Why Are CIA-Linked Leftist Podcasters Pushing Marjorie Taylor Green Over AOC?
Prominent leftist podcasters funded by Central Intelligence Agency assets (and a few others desperate to make a buck) really want you to love far-right Republicans and hate progressive Democrats.
To explain the rise of independent media, you need to explain the collapse of mainstream media. Though the surge of unaffiliated political podcasters and Substackers is often attributed to the growth of social media, the institutional rot of America’s long-cherished Fourth Estate bears equal weight. If mainstream media overcame its institutional bias towards the American security state and corporate interests, it could have accurately reported on the Iraq War, the Great Depression, and the genocide in Gaza. Instead, it chose to lie to the American people, eroding public trust and driving audiences to new, unaffiliated outlets and commentators that could recognize and report on reality.
This becomes clear when we look at Americans’ falling trust in media institutions. Americans had the most trust in the mass media in 1976, following principled, critical coverage of Watergate and the Vietnam War. But then the media grew closer to the political establishment, adversarial coverage decreased, and trust collapsed. This is why we see large drops in public trust in the media in 2003, 2018, and 2023.
Independent media has been a massive net-positive for America. However, just like mainstream media, independent media is not immune to biases and conflicts of interest. Just because an outlet or spokesperson is detached from, and even hostile to, the establishment forces that corrupted mainstream media, does not mean their interests align with those of progressive political movements seeking to end the capitalist exploitation and American imperialism that the mainstream media protects.
Recognizing that the goals of independent left-wing media differ from those of effective political action is necessary to navigate the tricky, perilous path to a better world. It is crucial to understand when the motivations of online talking heads align with serious political activity and when they are counterproductive to it. (We should also note that these tendencies are not mutually exclusive.) A clear example of this counterproductivity can be seen in the recent push from some left-wing media figures to claim former MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is more progressive than Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This is a ludicrous critique in its own right. But most maddening is the claim that the Christian Nationalist is a more principled critic of American imperialism, or that she is a greater friend to Palestine. Such claims are laughable and clearly motivated by these outlets’ personal enrichment and grievances.
Pursuit of a Left-Right Audience
The episode started after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she didn’t trust Marjorie Taylor Greene on “the issue of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I don’t think it benefits our movement to align with white nationalists.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s distrust of Greene is well-warranted. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a lifelong Zionist who voted to sanction the International Criminal Court for indicting Benjamin Netanyahu and condemned anti-genocide college protestors. After Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress, supported a Capitol protest demanding that the Biden Administration enact a ceasefire weeks after October 7th, Greene introduced legislation to censor Tlaib, claiming she was “taking orders from Hamas and Hezbollah.” If you rank Marjorie Taylor Greene’s voting record, she’s voted with the Palestinian cause 29% of the time. That’s far lower than even the most Zionist Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi, who scores an abysmal 34%.
It’s true Greene has lightly criticized Israel recently. But this is blatant opportunism rather than a principled commitment to human rights or anti-imperialism. As one of the most popular Republican politicians, Greene wanted to leave the House and run for the Senate or Georgia Governor. Not wanting to lose a winnable election in a purple state, Donald Trump discouraged Greene’s ambitions by commissioning a poll in May of 2025 from his long-time pollster, showing that she’d lose in a landslide. With her political ascension blocked and her House seat at risk, Greene started soft-launching her Trump-critical media career. We should note that Marjorie Taylor Greene only accused Israel of genocide and voted to release the full Epstein Files after Trump stopped her from climbing the career ladder. Seeking to join Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes in the White Nationalist media space, Marjorie Taylor Greene surrendered her power and quit Congress, timing her resignation just long enough to receive her taxpayer-funded lifelong pension. Not a bad exit strategy on top of the $25 million Greene made from insider trading and selling MAGA merchandise.
While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s distrust of the opportunistic fascist is well-substantiated, her comment angered many left-aligned podcasters.
Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, seized on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s statement to accuse her of “rejecting Marjorie Taylor Greene’s help.” Valorizing himself and his co-host Ana Kasparian for “taking a chance” (by which he means they said things on their podcast), Cenk Uygur accused AOC of turning her back on a growing anti-war, Israel-critical “movement.”
Cenk provides no evidence for this “growing anti-war movement.” He doesn’t point to a tangible display of this unified left-right coalition working to stop the genocide of Palestine, the Iran War, or any of the other American crimes he claims Marjorie Taylor Greene now opposes. The Young Turks founder doesn’t name any rallies, political demonstrations, or candidates to show how this united front is decreasing the American empire’s bloodshed. Instead, Cenk lists some podcasters who went from MAGA die-hards to measely mouthed criticism of Trump within the last fifteen minutes: former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly; comedians Tim Dillon, Dave Smith, and Theo Von; and Shawn Ryan, a proud former CIA contractor.1
This is not a political coalition. This is a list of media figures that Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian can use to cross-promote their podcast. When The Young Turks implore leftists to unquestioningly accept far-rightists into the “movement,” they’re not talking about a political movement as you and I understand it. Uygur and Kasparian aren’t interested in building a multi-tendency political coalition that cohesively engages to end American militarism through every available channel, from street-level protests to supporting the furthest-left candidate in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. No, when Uygur and Kasparian talk about “building a coalition” with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, they are talking about inviting those figures onto their podcast to convert the disaffected young Republicans into paying subscribers. This is a calculated business strategy to profit from the current turbulent, shifting media landscape.
While Trump still has high approval ratings with Republicans, the largest GOP dissatisfaction has come from younger conservatives. Among Republicans aged 18 to 29, fewer than half support the war in Iran. The real age division in the GOP is over Israel. 57% of Republicans under 50 have an unfavorable view of the Zionist State, while only 24% of those over 50 view it negatively.
Policy is driving young conservatives away from Trump, but their distrust of the media is why The Young Turks and other left-coded media are bending over backward to roll out the red carpet for them. Republicans of all ages hold low trust in the mass media. But older Republicans are more likely to watch Fox News or Newsmax, while younger Republicans tune in to podcasts and YouTube, which is why Trump’s 2024 electoral strategy smartly prioritized podcast appearances. This is why independent, left-leaning media is whitewashing far-rightists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson. They are the figureheads for an emerging audience of young, podcast-watching rightists who don’t like Israel, the exact audience The Young Turks and other anti-establishment voices are trying to convert to Patreon subscribers. Some might find my accusations against TYT to be mere allegations. I feel confident making them because this is the second time Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uyghur have tried to build this red-brown podcast audience.
Veteran JoeWrote readers will recall my essay on Ana Kasparian’s rightward pivot. After years of criticizing her former colleague, Dave Rubin, for “leaving the left” and chasing conservative cash, Kasparian, quite shamefully, followed Rubin’s footsteps and attempted to replicate his sell-out success. This was one of many cash grab attempts by The Young Turks leadership, who previously busted their workers’ union and entered into sponsorships with the Polymarket betting site.
However, Kasparian’s sell-out strategy failed. She couldn’t bring herself to ‘Pull A Full Rubin’ and become a lickspittle for Trump, nor was she skilled enough a commentator to build a left-right alliance (often called a “red-brown alliance”). After the Young Turks contributor Francesca Fiorentini criticized the network’s MAGA turn, Kasparian and Uyghur fired her. In January of 2026, Kasparian finally apologized for supporting Trump by admitting she was “a fucking idiot” for denying he was a fascist, saying she “felt guilty every day” for supporting him. Of course, the veteran commentator attempted to excuse herself by claiming she felt for Trump’s lies, as if she were an impressionable swing state voter who started paying attention to Trump a week before the election. She is not. As a veteran political commentator with fully working eyes and ears, Ana Kasparian knew full well that Trump is a fascist and a war monger. That conclusion was undeniable because he was already the President of the United States.
