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.
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.
I could have worded that better. The coverage wasn't ideal, but the press's images of war did help turn public opinion against it. And I do believe Americans saw that as principled.
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
I can accept saying AOC isn’t a liberal-Zionist, but to call Bernie Sanders anything other than a liberal (or “labor”) Zionist is simply untrue. He wholeheartedly defends the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate. How long did it take him to even call the genocide a genocide?
I overall really appreciated this article as someone who used to listen to BJG’s commentary. She is absolutely an opportunist and careerist before anything else.
She was also one of the few left-media types to platform Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative when we were defending our council seat against a right-wing billionaire-funded recall campaign that attacked her for participating in the 2020 BLM protests.
I don’t always agree with your takes, but this was balanced and measured IMO. And absolutely fuck the Young Turks. We gotta stop worshipping media talking heads just like we need to stop worshipping politicians.
“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?)
What a gross oversimplification of the period. How did the 1934 General Strike of Minneapolis happen? If Trotskyists were nothing more than 1930s “podcasters,” how were they able to win such a monumental strike?
I’m extremely open to hearing criticism of Trotskyism/Trotskyists, and I have plenty of my own as a Trotskyist myself, but this is lazy. I genuinely think you’re a better writer than that, and I at least thought your politics were better than that.
Great to see someone connect the dots around these absurd takes from podcast people. This, too: “Too often, American audiences let mainstream media talking heads with no connection to actual political movements dictate what those movements should do.” It describes so much NYT involvement in politics in particular. It’s how they end up endorsing people like Amy Klobuchar for president, who didn’t come anywhere near winning her own state primary. Or sending columnists like Frank Bruni on TV the morning after the 2016 election to say Dems lost because they were too far left on “boutique issues” like trans rights (https://fair.org/home/nyt-protects-its-pundit-who-dismissed-trans-rights-as-boutique-issue/). That people like him are invited on TV to do political analysis, when he seems to have only shifted from being a restaurant critic to writing political commentary because he developed gout, is absurd.
I’d like to hear you flesh out the claims you make of American Trotskyism in the 20th century. You say a lot in a couple paragraphs that oversimplifies and ignores a lot of historical context.
I’d also be curious if you do have any critiques of the CPUSA in the same time period. If I read this article having been relatively unfamiliar with Trotskyism and Stalinism, I could assume you are fully aligned with the CPUSA of the 20th century.
I also think it’s a big stretch to lump in modern day political parties, like Socialist Alternative, with the left-podcast sphere. We wholeheartedly supported Force the Vote, and we also have MANY disagreements with folks like Jimmy Dore, and BJG for that matter. Kshama Sawant was a *Trotskyist* in Seattle City Council for 10 years (2014-2024), being elected to office before the DSA and Bernie’s meteoric rise.
I also have my critiques of Sawant! I even have critiques of my own party! But I would much rather you argue these points more clearly, and not just include them as footnotes in an article about lefty podcasters.
I have many critiques of CPUSA, and pretty much any leftist organization that's ever existed. But I do believe supporting the New Deal was the correct move. And you're also correct, this is a simplified version of 20th-century Trotskyism. I wasn't trying to share my full views, only draw a parallel between the Trots who went on to support Republicans and what's happening today.
I don't believe I mentioned SA, so I certainly wasn't trying to lump them in with BJG.
But once again, I want to reiterate how much I appreciate you responding in good faith. I wish more of the left ecosystem was willing to engage in good faith debate.
I guess I meant it as in you lumped all the FTV people together as just lefty podcasters, which isn’t the whole truth. My point was that there were genuine organizers who do real tangible work who supported that initiative.
1. Why are you giving a podcast named after genocidaires by a bunch of talking heads whose most recent significant activity was “why I left the left” grifting the fig leaf of calling them leftist/left-leaning?
2. I feel like the phrase “personal vendettas against the Soviet Union” is both an understatement and dancing kinda close to the flame of Soviet apologia. Of course, I freely admit that I’m a little bit hypervigilant for the ol’ “US Bad -> Soviet Union Good -> Russia Good -> Putin Good” pipeline that a lot of nominal leftists fell down when Putin invaded Ukraine.
I'm not saying there weren't some valid critiques of the USSR, especially during Stalinism. I'm pointing out that some ultra-leftists let their personal feelings against other leftists drive them into neoconservatism. Because that did happen.
When did Butch Ware attack PSL? He called out DSA-LA for endorsing a billionaire who apparently made part of his fortune in for-profit prisons. But what (if anything) did he do to PSL?
