Beware of Fake Progressives

WillNever

WillNever

Valued Senior Member
BE WARNED:

This thread is designed for those of you who regularly follow politics in the United States and have some familiarity with its media outlets. This thread will probably not interest you if you are (1) unfamiliar with with the American political landscape and (2) unfamiliar with any progressive media outlets. You are welcome to read and comment of course, but I want to be upfront for those of you walking in blind: there may be context that you would need to catch up on.

That being said, it has recently come to my attention that fake progressive YouTuber Jimmy Dore has engaged in a feud with several other progressive media programs over the last couple of months -- most noticeably The Young Turks (TYT).

Let me start by saying that I viewed TYT's response to Jimmy Dore, wherein Ana Kasparian accuses Dore of sexual harassment. I agree with almost all of what was said in the video. I have long seen Dore as little more than a deceitful, pro-authoritarian, conspiracist grifter, and overall misogynistic creep. To me, he embodies what is known as the "toxic left" and most of his audience (at least the percentage that is real) appears to be MAGA.

That being said, I would like to show something to everyone. Below is a snapshot of some of Jimmy Dore's recent and popular videos:

BE AWARE: I didn't curate these in any way whatsoever; I simply went to his show's youtube channel, clicked on videos, scrolled down to a random section from part of the last month, and hit the screenshot button on my keyboard. I repeat: these are not handpicked in any way.

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My first thought: this looks like the cover of a shitty 1990s supermarket tabloid. Jimmy's Dore channel is composed of deceitful, hate-filled conspiracies and screeds, attacking literally the most progressive congressmen we have, AOC and the squad, Bernie Sanders, in addition to members of progressive media -- namely Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uyger. Jimmy has even begun to attack "Democracy Now!" which is a VERY left-leaning independent news organization whose journalists -- including Amy Goodman who Dore always places in his thumbnails -- were arrested and literally dragged across the pavement by police for trying to expose the events of the RNC Xcel Energy protests in 2008.

There is percentage of videos that, at least on their face, present as justifiable criticism of center-left, corporate Democrats and corporate media. Videos focusing on Donald Trump and the right wing are non-existent or they praise them. Keep in mind that Jimmy Dore brands himself as a true progressive and calls everyone else fake progressives. Meanwhile, Jimmy Dore regularly posts absurd numbers of videos designed to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci, Elizabeth Warren and others who have criticized Donald Trump. Dore also believes that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election despite overwhelming intelligence that showed that they did so very industriously, utilizing paid troll farms and bots.

His fake politics aside, everything about Jimmy Dore screams that he is an old-fashioned, misogynist who specifically hates influential women who have power. Besides Kasparian, he has made unrelenting personal attacks against AOC and the rest of the squad, zeroing in on them with extremely disproportionate frequency. Here is a shocking, disgusting video of Jimmy Dore lying about and using personal attacks against AOC because she refused multiple interview requests from his "Jimmy Dore Show." Just to clarify, AOC has NEVER been on his show.

What's more, the number of supporters Jimmy Dore does have appear more like personal fans than ideological supporters. If he didn't push the ideas, they wouldn't support the ideas. They are tribal, embrace a cult of personality, and demonstrate an "ownage" mentality. I sometimes wonder how many true progressive supporters he actually has, in contrast to how much of his alleged support is manufactured by hype, bots, or fake accounts.

Despite claiming to be a "true progressive," Dore spends the majority of his time attacking progressives. The truth is that Jimmy Dore is not a "true progressive"... or any kind of progressive at all. Rather, he is a right-wing, conservative grifter who pretends to be a progressive and has serious problems dealing with women.
 
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sideshowbob said:
1. You shouldn't be getting news from YouTube.
Click to expand...

Hold on... you think this thread is about "news" channels? You're just figuring this out? We can stop right there. The program in question -- The Jimmy Dore Show -- is not a news program. I repeat: the Jimmy Dore Show is not a news program.

In fact, with the exception of Democracy Now!, all the programs mentioned above are nothing more than opinion shows hosted by political commentators with very transparent biases. They are not doing original journalism. Whether they are on YouTube or not is irrelevant. They are NOT news sources. If you are getting your "news" from any of the shows mentioned above, whether it is on YouTube or not, or if you even believe that these are legitimate news programs doing original journalism, then you need to check the sophistication level of your media literacy in a real way.