In his first term, Donald Trump assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani while he was traveling on a diplomatic passport to meet with the Iraqi leader of the anti-ISIS Popular Mobilization Forces, who was also killed in the strike. Trump also unleashed America’s brutal special forces on the global south, setting a record by deploying special operators to 75% of the globe. First-term-Trump was the most anti-Palestinian President to date. Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, closed the Palestinian Liberation Organization mission in D.C., and directed the State Department to unrecognize the Palestinian Territories. His first term ended with a violent coup attempt in which his supporters came dangerously close to raping progressive politicians to death on Instagram Live. There is no world in which an honest actor, whose job it is to analyze politics, can look at Donald Trump’s first term record and justify supporting him from an anti-fascist or anti-war position. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur weren’t duped by Trump — they tried to make money by duping their audience for Trump. They got caught, and less than five months after publicly apologizing for their scheme, they’re attempting to do it again by lionizing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.
However, The Young Turks can’t give full-throated support to fascists of the blue. If they started adoring rightists like Tucker Carlson or Marjorie Taylor Greene uncritically, the remaining fragments of their left-leaning audience would rightfully revolt. So, TYT and other opportunistic media voices need to first convince their existing audience that, despite all evidence to the contrary, these far rightists can be politically useful to the anti-imperialist left. As Cenk put it, he’s trying to whitewash these figures as part of a movement to “stand up to Israel, fight against the war, and reclaim American sovereignty.” This logic is as hollow as it is cynical.
Red-Brown Alliances Don’t Work
Independent media might be able to build a paying subscriber base by attracting the disaffected conservatives who listen to Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Megyn Kelly. But there’s no evidence this group has any interest in engaging in the mass politics needed to actually end wars or “stand up to Israel.” For Cenk Uygur “anti-war movement” to have any effect outside the limited world of Substack and Twitter, it will need to translate into effective political action. That means electing the most Israel-critical politicians possible, while engaging in protests, strikes, boycotts, and every other extra-political activity necessary to build pressure for anti-war votes and legislation.
Now, are any of the prominent Leftist Podcasters who are clamoring for this red-brown alliance willing to say with confidence that Tucker Carlson’s audience is going to vote for Ro Khana in 2028? Or Chris Van Hollen? Or any other Democrat who pledges to withhold arms sales from Israel? Or, are they willing to climb out on a limb and assure the people who have been opposing American imperialism for decades that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s fans will soon be joining the anti-genocide, anti-war protests across the country? Is Meghyn Kelly urging her audience to phonebank for any of the dozens of anti-genocide candidates currently running insurgent campaigns in Democratic primaries? Will they vouch for these ultra-rightists and promise these Republicans who learned bombing children is bad sometime between 2024 and 2026 will put aside their conservative beliefs to be effective partners in a multi-racial, diverse coalition building momentum for a full arms embargo on Israel? Of course not. Kelly, Carlson, and Greene are podcasting and posting to attract a very specific Christian Nationalist audience that hates Israel as much as it hates immigrants and Black people. They’re going after the Nick Feuntes audience, just like The Heritage Foundation attempted to. This is why Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Meghyn Kelly all began their Trump-critical pivots by claiming demons and witchcraft are real. This is a Batman signal to the far right, indicating they’re aligned with the young Christian Nationalists who don’t think Donald Trump is far right enough.