The video is in here. Butch claimed Peace & Freedom revoked a promise of a gubernatorial position on the left unity slate. And "PSL only gets motion on tik tok."
"Valorizing himself and his co-host Ana Kasparian for 'taking a chance' (by which he means they said things on their podcast), Cenk...." I must say, that one made me do a Christoph Waltz, "Ooh, that's a bingo!"
Jesus Christ is this long. And boring. And incredibly selective of the facts. And filtered through the prism of "What Joe believes".
And in the end a truly bad faith argument which reveals the eternal downfall of "the Left" (wrongfully expanded to include liberals): taking a narrow and unnuanced position on everything and attacking anyone who doesn't hew precisely to that position.
It doesn't even engage honestly with the many reasons BJG and many others are disappointed with AOC. Ugh.
Some interesting points and facts in this piece, Joe! Definitely thought-provoking. Some of the logic is kind of twisty and it ultimately seems to uphold the duopoly.
I agree about the right-wing personalities mentioned. Not convinced Briahna Joy Gray is compromised based on this information, but questioning motives and exploring connections is good in our situation.
An excellent resource on these matters is “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism” by @Gabriel Rockhill. I will check out the book you mentioned as well!
The left knows the CIA is destroying the left. The right also believes the CIA is interfering in their politics, whatever they are, and they’re probably right. The left and a good portion of the right are done with the terrorist colony of Israel. There are a lot of things we should be able to come together on and take care of.
Jeeeez this was hard to go through. First, let me start by saying, “shame on you”. AOC actively supported the genocide. She did that. You cannot dispute that. Kamala vowed to maintain Biden’s genocidal policy in Israel, and AOC obfuscated for and defended that genocidal administration. She worked to get genocidal war criminals elected for her own self-interest.
On a side note: it seems like you, yourself, voted Kamala. Meaning that you actively and knowingly participated in supporting a genocide. You got off your ass, put your shoes on, and went to vote for genocide to give yourself a marginally better life. How are you different than MAGA? You engaged in the same hyper-individualism that they do. You voted to murder toddlers for your own self-interest. At least MAGA voters can say they were dumb enough to be duped. You KNOWINGLY supported genocide.
Now. Back to the point.
It doesn’t matter how disgusting MTG is or was. She didn’t support genocide. AOC did. And, instead of holding AOC accountable, you defend her. She still supports Zionism. She is a liberal Zionist. Two states is a lie. Israel stole it all. Anyone who says “two states” is lying. There is no two states. There is only Israel with a Jewish supremacist minority in power.
So here you are defending the genocidal Nazi; while condemning the anti-genocide conservative who is also a little racist. From my perspective, your liberal ass is WAAAY more disgusting than MTG for the simple fact that you support genocide. You can cosplay as an anti-Zionist all you want, but you keep supporting genocide and Jewish supremacy.
You do not hold genocide supporters accountable. You do not hold yourself accountable for supporting a genocide. Who the fuck are you to judge MTG for anything? You are a hyper-individualist child killer.
There was no anti-genocide candidate running in 2024* and therefore any attempt to assign moral weight based on voting for a pro-Israel presidential candidate in 2024 is less than worthless. Please learn about concepts like “harm reduction” before attempting to broach this topic again.
*: The Spoiler Party That Should Have Committed Seppuku After 2000 does not count
I dunno if you’ve bothered listening to what Briahna Joy Gray actually says about this, but I think she’s generally been pretty careful (at least when the format affords long-form explanations) about *not* uncritically praising MTG or Tucker Carlson. Her position — the *correct* position as far as I’m concerned — is simply that MTG happens to be doing and saying better on this one issue, right now, than many Democrats including AOC, and that what that should tell us is there’s a wide open lane available for Democrats to run in, AOC and the rest are just choosing not to.
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.
They don’t call it television “programming” for nothing.
I could have worded that better. The coverage wasn't ideal, but the press's images of war did help turn public opinion against it. And I do believe Americans saw that as principled.
Yeah, it's a necessary simplification for the larger point, just thought it worth noting.
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
I don't think they're liberal zionists. But I do agree criticism is absolutely fair.
I can accept saying AOC isn’t a liberal-Zionist, but to call Bernie Sanders anything other than a liberal (or “labor”) Zionist is simply untrue. He wholeheartedly defends the existence of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate. How long did it take him to even call the genocide a genocide?
I overall really appreciated this article as someone who used to listen to BJG’s commentary. She is absolutely an opportunist and careerist before anything else.
