Jimmy Dore, The Young Turks, Kyle Kulinski, and populist self-cannibalism
Seven months ago the American progressive movement became briefly divided over one issue: whether or not to support Jimmy Dore’s “Force the Vote” campaign. The idea was to get progressive Democrats to force a floor vote on Medicare for All during the House elections, in which Nancy Pelosi ended up getting re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The argument was that House progressives could, by leveraging their vote for Speakership, extract concessions from the Democratic Party leadership on a program for universal healthcare in the midst of widespread suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was probably never going to suceed, and sure enough when the vote came to pass Nancy Pelosi was elected as Speaker of the House and nobody made any effort to force a floor vote, but there were those on one side who argued that, even if it the vote failed, it would serve to inspire people to see how broken the system is and organize politically, and those on another side who argued that it would have had no impact.
Now, I’m not interested in getting into any arguments for or against the Force The Vote position, mostly because that debate is already over, at least objectively speaking. The moment for Force the Vote is long gone, and for all I know it was probably not ever going to manifest in the way that Jimmy Dore and the other FTV supporters had hoped. But for some reason it’s been months and that side of the progressive movement cannot stop talking about that dead horse of an issue. Jimmy Dore kept making videos about people who opposed Force the Vote for months after Nancy Pelosi’s re-election, and I remember seeing stuff from The Vanguard about the Force the Vote debate despite it already having been over. In fact, in May, the Vanguard actually used their interview with Noam Chomsky as an opportunity to ask him about his views on the issue, and Chomsky’s answer was that, although he in principle supports the basic idea that the FTV camp likes to talk about, the actual tactic that Jimmy Dore advocates for was never going to work because, even if you got the floor vote, it would be shot down because of not only Republicans but also the usual suspects within the Democratic Party (Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and others).
Jimmy Dore is a man who at least ostensibly respects Noam Chomsky’s work so you’d think that, although Noam Chomsky clearly disagrees with Jimmy, he would treat Chomsky with a degree of consideration and respect in the scope of his disagreement. Instead, however, Jimmy chose to portray Noam Chomsky as a traitor to the left, a class enemy who became detached from populist goals by the relatively comfortable life he leads, claimed that Chomsky’s argument against Force the Vote is the exact same argument made by Hillary Clinton against Medicare for All, and he even asserted that Noam Chomsky has never done anything important in his life, despite Chomsky having decades of political activism for anti-war and broadly left-wing or just progressive causes on record while Jimmy Dore is only known for having a stand-up comedy career before joining The Young Turks and very little activism to his name. In other words, he essentially slandered Noam Chomsky for daring to disagree with his views. This is the kind of behaviour that you didn’t see in the debate that Briahna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas had with Chomsky on their Bad Faith podcast, in which they argued over whether or not the left should support and vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, probably because neither Briahna Joy Gray nor Virgil Texas felt that Chomsky’s disagreement with them represented a threat to their validity, ego, or fundamental politics. Regardless, the dispute within the progressive movement and its rancourous nature concerns not only the Force the Vote issue, and that issue itself, while in all reality minor tactical dispute, has formed the basis of a vague divide between the “populists” of the progressive movement represented by Jimmy and his supporters/friends and the “mainstream” wing of the movement that is presumably represented by his enemies as well as politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That divide, and the rancour associated with it, however artificial it may or may not be, has recently transferred over to a new issue and a new drama: that would be regarding The Young Turks.
Recently The Young Turks did a show in which Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian slagged off Aaron Mate, a reporter for the The Nation and The Grayzone, with Ana Kasparian condemning him for (allegedly) denying that Syrian children were gassed by Bashar al-Assad and accusing him of intentionally spreading disinformation on behalf of dictators and being paid by the Syrian government. As far as I can tell, The Young Turks did not substantiate their claims of him intentionally spreading disinformation or being paid by Assad or any dictators, but I suspect it may have some bearing on a story he apparently reported on pertaining to an OCPW whistleblower who said that there was no evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons on civilians and that these findings were covered up by the OCPW. Jimmy Dore, naturally, took Aaron Mate’s side against The Young Turks, the latter of whom apparently repeatedly characterized Jimmy as a “right-winger” among other things. Jimmy in turn characterizes The Young Turks as “McCarthyists” running a “televangelist-style” fundraising campaign, whose leadership abruptly became more pro-war as they received millions of dollars from the Disney media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg; this narrative contradicts Jimmy’s own recollections that Cenk Uygur was always more pro-war/pro-intervention, more pro-free trade, and anti-union than other progressives even before TYT started getting backers. Eventually The Young Turks and their supporters attempted to bring down Jimmy Dore on sexual harassment grounds (essentially they tried to “MeToo” him), citing Ana Kasparian bringing up past instances of Jimmy apparently sexually harassing her, and in response Jimmy in his podcast went so far as to defend himself by simultaneously owning up to having humiliated her for wearing revealing clothing and also mocking her in hindsight for wearing “inappropriate” clothing, a move apparently so cringeworthy that even his guest Max Blumenthal found himself floored.