To reiterate, I’m not saying progressives or leftists should not form coalitions with conservatives or Republicans. Politics requires ever-shifting tactics to defeat opponents and achieve power. But the disaffected Christian Nationalists Tucker Carlson and Meghyn Kelly are speaking for are not interested in joining the existing anti-war coalition, because it opposes ICE’s oppression of immigrants as much as it opposes the IOF’s oppression of Palestinians. Unlike this hypothetical red-brown coalition, the truth is, there is a growing anti-war, Israel-critical coalition that has a real shot at seizing political power and decreasing the bloody footprint of the American empire. Led by the leftists who have earned credibility by advocating and voting for Palestine over the better part of the last decade, this coalition comprises liberals, independents, and even a handful of Never Trump Republicans who recognize the modern American right is actively hostile to multicultural democracy, at home and abroad. If these commentators were seriously interested in ending the genocide of Gaza, they would be doing everything in their power to support the actual anti-war coalition by supporting candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and Chris Rabb, who are facing vilely racist attacks from their Zionist opponents. There would also be an effort to reach Israel-critical independent and liberal Americans and educate them on the need for principled anti-Zionism, steering them away from the establishment line that “Netanyahu needs to go.” Instead of doing this, they’re creating an imaginary anti-war coalition by riding the coattails of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new media career, which aims to monetize a small but profitable audience. Even though young Republicans are Israel-critical, the largest groups of Israel critics are still Democratic voters and Independents. Republicans overwhelmingly support Israel, 70% to 13%. However, independents and Democrats are less likely to listen to podcasts, making it difficult for The Young Turks to convert them into paying listeners. This is why these ostensibly left voices are not arguing that their new rightist listeners should expand their critiques of Israel into a principled criticism of the overly militarized, overly policed United States, and join the existing progressive anti-war movement. After all, the participants of that movement are unlikely to start paying Cenk and Ana for discombobulated audio shit posting.
Instead of pulling a right-wing audience left, these commentators are moving right and attempting to sanitize the more racist elements of the conservative political project. They’re not attempting to pull rightist elements into the left-led anti-war coalition. They’re attempting to excuse the racism held by their right-wing listeners so they can ensure the subscriber dollars keep flowing. Here’s Ana Kasparian, fresh off her apology for supporting Trump, ‘jUsT aSkInG qUeStIoNs’ if affirmative action “solved anything.”
I’m not Black, so take what I say with a bath of salt. I don’t believe anyone thought affirmative action would solve racism. But it did lead to increased Black activity at universities, a small band-aid on the centuries of exclusion that have prevented Black people from joining the upper ranks of American society. It’s impossible to hear Kasparian’s comments and not draw a line between the Trump Administration’s ongoing attempt to crush affirmative action for Black people.
Unfortunately, the Young Turks are not the only ones pushing this line. During a recent episode of Bad Faith, Briahna Joy Gray weirdly tried to sanitize Trump’s anti-Mexican racism by claiming, “It’s obvious the media lost credibility” by saying his 2016 “Mexico isn’t sending their best” speech was racist. (Of all the ways the mainstream media lost credibility over Trump coverage, calling this racist spade a racist spade wasn’t one of them.)
Later in the episode, the guest, Sana Saeed claimed that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “carried more water for the genocide of Palestinians than Marjorie Taylor Greene ever did.” (Gray said she “completely agreed.”) There’s much to critique about the New York Congresswoman’s relationship to the genocidal Biden Administration, specifically on her repeating the Harris campaign’s lie that they were “working tirelessly for a ceasefire.” But pretending that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who helped re-elect the president who codified Israel’s hasbara that Palestinians don’t exist into American state policy, is better than the Congresswoman who has A and B ratings from the Palestine-focused advocacy groups is a joke.
Just like The Young Turks, Briahna Joy Gray has a financial incentive to delegitimize existing effective anti-war movements. She is a spokesperson for the Green Party, which relentlessly attacks more effective left-wing parties to build party support and funnel donations to the Greens’ already wealthy internet celebrities. Rather than running for something, the Green Party’s 2024 presidential ticket explicitly ran against AOC. As Federal Election Commission disclosures show, the Jill Stein campaign was paying Briahna Joy Gray, Vice President candidate Butch Ware (who received $10k a month), and Peter Daou, a multimillionaire former Hillary Clinton strategist who received thousands of dollars. (This strategy was a disaster, as it led to Jill Stein getting less than half the vote share she did in 2016.) Meanwhile, local Green Party candidates (you know, the ones who actually had a chance to win) were told the Party was broke and were ordered to purchase their own campaign materials. This lucrative strategy is still in motion, which is why Butch Ware, now running for California governor, decided to attack the other left-wing California parties, specifically the Party for Socialism & Liberation, out of the blue.