She was also one of the few left-media types to platform Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative when we were defending our council seat against a right-wing billionaire-funded recall campaign that attacked her for participating in the 2020 BLM protests.
I don’t always agree with your takes, but this was balanced and measured IMO. And absolutely fuck the Young Turks. We gotta stop worshipping media talking heads just like we need to stop worshipping politicians.
Ah just got to this part:
“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?)
What a gross oversimplification of the period. How did the 1934 General Strike of Minneapolis happen? If Trotskyists were nothing more than 1930s “podcasters,” how were they able to win such a monumental strike?
I’m extremely open to hearing criticism of Trotskyism/Trotskyists, and I have plenty of my own as a Trotskyist myself, but this is lazy. I genuinely think you’re a better writer than that, and I at least thought your politics were better than that.
Hilarious. No “genocide” in Gaza. Just a retarded bunch of Western poseurs looking for an excused to support the Islamist death cult Hamas.
You are one of those retards @Nate.
Great to see someone connect the dots around these absurd takes from podcast people. This, too: “Too often, American audiences let mainstream media talking heads with no connection to actual political movements dictate what those movements should do.” It describes so much NYT involvement in politics in particular. It’s how they end up endorsing people like Amy Klobuchar for president, who didn’t come anywhere near winning her own state primary. Or sending columnists like Frank Bruni on TV the morning after the 2016 election to say Dems lost because they were too far left on “boutique issues” like trans rights (https://fair.org/home/nyt-protects-its-pundit-who-dismissed-trans-rights-as-boutique-issue/). That people like him are invited on TV to do political analysis, when he seems to have only shifted from being a restaurant critic to writing political commentary because he developed gout, is absurd.
I’d like to hear you flesh out the claims you make of American Trotskyism in the 20th century. You say a lot in a couple paragraphs that oversimplifies and ignores a lot of historical context.
I’d also be curious if you do have any critiques of the CPUSA in the same time period. If I read this article having been relatively unfamiliar with Trotskyism and Stalinism, I could assume you are fully aligned with the CPUSA of the 20th century.
I also think it’s a big stretch to lump in modern day political parties, like Socialist Alternative, with the left-podcast sphere. We wholeheartedly supported Force the Vote, and we also have MANY disagreements with folks like Jimmy Dore, and BJG for that matter. Kshama Sawant was a *Trotskyist* in Seattle City Council for 10 years (2014-2024), being elected to office before the DSA and Bernie’s meteoric rise.
I also have my critiques of Sawant! I even have critiques of my own party! But I would much rather you argue these points more clearly, and not just include them as footnotes in an article about lefty podcasters.
I have many critiques of CPUSA, and pretty much any leftist organization that's ever existed. But I do believe supporting the New Deal was the correct move. And you're also correct, this is a simplified version of 20th-century Trotskyism. I wasn't trying to share my full views, only draw a parallel between the Trots who went on to support Republicans and what's happening today.
I don't believe I mentioned SA, so I certainly wasn't trying to lump them in with BJG.
But once again, I want to reiterate how much I appreciate you responding in good faith. I wish more of the left ecosystem was willing to engage in good faith debate.
Thanks! You as well.
I guess I meant it as in you lumped all the FTV people together as just lefty podcasters, which isn’t the whole truth. My point was that there were genuine organizers who do real tangible work who supported that initiative.
“Right-wing brothers” - yeah, no. I’d sooner trust a pit viper.
At no point in the last decade have these people given us any reason to trust them.
This response by Glenn Greenwald seems very devastating: https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/2056854771428913633
I hope that you reply to his direct questions!
Will do!
As a consumer of content, this is what I love to hear.
I'll never deprive the internet of content.
1. Why are you giving a podcast named after genocidaires by a bunch of talking heads whose most recent significant activity was “why I left the left” grifting the fig leaf of calling them leftist/left-leaning?
2. I feel like the phrase “personal vendettas against the Soviet Union” is both an understatement and dancing kinda close to the flame of Soviet apologia. Of course, I freely admit that I’m a little bit hypervigilant for the ol’ “US Bad -> Soviet Union Good -> Russia Good -> Putin Good” pipeline that a lot of nominal leftists fell down when Putin invaded Ukraine.
I'm not saying there weren't some valid critiques of the USSR, especially during Stalinism. I'm pointing out that some ultra-leftists let their personal feelings against other leftists drive them into neoconservatism. Because that did happen.
I also agree that the leftist praise for Russia is silly. Putin and Yeltsin did what the CIA could never do — end the Soviet Union.
I’ve always personally laid most of the blame at Gorbachev’s feet for introducing unemployment without also introducing some sort of UBI.
