I think that the bulk of these infotainment pundits are grifts of varying sorts. I’ve read anecdotal accounts that claim that Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson admitted off the record that everything they say is for novelty purposes only and it’s the fault of the listener/viewer if they believe such obvious nonsense. Similarly, I think the first Trump term encouraged the proliferation of pundits and commenters to provide copium for shellshocked liberals. Now that Trump is the once and future president, the bottom has fallen out of that kind of mindless commentary (to be specific, I’m referring both to the ones that were constantly claiming that Trump would be imprisoned for his misdeeds and the ones that only existed to provide breathless updates about whatever dumb thing Trump did in the last three hours). Because these commentators are fundamentally entertainers, rather than journalists or political scientists, their main concern is finding material that sells. If liberalism doesn’t sell, might as well chase the bucks and go conservative.
Well, Cenk would be offended if you were to suggest to him that what he's doing is a grift. This, even though he acknowledges that what people are seeing in him fits a pattern that others in the progressive-to-far-right pipeline have followed.
I realize that I've almost certainly invested more time into this topic than most people reading this. It's very tangential to really important things going on. Yet I've been glued to this story, because I think it is a real harbinger of how LW media will unfold (or maybe even disintegrate) in this upcoming media environment.
What Ana and Cenk are doing is dangerous. Cenk swears up and down that all he's doing is talking to the right (while he lambastes the left for being too authoritarian and closed-minded). Ana, for her part, was asked by Piers Morgan if she were pulling a Dave Rubin, and her answer was that she was still "pretty" progressive and that she still worked at the same place! That bit of trivia is immaterial -- except for the fact that the two hosts are adamantly retaining the idea that they define the left, even as they attack the left. Ultimately, this means they're trying to reset the Overton window.
They're not dressing up what they're doing as entertainment, and their viewers aren't taking their moves as such, either. They've lost about 40,000 subscribers (as of about two weeks ago), which is apparently significant, and accordingly I expect the two to go even harder right more quickly so as to pick up that nougat of centrist viewers. Hence we see Ana admitting the joys of being red-pilled.
The real danger is that they will radicalize their longtime viewership to the right, which only a dolt would not comprehend, so it's an insult to the intelligence of the viewers when Cenk says that in 3-4 years if he's wrong he'll simply have to admit that. No, he can do real damage in the meantime. It's incomprehensible that he wouldn't see that. He's a blowhard, but he's not dumb.
I find the entire move of theirs alarming because a good contingent of YouTube viewers actually don't perceive what is going on, and it is they who are most at risk of being turned to the right. This move by Cenk & Ana is a complete betrayal to those who are actually devoted to left ideals.
Again, I know it's a subterranean issue dwarfed by other real-life happenings. But I believe what those two are doing will have true ramifications.
Thank you for your reply. The sense of betrayal you feel towards TYT reminds me of Malcolm X said about the difference between white liberals and white conservatives. You know where you stand with MAGA types, so being insulted or dismissed by them isn’t shocking, whereas hearing the same from a supposed “progressive” feels like being kicked in the face.
Even though we shouldn’t expect much from either the mainstream medium or even supposed alternative media (they would livestream nude executions if they could get the advertising revenue to do so), what we’re seeing is the further rightward drift of the Overton Window with no discernible way to reverse it. Democratic politicians have made it clear that they have no intention of changing the status quo and think that people who want to are stupid. The owner of the Other Site took FAFO to a whole new level by stating people in red states deserve to suffer under Trump so they’ll come crawling back to the Democrats, but fortunately Democrats in blue states won’t be affected as much because they have been blessed by higher education, wages, and geography (I guess the Democrats in red states are SOL). Companies are rolling back diversity measures, which as token as I tend to think they are, illustrate that there isn’t even going to be an attempt to pretend that they’re going to be proactive about this issue.