Gray also has existing financial connections with Zionist, reactionary capitalists linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2021, the current Trump crypto czar and CIA contractor, David Sacks, announced that Gray would receive funding from his “Get Callin” podcast network. Get Callin was quickly acquired by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir Technologies. (Sacks is also a Palantir investor.) Thiel is the current conservative kingmaker, dealing out billions to politicians and media figures behind the scenes. He’s also a freak who thinks the anti-Christ is real, which is one reason Meghyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson launched their new media careers by announcing demons exist.
To say Palantir is a military contractor would be an understatement. The surveillance giant was founded by two investment firms: Thiel Capital and In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s investment firm. (Yep! You read that right. The CIA has an investment firm.) Palantir isn’t so much a CIA contractor as it is a CIA asset. The same can be said for Langely’s investment partners, Peter Thiel and David Sacks. Working with both ICE and the Israeli Army, Palantir has designed some of the most insidious weapons in use, such as IOF’s AI-targetting technology used to bomb civilians in Gaza.
Thiel and Sack’s investment in Briahna Joy Gray was well spent. Much like Kasparian, Gray frequently gave credibility to the idea that Trump was an anti-war candidate in the 2024 election. Here’s Gray in September 2023 saying Trump, the man who ended Roe v. Wade, is “dragging the Republican Party to the left on anti-interventionism and abortion.”
In summary, the CIA created Peter Thiel’s weapons contractor Palantir, which sold Palestinian-massacring weapons to the Israeli Army. Then Sacks and Thiel turned around and gave that money to Briahna Joy Gray so she could podcast about how Republicans are actually better for Palestinians than progressive Democrats. Given that the Palestinian liberation movement is fully committed to the tactic of Boycotting, Divesting, and Sanctioning companies that do business with Israeli colonizers, I don’t know how anyone can excuse Briahna Joy Gray (or Glenn Greenwald, for that matter) for taking Peter Thiel’s blood-soaked money — or view them as credible voices for anti-genocide politics.
Now, if this were just some opportunistic podcasters making noise, I probably wouldn’t be writing about it. The problem is, these figures are letting their personal vendettas and desire for enrichment replicate the 20th-century mistakes and sabotage that destroyed the American left and birthed the current fascist project genociding Palestine, bombing Iran, and handing the economy over to billionaire oligarchs.
Been There, Done That
The most frustrating part of this nonsensical discourse is that what Briahna Joy Gray, Cenk Uygur, and Ana Kasparian are advocating for has been tried before. Now, this might surprise you, but the attempt to unite fascists with dedicated human rights activists in a coherent political coalition didn’t work. Shocking!
The attempt to make far-right elements acceptable to the anti-imperialist left is yet another failed attempt at LaRoucheism, the 1960s movement that combined left-wing anti-imperialism with Neo-Nazi-inspired domestic elements. For example, movement founder Lyndon LaRouche criticized the Iraq War on the grounds that it was driven by Israel (not entirely untrue), which was created after the made-up Holocaust (entirely untrue). Unsurprisingly, LaRoucheism has a terrible track record. Every time they run for office, they get their clocks cleaned by Republicans. In street-level activity, LaRoucheism’s Neo Nazi elements divide leftist anti-imperialist projects and give fodder for conservative elements that seek to discredit the movement for Palestinian liberation. LaRouchites criticize Israel, but only because they believe Jews have an “ancient” desire to kill Christians. LaRouche was also a strong believer in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the antisemitic conspiracy theory used to incite pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Incorporating this element into the modern pro-Palestine movement would be a disaster, as it would validate Zionists’ current lie that Palestinian liberation is driven by antisemitism. Furthermore, it goes against everything I’ve heard from Palestinians, who have repeatedly expressed that their opposition to Israel comes from a “stop killing my family” place and not an ancient religious feud. Unfortunately, the attempt to regalvanize LaRoucheism as an alternative to ongoing progressive organizing efforts is not hypothetical. Jose Vega, a self-described LaRouchite running for Congress, has recently been invited on both Bad Faith and The Young Turks.