Here’s where the self-cannibalism comes in. For weeks Kyle Kulinski had avoided wading into the conflict, despite by his own count agreeing broadly with Jimmy Dore’s side of the debate, citing that he did not want to get involved in what he thought to be drama. It was only after Aaron Mate and others kept bitching about Kyle’s lack of coverage of the dispute between Jimmy Dore and TYT, with some even accusing him of ignoring “the Syria story” despite his own coverage of the US bombing of Syria, that he felt himself forced to wade into a discussion he did not want to participate in. In his video on the dispute, Kyle challenged the TYT claims against Aaron Mate over his coverage of Syria, but expressed that he did not like how, in his view, Jimmy seemed to insist on humilitating Ana Kasparian as part of his broader attack on The Young Turks, and cited this as the reason why he did not want to cover the dispute initially. Kyle also said that he and Krystal Ball planned on having both Jimmy Dore and Cenk Uygur appear on their show at different points in order to cover the dispute on both sides, but felt that the increasingly personal nature of the dispute led them to cancel those plans to avoid being in a position where they would be putting their own friends on the defensive on personal issues in a public setting. This, of course, did not please the Jimmy Dore side very much, who accused Kyle of “neglecting” what they believed to be Ana Kasparian blackmailing Jimmy Dore with old accusations of sexual harrassment. Mate called Kyle “unfair” for what he believed to be him downplaying TYT’s “slander” of Jimmy Dore. From another perspective, though, it could be said that Kyle and Krystal valued their friendship with both Jimmy and the TYT people more than whatever emotional spectacle that Jimmy Dore’s audience seems to attach themselves to.
But of course, how did Jimmy Dore himself take it? Not well, it seems. After Kyle’s video, Jimmy Dore hosted his podcast with Aaron Mate and took the time to accuse Kyle of “omitting key facts”, such as Ana Kasparian’s “blackmailing” of Jimmy Dore. Jimmy initially expressed his appreciation for some of the things Kyle says in his defense, but then he proceeded to complain about how Kyle’s handling of the dispute, lamenting that he did not talk about the main issues Jimmy put forward and referred to much of the back and forth as drama. He tended to nitpick various statements of Kyle’s in order to seemingly decontextualize them and bring them back to Jimmy’s own grievances without meaningfully addressing Kyle’s objections. Jimmy’s wife Stef Zamorano also poisoned the well by “reminding” him and the viewer that Kyle has a “working relationship” with TYT, which somehow biases him against Jimmy Dore even though he never actually came out against most of Jimmy’s positions and explicitly rejected almost all of TYT’s accusations against Jimmy and Aaron Mate. Aaron seemed to imply that Kyle did not adress the smear against him by TYT, even though he literally called that out in the same video that Jimmy and Aaron were busy criticizing. Jimmy completely rejected Kyle’s assessment that his intercession in the dispute between Jimmy, Ana, and Cenk would lead to the disintegration of their friendships, and seemed accuse Kyle of being distracted by a “McCarthyist campaign” orchestrated him by Ana.