Our current situation is the result of having destroyed the true left back in the 1970s, as there’s no force that can go toe to toe against the far right. Despite the hyperventilating about Trump and fascism, liberals generally have no problem working with fascists. For example, when Giorgia Meloni first became prime minister of Italy, Hillary Clinton’s response was basically, “I love to see a girlboss gaslight and gatekeep her way to the top.” Clearly, Clinton doesn’t see Meloni as an existential threat to US interests, despite being the head of the institutional successor to Mussolini’s party. The US has also supported such classy, freedom-loving countries as apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, Chile under Pinochet, Spain under Franco, and countless others. Fascism was never defeated, it just got redirected into a network of US client states. Liberalism can’t provide the conditions for the kind of systemic change that is desperately needed (see Margaret Thatcher’s “there is no society” spiel). TYT see which way the weathervane is going, so why not get that bag?
MSNBC interviewed her five months ago (i.e., before the election). She was singing Harris's praises. Now she's a regular fixture on Fox. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0QVmba8bmmg
So when I say "betrayal", I don't mean I feel a personal sense of betrayal. For example, I've just started out on Bluesky, and in the last couple of days ran across an account that bears some rhetorical resemblance to Caitlin Johnstone, but the commentary comes from a Black female perspective. She came out excoriating liberals (in general) for treating the fight for human rights as faddish or expendable due to political circumstances. She has brought up the MLK, Jr. & Malcolm X quotes about the White moderate. She's personally aggrieved at this turn of events.
When I call out TYT for its apparent transformation, I'm not doing so out of a sense of being personally wounded. It's simply an assessment of the political landscape. For decades, TYT has appropriated the title of being "home of the progressives" -- that's their tagline. So it's vitally important for those of us outside of that organization to scrutinize TYT and measure whether it is fulfilling its own mission statement. Again, they are tacking right while still trying to make a claim to represent the left -- while attacking left positions they decry as "too far" (i.e., positions that would annoy or alarm the rightists that they are now courting). That's a failure that needs to be called out.
I call Cenk & Ana moles because they are using their established, burrowed position within liberal and leftist spaces to turn around and use their faces to broadcast ideas antithetical to liberal & leftist ideals. That's is what I'm trying to hone in on. I wouldn't care if these were hangers-on or no-names who left whatever part of the political spectrum and joined some other faction. That happens all the time. I would also simply throw up my hands if they, being so visible, decided to turn all of their energy and resources toward building up the right wing -- as Cenk himself says, we've seen that story play out before. We know the pattern. But here, we have an otherwise well-respected and established liberal/left standard bearer that is making this ideological turn BUT ALSO swearing that that turn is not happening. And that is why I am focused on this story, because the platform is positioned perfectly to lead their longtime audience down a completely different ideological road, doing so in the most underhanded way.
They're not the only ones doing this, and it's quite alarming. As you say (though I'd use different verbiage, almost certainly), liberals have teamed up with fascists against far-leftists throughout the history of fascism's existence. The swiftness in which this is playing out here in the US is eyebrow-raising. We've seen the hosts of Morning Joe visit Trump in his palatial estate to bend the knee; we've seen the owners of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times kill editorial independence so as to curry favor; we see Mark Zuckerberg capitulate in just the last week. But also there are smaller signs, like the Democratic consultant who sang Harris's accolades in the fall but slagged Democrats across the board on an appearance on Fox, painting herself as a model minority; and I've even seen Mark Vicente, an ex-member of NXIVM, reveal to his audience that he now sees cult-like aspects in the Democratic Party. I doubt either of those people would have made such statements had Democrats won this year.
That's not even bringing into the fray statements by Rep. Seth Moulton about how the Democratic Party should reassess their commitment to trans rights (a form of "we should have that conversation," a weasel-word formulation) and Sen. John Fetterman, for all sorts of things (including his conservative tilt on Israel) but especially for his surrender to Trump in the last two weeks. All of this is happening at breakneck speed.
I think part of the problem, in terms of liberals being drawn to power instead of sticking to their ideological guns, is that they have been conditioned over decades to fight against purported leftist "excesses", and to fight rather reflexively. So now, when it comes to the point where the only defense we have against fascism is a far-left ethos, those same liberals don't know how to turn and embrace their erstwhile ideological brethren. They've been seeking power for so long, that's all they know. Trump's that fireplace now, and they're all gathering around the hearth, trying to get warm.