The other historical mistake these podcasters are repeating is letting their personal vendettas against the Democratic Party and leftists who work within it be the animating factor of their political decisions. It is impossible to listen to the ultra-leftist elements of the Green Party, who endlessly complain about effective organizations such as DSA while advocating for abortion policies to the right of Donald Trump, and not be reminded of the misguided vendettas of 20th-century American Trotskyists. After Leon Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, he and some of his followers became paranoid anti-Soviet critics. Their advocacy for the working class soon took a backseat to their personal gripes with the more Leninist American communists who supported New Deal Democrats. While the Communist Party USA was working to build the New Deal as a much-needed antidote to fascism, the Trotskyists spent their time writing articles (the 1930s version of a podcast) relentlessly attacking them as “fascists,” “reformists,” and “sell-outs.” (Sound familiar?)
“The New Deal policy, with its fictitious achievements and its very real increase in the national debt, leads unavoidably to ferocious capitalist reaction and a devastating explosion of imperialism. In other words, it is directed into the same channels as the policy of fascism.” — Leon Trotsky, 1939
Led astray by their personal vendettas against the Soviet Union, Democrats, and the leftists who supported them, many (but not all!) Trotskyists sided with Republicans and the American intelligence agencies during the Cold War. In fact, neoconservatism, the imperialist ideology that dominates the modern Republican establishment, grew out of the ultra-left Trotskyist movement. Irvine Kristol, the “Godfather of neoconservatism” and father of the Iraq War architect Bill Kristol, started his political journey as a militant Trotskyist. Confused and misguided, Kristol let his personal hatred of the Communist Party USA, which subscribed to the Marxist-Leninist ideology and acknowledged socialists sometimes needed to support capitalist parties such as the Democrats, overcome his progressive instincts. He soon joined the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-backed front that criticized the Soviet Union and promoted American imperialism from the left. From there, Irvine Kristol went on to codify neoconservatism, the ideological justification Republican and Democratic administrations alike have used to make a mockery of the United Nations charter and invade any and every country they could. The combination of ultra-left tendencies and self-focused leaders was a death knell for the American left. Trotskyists eventually took control of Eugene Debs’ Socialist Party and ran it into the ground by giving implicit support to Republican Richard Nixon over the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election. By the time Nixon was up for re-election, the Socialist Party's rightward turn had destroyed the once-iconic organization, fracturing it for good.
It is impossible for those familiar with the pitfalls and mistakes that led to the ineffectiveness of the 20th-century American left to listen to these left-sounding, right-curious podcasters cite their personal vendettas against a leading member of the existing anti-war coalition as a reason we should listen to far-right Republicans — who, for the record, have not apologized for the rampant dehumanization of Palestinians and Muslims they built their careers on, or even said how they plan to stop the genocide they set in motion. (Perhaps Marjorie Taylor Greene could run for Congress!) Both Briahna Joy Gray and Ana Kasparian have been open about their personal hatred for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In the Bad Faith episode mentioned above, Gray criticized AOC for not backing “Force The Vote,” a 2020 idea from (you guessed it) obscure leftist podcasters urging the progressive Squad to call a pointless floor vote on Medicare For All. Elected politicians correctly dismissed this podcaster’s stunt as not worth their time, for which Briahna Joy Gray and Jimmy Dore accused them of being “sellouts.” Gray has held this grudge for a while, and, as evidenced by her still talking about it over half a decade later, her inability to let go of her silly idea is a driving factor in her newfound openness to reactionaries.
