Batya Ungar-Sargon | |
|---|---|
 Ungar-Sargon in 2024 | |
| Occupation | Journalist, Author |
| Alma mater | |
Batya Ungar-Sargon is an American journalist and author. Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek [1] and the former opinion editor of The Forward . [2] [3] She is the author of two books, the most recent of which is Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women, which discusses the challenges faced by the American working class and the gap between them and the elite class.
Ungar-Sargon holds a 2004 bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago (AB) in English and completed her PhD in 2013 at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation, entitled Coercive Pleasures: The Force and Form of the Novel 1719-1740, addresses, among other elements, how rape and colonialism figure in the pleasures of modern English fiction. [4]
Ungar-Sargon began her career as a journalist and news analyst. She reported on the rights of undocumented immigrants as well as liberal voices on Israel and the American Jewish community. [5] [6] In 2019 Ungar-Sargon articulated the importance of maintaining an American Jewish identity apart from Israeli politics, but rather one which embraces the values of civil and minority rights. [7] She was also a managing editor at the wine and spirits media outlet VinePair. [8]
In 2017 Ungar-Sargon became the opinion editor at The Forward. In this role she was criticized by some on the left for allegations of weaponizing claims of antisemitism and right-wing, pro-Israel bias. [9] [10]
She has written for The Washington Post , the Los Angeles Times , The New York Times , Foreign Policy , The Daily Beast , The New York Review of Books , and The Free Press . [11] [12] [13]
In 2020, Ungar-Sargon was selected for the 2021 ADL and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship. [14]
In 2021, Ungar-Sargon wrote Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy . In the book, she argues that race-conscious "wokeness" provided by print media consumed by upper-class, educated readers has replaced the class-conscious reporting for a wider readership that dominated U.S. media in earlier periods, going back at least to the penny press era when all classes consumed low-cost newspapers. [15] The book says that an identity politics based culture war has become the focus of media "catering almost exclusively to the interests of urban, upper-class liberals". [16]
Ungar-Sargon has stated that in the 2010s she self-identified as an American liberal, however, in the 2020s she felt herself drifting away from that ideology. [17] In 2021, Bari Weiss of the Free Press said that Ungar-Sargon was very hard to pin down ideologically, but identified her as a Left-wing populist. [18] Ungar-Sargon herself self-identified as a left-wing populist in 2023, although acknowledged that many people would view her as repeating "conservative talking points". [19] Ungar-Sargon attributed this perception to her focus on social class, which she feels has become abandoned by the left and taken up by the right. [19] Asked by Newsweek in April 2024 which policies she would support, Ungar-Sargon responded:
Greatly expanding vocational training. Greatly limiting immigration. A government-backed catastrophic health care plan. Outlawing degree requirements for jobs that don't require them, and [outlawing] software that weeds out those without a college degree during the application process. Making zoning laws illegal and expanding light-touch density housing which greatly expands the housing stock by allowing for duplexes and triple deckers to be built in areas currently zoned exclusively for single-family detached homes. Expanding tariffs on foreign imports. Reducing welfare fraud but expanding the child tax credit. [20]
In 2024 Ungar-Sargon wrote
The average Republican voter is working class and truly loathes the Bush-era version of the Republican Party, which meant tax cuts for the rich, failed wars, and an economic agenda that outsourced jobs to China. Whether they realize it or not, this is why Democrats truly hate Trump. [21]
In October 2024, Ungar-Sargon identified Donald Trump as a "Centrist" [17] rather than the more widely-held view that he is right-wing. [22] [23] [24] Jonathan Chait of New York magazine has suggested that Ungar-Sargon "depicts Trump as a tribune of the working man who is hated by the party elite because of his opposition to conservative economic policy", which Chait criticised as incorrect and misleading because Trump's rhethoic on policy rarely matches his actions. [21] In November 2024, Ungar-Sargon called upon American Jews to vote for Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election. [25] [26]
In 2022 Batya Ungar-Sargon began writing articles detailing her opposition to American support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [27] [28] In those articles, Ungar-Sargon wrote that she opposes U.S. support for Ukraine, arguing that resources should prioritize economically disadvantaged Americans over foreign conflicts. She also questioned the significance of Ukraine's territorial integrity and legitimized Russia's claims regarding Donetsk and Luhansk. Additionally, she critiqued U.S. interventionism as exacerbating conflicts and warned that support for Ukraine could prolong suffering. [27] [28] In response, James Kirchick of The Atlantic labelled Ungar-Sargon a member of the "Intellectually Bankrupt Anti-war camp", accusing Ungar-Sargon of being a part of a broader trend of among certain political commentators who excuse imperialism while criticizing U.S. foreign policy, labeling her approach as shortsighted and reductive. [28]
In March 2024, in an article discussing what she perceived as a lack of left-wing solidarity for alleged Israeli victims of sexual violence on October 7, Batya Ungar-Sargon expanded her feelings about left-wing politics, stating that
At the end of the day, 7 October revealed how little of the left’s ideology is about values, and how much of it is about power – specifically, about using a person or a group’s supposedly abject status as a method of wielding power. That is the leftist playbook now. Masquerade as powerless so as to grab power. Bray about being marginalised as a way of silencing dissent. Screech about being oppressed as a way of firing your boss and getting their job, or casting your political opponents as unworthy of the franchise. [29]
Ungar-Sargon has spoken against environmentalism and green politics, arguing they align with elite interests at the expense of the working class. Ungar-Sargon believes there is a disconnect between progressives and working-class individuals, noting that elites often oppose job-creating initiatives, like coal mining, that she believes would benefit the working class. While she acknowledges the sincerity of some political figures, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ungar-Sargon questions their commitment due to practices such as using private jets. Ungar-Sargon had critiqued the outsourcing of jobs and environmental consequences to countries like China, viewing this as elitist and dismissive of American workers' realities. [30]
Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, media host, and attorney. He writes columns for Creators Syndicate, Newsweek, and Ami Magazine, and serves as editor emeritus for The Daily Wire, which he co-founded in 2015. Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He was editor-at-large of Breitbart News from 2012 until his resignation in 2016. Shapiro has also authored sixteen non-fiction books.