Thank you for your reply. I think that one of the main problems, with “The Resistance” TM, both in politics and in the media, is that they suffer from an unwilling to be unpopular. If you are actually a true fighter in a resistance or liberation movement, you will not be popular and will face significant pushback from all levels of society. For example, Rosa Parks was basically expelled from Montgomery as a result of her actions, a common fate for Blacks who tried to go up against the white power structure (Emmett Till’a relatives who testified in that show trial were also forced out of their town). MLK was extremely disliked during his lifetime, especially when he started to speak out against Northern systemic racism and US foreign policy, and was subjected to violence at the individual at institutional level. I can’t see any of these “Resistance” (TM) individuals willing to subject themselves to even one percent of what Parks or King had to go through, because 1. They don’t want to inconvenience themselves 2. They regard their “resistance” as a business decision. 3. They genuinely can’t imagine life being any different than they way it was in, say, 2014, and have no positive vision for the future (see Aaron Sorkin proposing that the Democrats run Mitt Romney to replace Biden).
Now, conservatives are willing to be unpopular but it’s not the same because they enjoy institutional support and generally aren’t being harassed by the government the way antiwar, anti racist, or anti capitalist activists are. As much as people made fun of Jerry Falwell, he had the ears of the people whose opinions actually mattered and he never had to moderate to do so. Compare how the people at CPAC are treated by the Republicans versus how Palestinian delegates at the Democratic National Convention couldn’t even get a token recognition. Don’t be surprised if you don’t have a real resistance when the supposed opposition party keeps knee capping the fighters.
Making fun of Trump has been quite a lucrative endeavor and it’s been a mainstream pastime (not the sign of being a beleaguered resistance). That so many are pivoting the other way indicates a sign of defeat or the beginning of a new career opportunity.
I think that the bulk of these infotainment pundits are grifts of varying sorts. I’ve read anecdotal accounts that claim that Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson admitted off the record that everything they say is for novelty purposes only and it’s the fault of the listener/viewer if they believe such obvious nonsense. Similarly, I think the first Trump term encouraged the proliferation of pundits and commenters to provide copium for shellshocked liberals. Now that Trump is the once and future president, the bottom has fallen out of that kind of mindless commentary (to be specific, I’m referring both to the ones that were constantly claiming that Trump would be imprisoned for his misdeeds and the ones that only existed to provide breathless updates about whatever dumb thing Trump did in the last three hours). Because these commentators are fundamentally entertainers, rather than journalists or political scientists, their main concern is finding material that sells. If liberalism doesn’t sell, might as well chase the bucks and go conservative.
Well, Cenk would be offended if you were to suggest to him that what he's doing is a grift. This, even though he acknowledges that what people are seeing in him fits a pattern that others in the progressive-to-far-right pipeline have followed.
I realize that I've almost certainly invested more time into this topic than most people reading this. It's very tangential to really important things going on. Yet I've been glued to this story, because I think it is a real harbinger of how LW media will unfold (or maybe even disintegrate) in this upcoming media environment.
What Ana and Cenk are doing is dangerous. Cenk swears up and down that all he's doing is talking to the right (while he lambastes the left for being too authoritarian and closed-minded). Ana, for her part, was asked by Piers Morgan if she were pulling a Dave Rubin, and her answer was that she was still "pretty" progressive and that she still worked at the same place! That bit of trivia is immaterial -- except for the fact that the two hosts are adamantly retaining the idea that they define the left, even as they attack the left. Ultimately, this means they're trying to reset the Overton window.
They're not dressing up what they're doing as entertainment, and their viewers aren't taking their moves as such, either. They've lost about 40,000 subscribers (as of about two weeks ago), which is apparently significant, and accordingly I expect the two to go even harder right more quickly so as to pick up that nougat of centrist viewers. Hence we see Ana admitting the joys of being red-pilled.