In the meantime, the programs mentioned above do have varying degrees of influence on a percentage of the American left, and this thread is specifically designed to warn those who are susceptible to being bamboozled by the fake progressives such as Jimmy Dore due to their low media literacy. I don't know if that describes you... but it sounds like it might. If so, you are lucky I'm back.
 
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WillNever said:
The program in question -- The Jimmy Dore Show -- is not a news program.
Click to expand...
The question is: Why do you bring it up at all? Why do you even know about it?
WillNever said:
In the meantime, the programs mentioned above do have varying degrees of influence on a percentage of the American left, and this thread is specifically designed to warn those who are susceptible to being bamboozled...
Click to expand...
Those people are unlikely to be swayed by your "warning". It would be a YouTube v. YouTube debate.
WillNever said:
... fake progressives such as Jimmy Dore....
Click to expand...
You should be aware that Trump has ruined the word "fake" to the point that no intelligent person can use it.
 
sideshowbob said:
The question is: Why do you bring it up at all?
Click to expand...
This forum is called "Politics." Did you take a wrong turn?
Why do you even know about it?
Click to expand...
Because I know about everything.
Those people are unlikely to be swayed by your "warning". It would be a YouTube v. YouTube debate.
Click to expand...
Whether they are swayed is irrelevant. What I am doing is warning those who may or may even not know about the grifter in question, in case they do one day get sucked in. If that doesn't describe you, great. If you are here to support him, then I'm embarrassed for you. In the meantime, I will be happy if even a small number of people remember this warning and that this thread will be memorialized for future readers.
 
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Its all about clicks,views,more controversial the better,,its that simple..

I dont trust any western msm when it comes to news on China or Russia for example they all have agenda of spreading hate and BS yes fake news Lol

In fact US alocated 300 milion $ a year to post just such BS about china,so we will see more idiotic garbage from shills,trolls and china hating racists everywhere..

Russia insight chanel is my fav and CGTN as are china vlogers such as Gweilo60 or Barrett or Living in China
UK BBc is garbage so are all US n Canadian news networks they all have anti china agenda,,Ausie also btw
 
This entire controversy has had the effect of raising both Cenk Uygur and Jimmy Dore above their appropriate profiles. Per the thread title, it seems worth noting that it's an old social media follow, one I never unfollowed, that brings me the controversy, and that person happens to be an expatriate American pretending to be some manner of leftist except what he really, really needs of his audience is the advancement of rightist ambitions.

We've seen cheap versions of this at Sciforums; these routines are hard to sustain, and require external reinforcement. One easily identifiable posture is that one supports certain [leftward/progressive/liberal] causes, but our fellows therein are too zealous, so the one must strike this disruptive and even oppositional pose or else it's just not fair. Here's an obscure example: Once upon a time, somebody liked a post. In this case, it was a name I recognized, and this was an easy statement to give a thumbs-up, having to do with observing that a certain appeal on behalf of societal tradition means, in practice, that other people must continue to suffer the ill effects of racism, sexism, and other prejudice in society, because equality makes the traditionalists uncomfortable.

Think back to the Gay Fray, and the idea that, sure, someone supports gay rights and all that, but everything is moving too fast and it makes some people uncomfortable, so we need to slow down for their sakes. That is, the basic argument went that the people who insisted on hurting others were upset at being told they couldn't have their way, so everyone needed to slow down and let them keep hurting people because that was the only fair thing to do. There's a version of this people dump on women, and what we know from that discussion is that there is no time frame that won't make supremacists sad and uncomfortable; it's always too fast. What it comes down to is that another must suffer because it would make the one uncomfortable if they didn't.

And one day, somebody liked a post that made that point. So, what? I mean, right? Still, I happen to know that the person who liked the post actually disagrees with it. Or, perhaps, he agrees with it, but that's where it gets complicated and I end up having to write the story for him; he can't explain it, either. It's just that he has to find a way to disagree, or else it's not fair.

So think of the idea that someone brings white supremacist fighting words to Black people. Maybe you or I are not surprised when another person tells the one to fuck off. But did you ever know that lefty liberal progressive whomever, whose sympathies, in that moment, fall with the white supremacist crocodile tears: O! woe! Why would anyone be so mean!