Peter Alexander Beinart is an American liberal columnist, journalist, and political commentator. A former editor of The New Republic, he has also written for Time, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books, among other periodicals. He has written four books.
Jonathan Chait is an American pundit and writer for The Atlantic. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and an assistant editor of The American Prospect and wrote for New York magazine. He writes a periodic column in the Los Angeles Times.
Fascist has been used as a pejorative or insult against a wide range of people, political movements, governments, and institutions since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s. Political commentators on both the Left and the Right accused their opponents of being fascists, starting in the years before World War II. In 1928, the Communist International labeled their social democratic opponents as social fascists, while the social democrats themselves as well as some parties on the political right accused the Communists of having become fascist under Joseph Stalin's leadership. In light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, The New York Times declared on 18 September 1939 that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism." Later, in 1944, the anti-fascist and socialist writer George Orwell commented on Tribune that fascism had been rendered almost meaningless by its common use as an insult against various people, and argued that in England the word fascist had become a synonym for bully.
Omar Tomas Wasow is an assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Political Science. He is co-founder of the social networking website BlackPlanet.
Andrew C. McCarthy III is an American lawyer and columnist for National Review. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He resigned from the Justice Department in 2003.
David Joshua Rubin is an American libertarian-conservative political commentator. He is the creator and host of The Rubin Report, a political talk show on YouTube and on the network BlazeTV. Launched in 2013, his show was originally part of TYT Network, until he left in 2015, in part due to widening ideological differences. Previously, Rubin, who is gay, hosted LGBT-themed talk shows, including The Ben and Dave Show from 2007 to 2008 and The Six Pack from 2009 to 2012, both of which he co-hosted with Ben Harvey. Rubin has written two books.
Matthew James Goodwin is a British political commentator and former academic recognised for his research on populism and right-wing movements.
Jennifer Rubin is an American political commentator who writes opinion columns for The Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary, PJ Media, Human Events, and The Weekly Standard. Her work has been published in media outlets including Politico, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, and The Jerusalem Post.
Peter Brian Hegseth is an American television presenter, author, and former Army National Guard officer who has been announced as the forthcoming nominee for United States Secretary of Defense in Donald Trump's second cabinet. A political commentator for Fox News since 2014 and weekend co-host of Fox & Friends from 2017 to 2024, he was previously the executive director of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.
Basya Schechter is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, cantor, and music teacher. She is the lead singer and founder of the world/folk rock band Pharaoh's Daughter and has released two solo albums. She has also collaborated with the groups Darshan and The Epichorus.
Woke, the African-American English synonym for the General American English word awake, has since the 1930s or earlier been used to refer to awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans, often in the construction stay woke. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to be used to refer to a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
Bethany Shondark Mandel is a conservative American columnist and political and cultural commentator who writes for Deseret News and Ricochet. She was named one of "36 under 36" by The Jewish Week in 2013, one of the "Forward 50" in 2015, and one of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's "50 Jews everyone should follow on Twitter" in 2019.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known by her initials AOC, is an American politician and activist serving since 2019 as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Candace Amber Owens Farmer is an American political commentator and pundit. She is mostly described as conservative or far-right.
Elizabeth Pipko is an American author, model, media personality, and political operative. She is the national spokesperson for the Republican Party.
Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, known online as Destiny, is an American live streamer and political commentator. He was among the first people to stream video games online full-time. Since 2016, he has streamed political debates with other online personalities, in which he advocates for progressivism and liberal politics.
The Hill's Rising is an American daily news and opinion web series produced by Washington, D.C. political newspaper The Hill. The series is available on The Hill's website and YouTube.
Melissa Batya Cohen Biden is a South African‐American activist and documentary filmmaker. She is married to Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy is a 2021 nonfiction book by Batya Ungar-Sargon. Ungar-Sargon argues in the book that race-conscious wokeness provided by print media consumed by upper-class, educated readers has replaced the class-conscious reporting for a wider readership that dominated U.S. media in earlier periods, going back at least to the penny press era when low-cost newspapers were consumed by all classes. The book says that an identity politics based culture war has become the focus of media "catering almost exclusively to the interests of urban, upper-class liberals". Washington Independent Review of Books called it "the most penetrating analysis" of the state of mainstream media.