The real danger is that they will radicalize their longtime viewership to the right, which only a dolt would not comprehend, so it's an insult to the intelligence of the viewers when Cenk says that in 3-4 years if he's wrong he'll simply have to admit that. No, he can do real damage in the meantime. It's incomprehensible that he wouldn't see that. He's a blowhard, but he's not dumb.
I find the entire move of theirs alarming because a good contingent of YouTube viewers actually don't perceive what is going on, and it is they who are most at risk of being turned to the right. This move by Cenk & Ana is a complete betrayal to those who are actually devoted to left ideals.
Again, I know it's a subterranean issue dwarfed by other real-life happenings. But I believe what those two are doing will have true ramifications.
Thank you for your reply. The sense of betrayal you feel towards TYT reminds me of Malcolm X said about the difference between white liberals and white conservatives. You know where you stand with MAGA types, so being insulted or dismissed by them isn’t shocking, whereas hearing the same from a supposed “progressive” feels like being kicked in the face.
Even though we shouldn’t expect much from either the mainstream medium or even supposed alternative media (they would livestream nude executions if they could get the advertising revenue to do so), what we’re seeing is the further rightward drift of the Overton Window with no discernible way to reverse it. Democratic politicians have made it clear that they have no intention of changing the status quo and think that people who want to are stupid. The owner of the Other Site took FAFO to a whole new level by stating people in red states deserve to suffer under Trump so they’ll come crawling back to the Democrats, but fortunately Democrats in blue states won’t be affected as much because they have been blessed by higher education, wages, and geography (I guess the Democrats in red states are SOL). Companies are rolling back diversity measures, which as token as I tend to think they are, illustrate that there isn’t even going to be an attempt to pretend that they’re going to be proactive about this issue.
Our current situation is the result of having destroyed the true left back in the 1970s, as there’s no force that can go toe to toe against the far right. Despite the hyperventilating about Trump and fascism, liberals generally have no problem working with fascists. For example, when Giorgia Meloni first became prime minister of Italy, Hillary Clinton’s response was basically, “I love to see a girlboss gaslight and gatekeep her way to the top.” Clearly, Clinton doesn’t see Meloni as an existential threat to US interests, despite being the head of the institutional successor to Mussolini’s party. The US has also supported such classy, freedom-loving countries as apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, Chile under Pinochet, Spain under Franco, and countless others. Fascism was never defeated, it just got redirected into a network of US client states. Liberalism can’t provide the conditions for the kind of systemic change that is desperately needed (see Margaret Thatcher’s “there is no society” spiel). TYT see which way the weathervane is going, so why not get that bag?
I mentioned a Democratic consultant who did an about-face. Her name is Lindy Li. The Bulwark recently did a write-up about her: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-curious-case-of-lindy-li
MSNBC interviewed her five months ago (i.e., before the election). She was singing Harris's praises. Now she's a regular fixture on Fox. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0QVmba8bmmg
Hi again, LM. Thanks for engaging on this topic.
So when I say "betrayal", I don't mean I feel a personal sense of betrayal. For example, I've just started out on Bluesky, and in the last couple of days ran across an account that bears some rhetorical resemblance to Caitlin Johnstone, but the commentary comes from a Black female perspective. She came out excoriating liberals (in general) for treating the fight for human rights as faddish or expendable due to political circumstances. She has brought up the MLK, Jr. & Malcolm X quotes about the White moderate. She's personally aggrieved at this turn of events.
When I call out TYT for its apparent transformation, I'm not doing so out of a sense of being personally wounded. It's simply an assessment of the political landscape. For decades, TYT has appropriated the title of being "home of the progressives" -- that's their tagline. So it's vitally important for those of us outside of that organization to scrutinize TYT and measure whether it is fulfilling its own mission statement. Again, they are tacking right while still trying to make a claim to represent the left -- while attacking left positions they decry as "too far" (i.e., positions that would annoy or alarm the rightists that they are now courting). That's a failure that needs to be called out.
