I've been thinking for awhile about whether to do this story that I'm going to do right
now and I've been thinking,
thinking about it generally for a couple of months and more intensely for the last 10
days or so.
And the reason I've been hesitant, I'll just be totally upfront with you, is that I know
it's going to have a negative impact on my show, uh, because of a specific segment of
the audience.
Um, uh, let me set it up for you about 10 days ago.
Tim Pool, who's an independent journalist, he says he center left.
He knows, I see him as really an antagonizer of the left.
Primarily.
We disagree about this.
It's no big deal.
People disagree about things and that's totally fine.
And he tweeted about 10 days ago, quote my left, the friends messaged me every so often
that they are scared of speaking out against the far left because they will get attacked
because they won't push back on the far left.
Dems don't see opposition and embrace woke Twitter.
This will lead to Trump's 2020 landslide.
And my reaction was, this is Tim agitating again.
And I wrote back on Twitter quote, I'd be genuinely curious who those lefty friends
are.
I've never met anyone in lefty independent media who's afraid of just saying what they
believe, period.
I would love to interview someone prominent who can talk about these fears that they have.
And then a few hours went by and I had to be honest with myself.
Uh, it's not a fear of the far left that I have, but I am one of those people Tim talked
about who is scared about dealing with certain issues in the way I want to deal with them,
not because they go against the quote far left or because I'm afraid of calling out
what I see as the far left.
I think that's the wrong terminology terminology, but I've been pushed away from talking about
certain topics, at least in a certain way because I realized there's no upside.
My core audience will agree.
Bright wingers will disagree as they often do, but there is this sliver of the left that
will be so furious with me that they will wreak havoc over our entire online presence.
Youtube, uh, emailing, tweeting.
All of this stuff for two weeks if I say certain things.
And there's really very little upside to doing that.
So I want it before I even go any further, let me be like insanely clear, crystal clear
here to avoid any misunderstandings.
I'm not having a right wing awakening.
Okay?
This is not me changing the show to be critical of small slices of the left and focus on the
more than they actually deserve to be focused on.
This is not me saying I've changed my mind on any political issue.
This is me just admitting that I've been sort of pushed away from dealing with certain stories
as frequently as I might otherwise deal with them.
Because when I tell the truth as I see it about these stories, there is a slice of the
left that goes so bonkers that it is simply not worth it.
So let's talk about some specifics.
I'm going to give you examples of what I mean and I know that I am causing hell terrain
down upon me as a result of doing this, but I'm just going to tell it the way I see it.
Uh, just the other day I got a call from someone who told me, hey, David, people of color can't
be racist and white people can't be the victims of racism.
And I just said it the way I saw it, the way I see it, my position is super clear.
In the United States, most frequently people of color are the victims of racism and not
the racists and white people frequently are the perpetrators and not the victims of racism.
But white people can be victims of racism.
People of color can be racist, and we need to distinguish between racism and depression
on the basis of race.
I haven't said a word about it since I covered it two weeks ago because a small part of the
left went absolutely unhinged, made the day to day of my online experience in sufferable,
which I know is their goal.
Now.
I'm a big boy.
I can take it.
Uh, I'm okay, but it pushes me away from continuing to hit the wasps nest with a stick every single
day.
When I talk about Tulsi Gabbert, there is no other 2020 candidate that I can talk about
casually as I sometimes have about Telsey Gabbert that will trigger the level of hatred
and viral responses.
As when I mentioned Tulsi Gabber Tulsi is a presidential candidate polling about 1%
when I talk about other candidates who pull 1% Amy Klobuchar build a Blasio, whoever,
uh, the reactions are to the content of what I say.
And if I talk about Tulsi Gabbert, the Tulsi sycophants lose their minds.
They smear me, they slander me the way they did to the young Turks, Anna Cas, Berrien,
when she did a segment about Tulsi.
So do I not talk about Tulsi?
No.
I talk about her, but I avoid getting too involved.
She's pulling 1%.
She's going to go away soon.
Why talk that much about Tulsi when the followers are truly toxic and there is very little upside.
Let's talk about the squad.
Those four ethnic minority, Congress women.
I basically don't talk about them because I can't do any serious critique without being
called a racist without being told that I am a centrist democratic establishment.
Chill.
Now you'll notice if you watch the show the last 10 days, I have been covering this absolutely
horrible, xenophobic, racist treatment of the squad by Donald Trump recently, but that's
safe, right?
If I try to issue any kind of critique of the squad whatsoever.
For example, I have questions about their strategy while very inspired and principled
will the strategy and tactics of the squad achieve legislative goals because I them as
lacking the political savvy to understand how coalition work coalitions work to understand
how politics achieves things in the United States.
And if I have that conversation, and I've tried before, David, you racist.
David, you centrist Nancy Pelosi shill.
My politics are to the left of Hillary.
My politics are to the left of Biden.
My politics are to the left of Polosi, but I am very skittish about doing any kind of
critique of the squad because there's a sliver of the left that will punish me every time.