Jimmy appears to be incredibly baffled by the concept of other people not even distancing themselves from him but rather changing plans as a result of faux pas committed by him. Jimmy can very easily grasp the concept of a faux pas created by people he dislikes or opposes, but when it’s himself doing one he seems to lack the social intelligence that might allow him to process it. When he read the texts sent by Kyle and Krystal explaining their reason for cancelling the show, he expressed bafflement at Kyle citing Jimmy’s comments on Ana’s dress as a problem, claiming it as a false equivalency, clearly not understanding that people can be unconfortable with the way you talk about your friends, or women for that matter, that has nothing to do with any discussion on Syria. Jimmy claims that they didn’t actually “press pause” on guests as they said, because didn’t stop at “we’re staying as far away from the war between you and Aaron and TYT as possible”. So in other words, his view is that they did not actually pause guests because they explained their reasons for doing so rather than just say the first part and leave it at that. He then accused Kyle and Krystal of siding with TYT and thereby “the side of a blackmailing smear of me, and a McCarthyite smear of Aaron” — yes, the very same smear that Kyle was very explicit in refuting, if Jimmy and Aaron paid any attention to his video — as well as validating TYT’s various accusations against Jimmy and Aaron by insisting on neutrality for the sake of friendship. So in other words: if you don’t agree with Jimmy Dore on everything, whether that’s policy or behaviour, and/or you want to deal with the dispute with TYT in a way that doesn’t solely focus on what Ana Kasparian said about Aaron Mate or Jimmy Dore, then you’re almost an enemy of Jimmy Dore because you’re “making false equivalencies” or “validating their accusations”.
Then Jimmy tried to frame Kyle and Krystal as hypocrites for having Hasan Piker on their show, because he happened to be Cenk Uygur’s nephew and because Hasan briefly brought up “the Jimmy Dore drama” they laughed about it before moving on. Aaron Mate actually said that “no one is forcing you [Kyle] to comment on an issue” even after he got assmad for not covering Syria or Ana’s “blackmail” even though he already talked about everything. Jimmy even accused Kyle of “inserting himself into this”, which I suppose he did if by that you mean he begrudingly made a video in response to all of this bullshit. He insists that he “didn’t have to get involved”, after he and his friends repeatedly criticized Kyle for not getting himself involved in the dispute between Jimmy and TYT. Jimmy cannot stop whining about how his comments on Ana are viewed as sexual, decontextualizing his statement by focusing on its literal content, while ignoring what it’s referring to; when says “nice news skirt”, he says this because it reveals some of her ass in a “risque” (sexually suggestive) manner, and he knows this, has said as much on his show, yet for some reason is horrified whenever anyone suggests that there’s any kind of sexual undertone to it. His biggest problem with Kyle’s handling of the issue seems to be that he didn’t say that Ana was “weaponizing” allegations of sexual harassment against him, which he felt would be the “honest way” to talk about it: so in other words, if you defend Jimmy Dore from accusations of being a sex pest, but you don’t parrot Jimmy Dore’s views about what happened, you’re either not being honest or in fact are being dishonest. That’s how he intends to frame any take on the drama surrounding him that isn’t 100% in agreement with his views on the matter.
Probably the most egregious part of all this nonsense surrounding Ana Kasparian is the fact that Jimmy seems to take Kyle’s insistence on not humilitating female co-workers repeatedly, both once in the past and again in the present, as some kind of sin of omission, and he even frames Kyle as a pearl-clutching puritan objecting to Jimmy’s language, as opposed to the point he was making to start with. The irony of that is that this is just Jimmy ascribing his flaws to Kyle. I mean if anything it’s certainly not Kyle who prefers to leverage the way women dress as some kind of strike against them, even if as simple mockery, and in fact it’s Jimmy who is the most obssessed with language here, his whole anger and disappointment towards Kyle is predicated entirely not even on what he chooses to say but how he says it. If Kyle doesn’t make a point in defence of Jimmy in exactly the way Jimmy wants, then Kyle is behaving like a McCarthyist. It’s Jimmy who is the smug, pearl-clutching, triggered puritan here, who also can’t seem to grasp the concept of social humiliation or any kind of response to it that might, if anything, traditionally qualify as “being a man” in such a situation. But hey, I guess defending your female relatives and loved ones from being humilitated by Jimmy is just a sign of psychopathy, rather than a sign of being human. And to top it all off, he tries to frame Kyle as a hypocrite again over an obvious joke tweet he made in 2013 about TYT getting more viewership if Ana masturbated live on air, failing to understand that Kyle’s fundamental disagreement had nothing to do with offensive language and everything to do with what appears to be his views on how women should conduct themselves.
