The neo-con rebrand

Many neo-cons are trying to re-brand as anti-establishment, Do not fall for their trick.

After the Iraq war, many liberals were becoming more skeptical of neo-conservatives and their talking points. This led to a shift in propaganda where many U.S. military invasions were sold to liberals as “humanitarian”. For example in 2011 the NATO war in Lybia was sold under humanitarian grounds with claims that Muammar Qaddafi was going to massacre his own people. This was proven false when a U.K. Parliament report found that the claims that Gadaffi was going to massacre civilians were overstated by western governments and the opposition, that Islamist extremist and violent elements of the opposition were ignored, that the intervention was based on economic interests and that it led to a real humanitarian crisis changing Lybia from the most Succesful African country to a failed state. This propaganda was used again in Syria when we were told the U.S. was supporting “moderate rebels” when in reality the C.I.A. was knowingly arming Al Qaeda linked groups. Many of the claims of Chemical attacks that the United States bombed Syria over were proven to be carried out by these same U.S. backed jihadists such as the one in Douma 2018 when a leaked report from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found the symptoms in victims were not consistent with those of a chlorine attack and that the gas canister was more likely planted. This propaganda led some on the left who typically oppose intervention to support it in this instance because they believed it was under humanitarian grounds. This is not to say that Assad and Gaddafi are defensible people of course both are/were brutal dictators who committed many human rights abuses but the neo-cons found a way to sell interventions against both countries in a way that would appeal to the left. This neo-con rebrand continued under the Trump years with many such as Bill Kristol and David Frum becoming regulars on MSNBC and being accepted by liberal audiences. A great example of this is a headline that refers to Bill Kristol as “woke Bill Kristol”. I write about this to compare it to a recent neo-con rebrand where many are now positioning themselves as “anti-establishment” populists within this article I will go over the figures doing this and explain their background and how they continue to push neo-conservative propaganda.

Saagar Enjenti

Saagar Enjenti was the host of “Rising” of the Hill now spun off onto “Breaking Points” on Youtube. He hosts the show with progressive Krystal Ball. Investigative journalist Alan Macleod dug into Enjenti’s history and found that he went to George Washinton University and Georgetown University both of which are well connected to the security state He also attended an Israeli university is known for pumping out Israeli and American security state officials. He later worked for the ISW a pro-war think tank funded by the military-industrial complex. Enjenti later was a fellow a the Hudson Insistute a pro-Iraq war think tank also funded by the arms manufacturers. Saagar routinely pushes anti-China talking points on Breaking Points and on Rising in order to sell the new cold war with China to a populist audience. Here are some examples of the headlines of Enjentis segments on “rising”. "Biden, West MUST STAND Up Against China Efforts To Cover Up Slave Labor", "John Cena's DISGUSTING Bow To China Reveals How Sold Out US Elite Is" and "CCP Member CAUGHT REVEALING How China Will Use Wall Street To Control Joe Biden". These headlines are clearly pushing a more hawkish foreign policy towards China but doing it under the lens of being anti-wall street and anti-elite. Saagar also often platforms Washington D.C. neo-cons such as when he uncritically platformed Jacob Helberg a military-industrial funded Washington D.C. think-tanker who was pushing war with China over Taiwan.

Josh Rogin

Josh Rogin is a journalist and foreign policy analyst who writes for the Washington Post. He is known in populist circles for mainstreaming the “lab leak” theory, a theory that the Covid-19 virus originated in a lab in Wu-Han China. He has appeared on Saagar Enjeti’s podcast The realignment on breaking points and on the very popular Joe Rogan podcast. Many of the well-meaning viewers of these podcasts may see these podcasts and believe Rogin is a populist outsider who somehow snuck his way into the mainstream media. What many probably would not know is that he spends every week advocating for war with almost every official enemy country of the United States. For example, at the time of my writing this article he has written an opinion piece arguing for more “American led Internationalism” (a.k.a imperialism). Within the piece, Rogin argues “the Western world has broken faith with its duty to spread democracy, freedom, and dignity based on the principles of Western enlightenment”. This sounds much more like something Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld would say rather than a populist outsider. More examples of Rogin’s neoconservative propaganda are a 2021 article where he calls for more sanctions and regime change in Syria and an article where he argues Biden needs to “get tough on North Korea”. Rogin is far from an outsider and is just another typical Washinton D.C. insider who pushes for every single war in mainstream media outlets.

Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss is a former New York Times editor who now writes at sub-stack. She recently blew up for an appearance she did on CNN where she criticized their reporting again on the lab-leak theory. She gained a lot of praise for this from populist alternative media stars such as Russell Brand who made a video about this titled “CNN Coverage Called Out TO ITS FACE!!!”. But Bari Weiss is far from an anti-establishment outsider. Weiss was a self-described “pro-Israel” activist at Colombia University and tried to get professors fired for their criticisms of Israel. Her movement to get professors fired was even called out by the New York Civil liberties Union at the time. Bari Weiss has spent her career defending every action of the Israeli government even writing that Israel killing children was an “unavoidable burden”. She also smeared then congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as an Assad lover because she dared call out the United States dirty war in Syria. Gabbard ironically is now pushing a lot of this same type of fake populism. Bari Wiess also pushes the lab leak theory to justify a new cold war with China. She had far-right neoconservative and Trump administration secretary of state Mike Pompeo on her podcast to use the lab leak theory to push a new cold war with China. This is not to say anyone who belives the lab-leak thory is war mongerer or that it should not be discussed but that people like Pompeo are clearly usuing it as war propaganda. Again Weiss is not any kind of outsider but an establishment neo-con using populist rhetoric.

Batya Ungar-Sargon

Batya Ungar-Sargon is the opinion editor at Newsweek who recently was invited on Rising, Saagar Enjenti’s former show now hosted by journalist Ryan Grim and youtube host Kim Iversen. Within the video, she makes the absurd claim that the fake steel dossier was somehow a Russian plot to make the mainstream media look bad. Again Rising is presenting her as some kind of anti-establishment outsider but she is far from it. Sargon has a long history of smearing Palestinian activists as anti-semites. She smeared Students for Justice in Palestine as anti-semites for protesting her at a pannel she was speaking at. She was speaking alongside Ruth Wisse a Harvard professor who called Palestinians “people who breed and bleed and advertise their misery.” and Shany Mor a senior member of Israel’s security council. People on the ground confirmed that the protests were not in any way anti-Semitic but actually were against the racist and pro-occupation views of the speakers. Ungar-Sargon also played a huge role in the smearing of congresswoman Ilham Omar as an anti-semite over her criticism of the AIPAC lobby. Why a supposed leftist populist show would prop up a figure like this is very confusing.

Final thoughts

Imperialist propaganda always finds a new way to package itself. Neoconservatives are always finding a new way to rebrand. Progressives, leftists, and populists need to be wary of this. Anyone who pushed the new Cold war with China, pushes Military intervention or defends the crimes of the Israeli government should not be welcomed as anti-establishment outsiders just because they complain about “wokeness” or say a few bad things about the mainstream media. All four of the people I wrote about all push the same establishment propaganda they always did and will infiltrate populist spaces with their it if more are not careful about rooting them out.