And I wonder is it even really worth it?
I have other things to talk about.
Yesterday on the bonus show we talked about another issue which I know is like a tinderbox
issues of gender and parenting around gender and Trans issues.
There is no stronger supporter of trans rights than me use any bathroom you want.
I don't care.
Uh, it should be illegal to fire someone because of their gender identity because of a change
to their gender identity because of their status as a trans individual.
We should use the gender pronouns for people that they want us to use when we address them
or refer to them.
I'm all for it.
But I worry about pushing gender neutrality on kids to a degree that doesn't make sense
empirically.
The truth is, and I said this yesterday on the bonus show, I know I'm opening up a Pandora's
box.
The truth is statistically very few kids experience gender related issues in the sense of being
born with male genitalia and feeling as though there are female or vice versa or being non
binary, et cetera.
And I've seen no evidence that pushing gender neutrality to the degree of don't refer to
my baby as he or she total neutrality with toys and clothes shielding the children themselves
from their gender.
I think that there's a good chance that this does more damage than good and the truth is
kids live in the world.
They live in society.
They will see representations of boys and girls in media.
If they have a question about their gender identity, they're going to know it even if
we treat them as boys or girls as they grow up.
I will be called transphobic for the statement and it's why I stay away from the topic altogether.
I dealt with it on the bonus show yesterday.
Some people emailed me and said, David, you really should just say what you think on your,
your regular public broadcast show another issue, Israel and Palestine.
I believe that I am in agreement with the bulk of leftists on 95% of the Israeli Palestinian
conflict.
I am completely against the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu because I'm on the left
and he's on the right.
I'm against illegal settlements in the Palestinian Territories.
I believe they must stop immediately.
I want to find the most direct path possible to ending the Gaza blockade.
I want to return sovereignty over the Palestinian Territories including east Jerusalem in a
solution that I want to advance as quickly as possible, but I don't believe Israel is
uniquely bad as an actor.
I don't believe IDF soldiers have any unique bloodlust relative to the militaries and armies
of other countries.
I believe that if the goal were simply let's kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible,
the death toll would be untold orders of magnitude higher and I do believe that there is way
more veiled antisemitism within the anti Israeli movement than many on the left like to admit.
But we basically agree on policy and this is another topic I tend to shy away from.
Given the option of talking about that or something else, I tend to shy away because
laying out what I just laid out is a huge risk for me because of that slice of the left
Venezuela.
As many of you know, I am against American regime change in Venezuela.
I'm against American involvement in Venezuela.
I know being from Argentina, the history of disastrous American involvement in Latin America,
but I also think the Chavez and Maduro regimes have been disastrous for Venezuela and its
people and merely saying that causes a slice of the left to say that even if I say I'm
against regime change merely by criticizing Maduro, I am legitimising regime change by
the United States and fomenting or enabling the Ameri American involvement in Venezuela,
I can't win.
So I shy away from it.
The right obviously disagrees with me on all of these issues, so who cares?
Right?
But if I'm totally honest with myself and with you, I do shy away from certain topics
because of what I know will be a toxic reaction from a slice of the left.
I will lose financial support because of this story.
I mean, this is the saddest thing guaranteed doing this story that right now, these 10
12 minutes we're going to spend talking about this.
I will lose financial support even though I've clarified that nothing has changed.
I hold all of the exact positions as I always have, but merely spelling this out will lead
some people to cancel their memberships, will lead some people to cancel their patrion pledges,
but I've decided to tell you that this is going on, that this self-censorship is going
on.
I've repeated many times when a youtube videos get demonetized, I could say, let me pick
stories that will remain monetized.
I've never done that, and fortunately we've been growing are in direct financial support
where it hasn't become a financial choice that I have to make.
I do.
The stories I think are important with regard to monetization, but the truth is that the
blow back, that there's been from a sliver of the left, totally toxic, blow back on some
stories has pushed me away from talking about certain issues as much and it's not a good
thing.
And Alec Torelli.
It's a concern as well because as I've talked about, much of what Donald Trump does is designed
to divide the left and we need to resist that because we need to keep our eyes on the ball
and there's so many other reasons why that's important.
A similar analysis applies here as well.
We really just need to be talking about what's important to discuss and the fact that I admit
I have self-censored around some issues because of these blow back totally toxic reaction
concerns that I have.
It's not good in any way, shape or form.
Now it is possible and this is where you know, I just have to understand that this is the
dynamic, the reactions, the taking over of all of our social media platforms and the
email writing campaigns and the tweets and everything.
To some degree.
It probably is designed to get me to stay away from the topics and I, I mean, I feel
terrible that in a sense it has worked, but I'm laying it out for you and I'm being completely
transparent with you about the reality that this is something that has been going on.
I want to hear from you.
What's your reaction?
What do you think?
Uh, I will absolutely tell you what happens in the next week as a result of me coming
clean about this.
I'm on Twitter at d pacman.
Follow me there.
The show is on Twitter at David Pakman show.
I look forward to hearing from you