All of this drama bullshit seems inane to bring up, let alone in such depth, but honestly it just goes to show the lengths to which Jimmy will attack anyone who sees fit to criticize him for any reason, even if throughout they’ve been the nicest person to them, have tried to be amicable about their decisions, and have insisted consistent harmony of thought with said person. If you disagree with Jimmy Dore, Jimmy Dore will attack you, slander you, lie about you, strawman you, mostly for not spending half an hour eulogizing over a single talking point that he holds sacrosanct or for not saying the same things he does, which is pretty much exactly how Jimmy treated Noam Chomsky when he decided to criticize the Force the Vote position. That’s because Jimmy doesn’t have any semblance of respect for anyone, which means he can’t engage with any kind of civil disagreement in a way that isn’t just some kind of assault on his being or being a turncoat against him. He only thinks of interactions within the left in terms of what validates himself, his views, and his ego, and what does not, and what does not do this must be ruthlessly undermined and attacked with every fibre of his being, no matter how weak his attacks or the foundation for them actually are. And he seems to be a very effective demagogue not just for his style but also because his fans appear to be exceedinly credulous in that they will believe just about anything he tells them without a second of critical reflection.
Now, since I mentioned The Vanguard earlier, it’s worth looking at their assessment of all of this, but I will try not to take too long in covering their view, because they’re really nothing more than a progressive drama channel without much in the way of serious political content (by their own admission, the subject they know the most about is BreadTube). They appear to be of the opinion that being friends with some of the people in the progressive circuit “clouds your judgement”, rendering you unable to comment with your honest and accurate opinion, never mind the fact that Kyle has repeatedly criticized The Young Turks hosts in the past and has also criticized The Justice Democrats, which he himself founded alongside Cenk Uygur and others. They appear to parrot the “it’s not drama” line that Jimmy Dore and Aaron Mate espouse, which conflates two different discussions; one being the discussion of TYT’s accusations against Mate and their coverage of Syria, and the other being the discussion of Dore’s comments about Ana Kasparian. They at least had the sense to understand what was wrong with Jimmy’s bizarre rant about Ana, but also insist that Jimmy only leveraged that point because Ana sent him a message to “blackmail” him, to which, even if we see that that’s true, we could say that the fact that even the people who agree with Jimmy on that specific point have a problem with his conduct lets us consider that perhaps it’s really not actually about any accusations of blackmail, as Jimmy would prefer you to think it is. The Vanguard also lashed out over Kyle’s statement that he didn’t necessarily think TYT had become corrupt, but they never did show the part of Kyle’s video where he explains why he felt this way: if they did, they would show the part where Kyle pulls up a clip from Jimmy Dore himself when he explains that Cenk’s more pro-capitalist views were there even before the money came in. They do show him explaining Cenk has always had cringeworthy opinions and only accepted deals with people who would have no editorial control over TYT, but they appear not to understand his point.
Personally, I don’t think Jimmy Dore or Aaron Mate are very honest people, based on what I’ve seen of this bullshit. If you’re on the progressive political commentary circuit, the only thing they care about is that you peddle their side of the story and their line exactly, and if you don’t, then you’re some kind of enemy or traitor. That’s what I mean by populist self-cannibalism in this case: it’s this bizarre phenomenon of the “left-populist” movement devouring itself, attacking everyone around them within it including their friends, over what is essentially kabuki theatre that gets mixed up with more serious discussions. What we saw in the Force the Vote debacle has more or less continued past its lifespan and metastasized into something all the more cancerous, like a purity spiral but more like a cult of personality, with increasing demands for ideological conformity couched in the form of taking the right side of some ugly personal beefs, with failure to do so being a sure sign of being moral equivalents or even allies of the establishment. I think that for Jimmy this will eventually mean he continues to attack everyone around him, including many of his own friends, until eventually everyone gets sick of him and then he probably only has Ron Placone or Aaron Mate left to simp for his ego. It will be a path of conscious divisiveness within a movement already pliable to fracturing, and the reward for it will be self-destruction. Jimmy can’t keep attacking everyone left and right all the time without eventually facing the prospect of becoming isolated. That’s the price of lashing out even at the people who try to be fair and amicable with you, at even your friends. And if that’s the sort of sociopathic drama/callout culture that The Vanguard want, then we should pray that they get it and see for themselves what it’s like to live in a culture without honour.
