Masks Off for ‘TYT,’ Cenk Uygur, and Ana Kasparian

Last week was dominated by reaction to The Young Turks’s smears against The Grayzone journalist Aaron Maté.

No one gave a better video response to TYT—to Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian—than Jimmy Dore. And I know Progressives Chat readers are informed.

This is my response.

I started watching The Young Turks circa 2007. And I followed, pretty much, for ten years. Or, I could say ten consecutive years. That changed in 2016.

In July 2016, WikiLeaks reported the DNC E-mails which revealed the corruption inside not only the Democratic National Committee—that they rigged that year’s presidential nomination for Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders—but other details for how the Democratic Party is throughly corrupt.

I knew, from there, that I would reject the Democratic Party in the general election.

Circa August 2016, Cenk Uygur announced on a TYT livestream he would vote in the general election for Hillary Clinton.

I did not care about any of his reasons. I just figured, Here comes the typical bullshit about people who claim to be progressives—and who were adamant that the nomination should go to Bernie Sanders—who, bottom line, will vote for the Democrats anyway. (Even after the reveal of their corruption.) 

When the nomination was rigged against Bernie Sanders, it was also rigged against every participating primary and caucus voter who voted that 2016 Democratic presidential nomination to Bernie Sanders.

This turned off from The Young Turks.

I did not tune in again, for any considerable period, until Election Night on November 8, 2016. But, I wasn’t tuned in only to coverage from TYT. I went back and forth between network and cable news programmers. Sometimes they don’t call a given state in unison. So, I would go back and forth. I did not have much focus on TYT. It was after Election Night that I was able to pick up, from what others uploaded to YouTube, how TYT handled Election Night.

I later learned that TYT went from Bernie Sanders to propping up Hillary Clinton—which meant shilling for the Democratic Party—after I had pretty much left. Election Night made my departure permanent.

In the last four consecutive years of 2017 to 2020, I was able to come across updates which informed me of what has become of TYT. So, what happened most recently—Ana Kasparian deliberately and falsely stating that Aaron Maté is paid by Syria—does not come as much to a surprise, or does it disgust me, as it has with others. For me, it served as full confirmation that TYT are Enemies of True Progressives. (Recommended reading: The Ideological Failure Of The Young Turks.)

This confirms, just in case there was doubt, that The Young Turks are frauds. Since 2016, the masks have been coming off the faces of people who pretend they are allies of those who are truly on the left and want policies such as Medicare for All and Free College Tuition (with Student Loan Forgiveness). 

It became apparent to me, with bottom-line Democrats like Thom Hartmann and David Pakman (both of whom I tuned out after they smeared 2012 and 2016 Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein), that they are not to be trusted. The Young Turks have, in recent times, been joined by the likes of The Rational National’s David Doel, The Humanist Report’s Mike Figueredo, TBTV’s Tim Black and—no surprise!— Majority Report’s Sam Seder (who I never liked and/or trusted) as well as Nomiki Konst (who appeared on Seder’s program to deliver a McCarthyite-like attack against Jimmy Dore).

“Force the Vote,” as offered last December by Jimmy Dore, and which came before from the Democratic Socialists of America, suggested the so-called progressives of the Democratic U.S. House—among them are New York’s Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, Michigan’s Rashid Talib, Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, Missouri’s Cori Bush, Washington’s Pramila Jayapal, California’s Ro Khanna, New York’s Jamal Bowman, and Wisconsin’s Mark Pocan—have leverage. The 2020 U.S. House Democrats retained their majority with 222 seats. 218 is outright majority. California’s Nancy Pelosi faced election for re-election as speaker of the House. Those nine members (and possibly more) could have used their leverage to inform Pelosi they will withhold their votes for re-electing her speaker if she does not, at the least, bring to the floor a vote on Medicare for All. Despite saying they want Medicare for All, they refused to use their leverage and easily voted for re-electing Pelosi. This is why they are the “Fraud Squad.”

The people who were blasting the approach of “Force the Vote” were taking off their masks. They were showing us, no matter how they attempt to explain away their so-called reasons, they oppose Medicare for All. They were telling us, from each of their positions, their true intention is to continue to string along people (and/or viewers) who trust and follow them. And, when it comes to the bottom line for them, they are focused on themselves for both their money and career. This was most telling with the source many thought were the leaders for actual progressives: The Young Turks.

I am pleased Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, and The Young Turks have taken off their masks. That they exposed themselves as an operation for the Democratic Party. The corrupt, corporate Democratic Party Establishment. Uygur accepted $20 million from Hillary Clinton supporter Jeffrey Katzenberg in 2017. What is now seen on The Young Turks is what Cenk Uygur accepting that $20 million has manifest.