Brace Belden
Podcaster, YPG veteran, and craft brewery union organizer.
Brace Robert Belden was born on October 13, 1989. He is an American podcaster, union activist, and former volunteer fighter. From 2016 to 2017, he fought with the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia, in the Syrian Civil War. He is most widely known as the co-host, alongside Liz Franczak, of the left-wing podcast *TrueAnon*, which examines political conspiracies and elite power networks. Belden first attracted public attention through his Twitter account @PissPigGranddad, where he posted about his experiences battling ISIS alongside Kurdish forces. After coming back to the U.S., he became a notable labor organizer, playing a key role in forming the first craft brewery union in American history at Anchor Brewing Company in 2019. Belden grew up in Corte Madera, California, after being born in San Francisco. He is Jewish and comes from a middle-class household; his father works as a journalist for a local TV station, and his brother works in technology. When Belden was six years old, his mother died by suicide. He has described himself as “a troubled teen.” He attended five different high schools, including Monarch School, a boot camp he ran away from. He was later arrested for public intoxication in Mission Dolores Park. Belden has identified as a Marxist since his teenage years. At age 13, he protested the Iraq War. In 2005, when he was 15, he and his friends started a satirical right-wing, pro-war punk band called Warkrime. Belden performed under the stage name President Chaos. The band released its first album, *Give War A Chance*, in 2006 and broke up in 2008. After Warkrime disbanded, he played bass in another San Francisco punk band, Wild Thing, going by the nickname “‘Bad Boy’ Brace Belden.”
After high school, Belden has said he “always worked shitty jobs” and “should have gone to college,” adding “but a lot of good that did other guys.” He worked as a florist at Brothers Papadopoulos flower shop in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2015, he started a petition to cancel the radio show *A Prairie Home Companion*, calling it “a dumb boring show that forces millions of radio listeners under 60 to turn off their radios.” *Willamette Week* interviewed him about the campaign and then hired him as a freelance music writer.
Quick Facts
- Nickname
- "Bad Boy" Brace Belden / PissPigGranddad / PissPigGrandma / President Chaos
- Birth Date
- 1989-10-13
- Birth Place
- San Francisco, California, U.S.
- Allegiance
- Rojava
- Service Years
- 2016–2017
- Battles
- Syrian Civil War / Raqqa campaign
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Belden grew up in Corte Madera, California, and attended five different high schools, including a boot camp he ran away from. He identified as a Marxist since his teenage years and protested the Iraq War at age 13. In 2005, he co-founded a satirical right-wing, pro-war punk band called Warkrime, performing as President Chaos, which released an album in 2006 and disbanded in 2008. He later played bass in another San Francisco punk band, Wild Thing, under the nickname 'Bad Boy' Brace Belden. After high school, he worked various jobs including as a florist and as a freelance music writer for Willamette Week, from which he resigned in September 2016 to go to Syria. In Syria, he trained at the YPG Academy, served as a machine gunner on a makeshift tank during the Raqqa campaign, and helped capture Tal Saman in November 2016. He later joined the United Freedom Forces. In March 2017, while still in Syria, he was nominated as a candidate for Rector of the University of Glasgow, finishing seventh out of ten candidates with 236 votes. He was profiled in Rolling Stone in 2017, which led to a planned film adaptation starring Jake Gyllenhaal that Belden publicly opposed. After returning to the U.S., his Twitter account @PissPigGranddad was suspended for violating policies on targeted abuse or harassment, following a mass reporting campaign by alt-right accounts. He reemerged under @PissPigGrandma, which was also suspended.
Reader's Guide
Belden's significance lies in his role as a central figure in the first successful unionization of a U.S. craft brewery, Anchor Brewing Company, in 2019. Working at Anchor Brewing from February 2018, he joined an eight-person organizing committee as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America's local Marxist caucus Red Star. The effort, supported by DSA San Francisco's Labor Organizing Committee, led to a vote on March 13, 2019, where production workers voted 31 to 16 to unionize, with service workers voting 6 to 2 two days later. This made Anchor Brewing the first U.S. craft brewery to unionize from within. In December 2019, workers ratified their first contract with an average 8% wage increase, improved healthcare, and enhanced benefits for part-time workers. Senator Bernie Sanders spoke with Belden and other union activists in August 2019. However, negotiations for a second agreement stalled in 2023, and in July 2023, Sapporo announced Anchor Brewing would cease operations and liquidate. Former union members attempted to form a worker-owned cooperative to purchase the brewery but were unsuccessful; Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya bought the brewery in May 2024, and as of 2025, operations had not resumed. Belden also faced a Department of Homeland Security investigation, detailed in a leaked intelligence report from July 2020, into American volunteers who fought with Kurdish forces in Syria.
Did You Know?
- Belden's mother died by suicide when he was six years old.
- He ran away from Monarch School, a boot camp he attended as a teen.
- His Twitter handle @PissPigGranddad was suspended after he mocked white nationalist Nathan Damigo's short stature.
- He finished seventh out of ten candidates in the 2017 University of Glasgow Rector election with 236 votes.
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