When did Butch Ware attack PSL? He called out DSA-LA for endorsing a billionaire who apparently made part of his fortune in for-profit prisons. But what (if anything) did he do to PSL?
The video is in here. Butch claimed Peace & Freedom revoked a promise of a gubernatorial position on the left unity slate. And "PSL only gets motion on tik tok."
https://www.joewrote.com/p/butch-ware-the-art-of-leftist-grift
Damn we really are cooked
"Valorizing himself and his co-host Ana Kasparian for 'taking a chance' (by which he means they said things on their podcast), Cenk...." I must say, that one made me do a Christoph Waltz, "Ooh, that's a bingo!"
😂
Jesus Christ is this long. And boring. And incredibly selective of the facts. And filtered through the prism of "What Joe believes".
And in the end a truly bad faith argument which reveals the eternal downfall of "the Left" (wrongfully expanded to include liberals): taking a narrow and unnuanced position on everything and attacking anyone who doesn't hew precisely to that position.
It doesn't even engage honestly with the many reasons BJG and many others are disappointed with AOC. Ugh.
You’re surprised my Substack is “what I believe”?
Hilarious. Hey look. Another retard who believes in dog rape. That's hilarious.
Do you believe the earth is flat and the Zionists flattened it? LOL.
Some interesting points and facts in this piece, Joe! Definitely thought-provoking. Some of the logic is kind of twisty and it ultimately seems to uphold the duopoly.
I agree about the right-wing personalities mentioned. Not convinced Briahna Joy Gray is compromised based on this information, but questioning motives and exploring connections is good in our situation.
An excellent resource on these matters is “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism” by @Gabriel Rockhill. I will check out the book you mentioned as well!
The left knows the CIA is destroying the left. The right also believes the CIA is interfering in their politics, whatever they are, and they’re probably right. The left and a good portion of the right are done with the terrorist colony of Israel. There are a lot of things we should be able to come together on and take care of.
TY for sharing your thoughts and findings! 🕊️
Jeeeez this was hard to go through. First, let me start by saying, “shame on you”. AOC actively supported the genocide. She did that. You cannot dispute that. Kamala vowed to maintain Biden’s genocidal policy in Israel, and AOC obfuscated for and defended that genocidal administration. She worked to get genocidal war criminals elected for her own self-interest.
On a side note: it seems like you, yourself, voted Kamala. Meaning that you actively and knowingly participated in supporting a genocide. You got off your ass, put your shoes on, and went to vote for genocide to give yourself a marginally better life. How are you different than MAGA? You engaged in the same hyper-individualism that they do. You voted to murder toddlers for your own self-interest. At least MAGA voters can say they were dumb enough to be duped. You KNOWINGLY supported genocide.
Now. Back to the point.
It doesn’t matter how disgusting MTG is or was. She didn’t support genocide. AOC did. And, instead of holding AOC accountable, you defend her. She still supports Zionism. She is a liberal Zionist. Two states is a lie. Israel stole it all. Anyone who says “two states” is lying. There is no two states. There is only Israel with a Jewish supremacist minority in power.
So here you are defending the genocidal Nazi; while condemning the anti-genocide conservative who is also a little racist. From my perspective, your liberal ass is WAAAY more disgusting than MTG for the simple fact that you support genocide. You can cosplay as an anti-Zionist all you want, but you keep supporting genocide and Jewish supremacy.
You do not hold genocide supporters accountable. You do not hold yourself accountable for supporting a genocide. Who the fuck are you to judge MTG for anything? You are a hyper-individualist child killer.
There was no anti-genocide candidate running in 2024* and therefore any attempt to assign moral weight based on voting for a pro-Israel presidential candidate in 2024 is less than worthless. Please learn about concepts like “harm reduction” before attempting to broach this topic again.
*: The Spoiler Party That Should Have Committed Seppuku After 2000 does not count
I dunno if you’ve bothered listening to what Briahna Joy Gray actually says about this, but I think she’s generally been pretty careful (at least when the format affords long-form explanations) about *not* uncritically praising MTG or Tucker Carlson. Her position — the *correct* position as far as I’m concerned — is simply that MTG happens to be doing and saying better on this one issue, right now, than many Democrats including AOC, and that what that should tell us is there’s a wide open lane available for Democrats to run in, AOC and the rest are just choosing not to.
Hilarious. Not very bright or self-aware are you @Joe Wrote.
You have the time to swallow and regurgitate a ridiculous "dog rape" lie. For fucks sake, get a job. LOL.
You are retarded.