I call Cenk & Ana moles because they are using their established, burrowed position within liberal and leftist spaces to turn around and use their faces to broadcast ideas antithetical to liberal & leftist ideals. That's is what I'm trying to hone in on. I wouldn't care if these were hangers-on or no-names who left whatever part of the political spectrum and joined some other faction. That happens all the time. I would also simply throw up my hands if they, being so visible, decided to turn all of their energy and resources toward building up the right wing -- as Cenk himself says, we've seen that story play out before. We know the pattern. But here, we have an otherwise well-respected and established liberal/left standard bearer that is making this ideological turn BUT ALSO swearing that that turn is not happening. And that is why I am focused on this story, because the platform is positioned perfectly to lead their longtime audience down a completely different ideological road, doing so in the most underhanded way.
They're not the only ones doing this, and it's quite alarming. As you say (though I'd use different verbiage, almost certainly), liberals have teamed up with fascists against far-leftists throughout the history of fascism's existence. The swiftness in which this is playing out here in the US is eyebrow-raising. We've seen the hosts of Morning Joe visit Trump in his palatial estate to bend the knee; we've seen the owners of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times kill editorial independence so as to curry favor; we see Mark Zuckerberg capitulate in just the last week. But also there are smaller signs, like the Democratic consultant who sang Harris's accolades in the fall but slagged Democrats across the board on an appearance on Fox, painting herself as a model minority; and I've even seen Mark Vicente, an ex-member of NXIVM, reveal to his audience that he now sees cult-like aspects in the Democratic Party. I doubt either of those people would have made such statements had Democrats won this year.
That's not even bringing into the fray statements by Rep. Seth Moulton about how the Democratic Party should reassess their commitment to trans rights (a form of "we should have that conversation," a weasel-word formulation) and Sen. John Fetterman, for all sorts of things (including his conservative tilt on Israel) but especially for his surrender to Trump in the last two weeks. All of this is happening at breakneck speed.
I think part of the problem, in terms of liberals being drawn to power instead of sticking to their ideological guns, is that they have been conditioned over decades to fight against purported leftist "excesses", and to fight rather reflexively. So now, when it comes to the point where the only defense we have against fascism is a far-left ethos, those same liberals don't know how to turn and embrace their erstwhile ideological brethren. They've been seeking power for so long, that's all they know. Trump's that fireplace now, and they're all gathering around the hearth, trying to get warm.
Thank you for your reply. I think that one of the main problems, with “The Resistance” TM, both in politics and in the media, is that they suffer from an unwilling to be unpopular. If you are actually a true fighter in a resistance or liberation movement, you will not be popular and will face significant pushback from all levels of society. For example, Rosa Parks was basically expelled from Montgomery as a result of her actions, a common fate for Blacks who tried to go up against the white power structure (Emmett Till’a relatives who testified in that show trial were also forced out of their town). MLK was extremely disliked during his lifetime, especially when he started to speak out against Northern systemic racism and US foreign policy, and was subjected to violence at the individual at institutional level. I can’t see any of these “Resistance” (TM) individuals willing to subject themselves to even one percent of what Parks or King had to go through, because 1. They don’t want to inconvenience themselves 2. They regard their “resistance” as a business decision. 3. They genuinely can’t imagine life being any different than they way it was in, say, 2014, and have no positive vision for the future (see Aaron Sorkin proposing that the Democrats run Mitt Romney to replace Biden).
Now, conservatives are willing to be unpopular but it’s not the same because they enjoy institutional support and generally aren’t being harassed by the government the way antiwar, anti racist, or anti capitalist activists are. As much as people made fun of Jerry Falwell, he had the ears of the people whose opinions actually mattered and he never had to moderate to do so. Compare how the people at CPAC are treated by the Republicans versus how Palestinian delegates at the Democratic National Convention couldn’t even get a token recognition. Don’t be surprised if you don’t have a real resistance when the supposed opposition party keeps knee capping the fighters.
Making fun of Trump has been quite a lucrative endeavor and it’s been a mainstream pastime (not the sign of being a beleaguered resistance). That so many are pivoting the other way indicates a sign of defeat or the beginning of a new career opportunity.