social-media ecosystem where his ideas circulate among a young, terminally online audience. "MAGA Communism" has drawn sharp criticism from both establishment liberals and much of the existing left, who see it as either incoherent or a form of red-brown politics that flirts with reactionary nationalism. Supporters, by contrast, view it as a serious attempt to rethink class coalition-building in a fractured American landscape. Whatever its coherence as a program, the phrase has become a recognizable marker in debates about the boundaries of left and right, national identity, and the future of populist realignment.