One easily identifiable symptom has to do with vector. Consider feminism, but think of traditionalist critiques and the idea that feminism has somehow failed. No, we're not surprised, for instance, if it comes down to someone agreeing with women's rights, and all that, but it's too fast and too demanding and too bitchy, so they must oppose, because it's not that they really oppose, y'know, but that one over there, yeah, that feminist right there, is just a too rude or uppity or judgmental.

Over time, we stop being surprised when, say, the white guy who totally isn't misogynist brings us the traditionalist—i.e., white and male supremacist—indictment of feminism. Still, if we view feminism as a dynamic critical theory, one of its most striking failures is a collapse of intersectionalism for what comes down to a version of the same as it ever was, a question of prevailing narrative. To wit, the older white guy who totally isn't misogynist never will actually understand that intersectional failure because it is black, red, and brown women telling us, and what they have to say does not fit his understanding of the prevailing narrative.

Once upon a time, for instance, long before the terf wars, Bill Maher denigrated a group of women as the lovely milfs of the new right, or something thereabout. In its moment, the joke made sense, and our assessment of impropriety depends in part on whose values we attend; it is more likely to offend my political values than those women's alleged living values, and what would offend them is that we would laugh at those values. Still, even among that larger politic, it was possible to find assertions of a conservative wannabe feminism running, approximately, Kinder, küche, kirche, and keep lookin' pretty. The intersectional failure of that manner of feminism ought to be evident in the point that incels count among themselves men who are getting laid but not enough, poorly and unidylically, or by women who aren't hot enough. Oh, wait, that's a different subject, except it's not. Actually, consider what the lovely milfs of the new right have in common with incels and terfs, which is adoration of a proper place for proper women, an idyll that happens to be spun from traditionalist, patriarchal, subordinating narrative.

That older guy I describe is not necessarily uncommon, and toward that, sure, there is a reason the description sounds like some kind of stereotype. Still, consider that he can recite liberalish talking points, but not necessarily the detail. You've encountered the type before, in life; for instance, they might affirm the right to choose, or say they support women's rights, but don't really know how to discuss such issues any more deeply because, as it turns out, when they really settle in to talk, they're pitching you some rightist-libertarian fret about how men are the real victims, or liberalism turns people into Nazis, or #BlackLivesMatter is on par with white nationalism.

Or, here's a joke that actually isn't, because it's a true story about someone else: That time when you find yourself explaining to some dude that what he's complaining about literally doesn't exist. I mean, I get it; he's upset that he doesn't have a say over this thing that he thinks is his, except it doesn't exist. So, sure, maybe he and I can agree that abortion access is important, but as a question of vector, I'm talking about the human rights of women, and he's pissed off at the risk of maybe someday having to pay child support—y'know, if he ever gets laid.

Fun juxtaposition kind of made up in the moment: You know how sometimes leftists complain about progressives, and they all complain about liberals, for not being progressive or leftward enough? Right, this is the thing about the dirtbag left and its accretion disk; they're not really so leftward. What they want is what they think is theirs, and in the American context that makes socialism an easy populist appeal. But when you get down to the day to day, they still require certain inequity.

An old Maher joke about democracy and the Republic is that the founding fathers knew what would happen if they gave unbridled democracy to the People: Voters would elect free beer, no taxes, and vagina trees. We've seen versions of this in recent decades; the Gay Fray, for instance, was an experience that lent to rightist distrust because, horror of horrors, the courts said you couldn't use a ballot to strip people's civil rights in contravention of the Constitution.

So who is going to split which hair? When the conservative complains fallaciously, who will meet them halfway in order to preserve some notion of liberal integrity? And like the paradox of the marathon, we can wonder how many halfways are possible; philosophy does as philosophy will, but at some point the length of a stride exceeds the length of the halfway cut.

If we recall the conservative complaint about progressive handouts, the point is reasonably illustrated: It's one thing to get all the handouts, which makes an easy leftward appeal, but those uppity women and black people need to stop ruining everything, which makes an easy populist appeal. The nearest thing to leftism about such dirtbag appeals is their lack of a rightist nationalism.

Still, though, it's Jimmy and Cenk, and even I'm only hearing about it elsewhere because I followed someone on Twitter years ago, and only some arcane, interernalized sense of self-destructive pride has stopped me from unfollowing him in the years since. Other than that, no, this isn't pinging in any of my other social circles.

On the dirtbag left, the important word is dirtbag.
 
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