As those familiar with the history of American leftism can tell you, the re-emergence of an ultra-left contingent sanitizing far-right Republicans with funding ties to the Central Intelligence Agency is too coincidental to ignore. Because, don’t kid yourself. This “anti-imperialist right” is nothing but a tactical retreat by fascist capitalists to preserve their multi-decade project from going down with the sinking ship of Trump 2.0. Marjorie Taylor Greene (who is also an investor in the CIA company Palantir) and Tucker Carlson (whose father was a CIA asset and is likely funded by CIA asset Peter Thiel) are 100% going to use their credibility to get young, Trump-critical Republicans to vote for J.D. Vance, who is, drumroll please, the favorite politician of CIA asset Peter Thiel. What a coincidence! All these political and media figures with financial connections to the Central Intelligence Agency want you to hate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and think Peter Thiel’s favorite Zionists are the true left-wing friends of Palestine! It’s almost an exact replica of the playbook the CIA ran to destroy effective American and international left-wing movements throughout the Cold War. So weird this is happening again, right as the American left is reorganizing and winning political power!
If anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole of the CIA’s intelligence wrecking, James Petra’s “The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited” is a good place to start.
Though left-wing independent media is useful, leftists, anti-imperialists, and progressives must be careful not to replicate the mistake liberals made with mainstream media. Too often, American audiences let mainstream media talking heads with no connection to actual political movements dictate what those movements should do. This is how we ended up with the Democrats optimizing Kamala Harris to run for President on perfect “centrism,” an ideology that didn’t exist except inside the minds of out-of-touch liberal bloggers. Similarly, it would be a mistake for progressively-minded audiences to let independent media talking heads with no connection to actual political movements dictate what those movements should do. This is how we end up with The Young Turks and Bad Faith urging Americans distributed by our nation’s imperialist crimes to put their faith in LaRouchism II, an ideology that didn’t exist except inside the minds of out-of-touch leftist podcasters. When we recognize the established links between the Central Intelligence Agency and the voices driving this ultra-left wrecker project, no one with a functioning frontal lobe can believe this is in good faith.
Are the politicians leading the actual existing anti-war coalition above criticism? Do they have all the answers? Of course not. If they did, we wouldn’t be in this mess. (I’ll publish my full thoughts on how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should have handled the 2024 Palestine issue shortly.) But with a sober view of the struggles, failures, and saboatges of the historic American left, as well as a grounded understanding of how we can actually end the unspeakable horror our government inflicts on foreign nations — instead of just virtue signaling online about how we’re Good Americans who are Very Sad we’re murdering entire cultures, but won’t lift a finger to actually stop it — there is no question that the actually existing movement currently uplifting anti-war candidates is the best chance we’ve got. And if you think that the movement or its leaders need correcting, then you should join it and do so. Because the podcasters who told us to leftistly support Donald Trump and are now telling us our revulsion to American slaughter should be directed into supporting Marjorie Taylor Greene are not on the level.
Before I close, I’d like to clarify that everything I accused these other Substackers and podcasters of equally applies to me. If I ever start jUsT aSkInG qUeStiOns if Marjorie Taylor Greene is a friend of Palestinians, you should call out my bullshit and immediately unsubscribe from JoeWrote. Commentators are supposed to inform and explain political movements, not wreck and mislead them for financial gain.
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The one exception is Thomas Massie, a Republican critical of Trump and Israel. Massie’s advocacy is welcome, but his likely loss in the GOP primary shows the extent of anti-war conservatism — none.
I think "Americans had the most trust in the mass media in 1976, following principled, critical coverage of Watergate and the Vietnam War" is a bit simplified: As detailed in Manufacturing Consent, mainstream media was not, in fact, doing much principled critical coverage of at least the Vietnam War until well after it wouldve been useful to the average viewer. Support for the war was positively correlated with hours of TV viewing, for instance.
MTG is racist scum, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t criticize AOC or Bernie when they peddle a softer-sounding liberal zionism and center Israeli safety in the midst of Israelis commiting genocide. I’m glad she’s been moved on this issue (due to said criticism), but she has to prove it