Saagar Enjeti rips Sanders’s decision to revoke Young Turks founder’s endorsement

Opinion by: Saagar Enjeti

A remarkable thing happened Friday evening, Senator Bernie Sanders unendorsed Cenk Uygur after quote unquote controversial things he’s said resurfaced on Twitter.

The timeline of events is a devastating indictment of Sanders and revealed just how much power the intersectionally woke few on twitter have over the broader American left and why ultimately I believe it is mostly a failed project.

The saga began Thursday when Sanders issued a statement endorsing Cenk for now resigned Congresswoman Katie Hill’s seat in California.

Quickly, left Twitter mobs began to recirculate Cenk’s misogynist blog posts from nearly 20 years ago, some misogynist comments he made on Joe Rogan’s show many years ago, and a few other things. What he said was unquestionably bad and there is zero defense of it, as he himself has acknowledged in his apology.

The more and more traction Cenk’s past statements got, the more mainstream journalists began to tweet them out and put immense pressure on the Sanders campaign. How the exact unendorsement came to be is relatively unclear. Cenk told the Washington Post that he spoke with Sanders Friday and told him he would rather lose his own election than impair the Senator’s campaign before he released a statement saying he would reject all endorsements in the race.

Sanders followed Cenk’s announcement with a retraction of his endorsement making sure to say that his movement is quote “Bigger than one person,” a clear distancing move. Now consider this, Bernie Sanders unendorsed Cenk Ugyur, a man who has probably raised millions of dollars for his campaign over the years through the creation of his news network but he continues to maintain politically toxic Linda Sarsour as a campaign surrogate.

The turnaround on Cenk took all but 24 hours and bowing to the outrage mob by the many people involved in this demonstrates who has the real power on the American Left and who exactly can determine what moves for political expediency can be made by these candidates. Anyone with common sense knows that Bernie bowed to the outrage mob because the woke elements of the California Democratic Primary already had their knives out for Cenk, and he desperately wants to win that state come super Tuesday.

I am tired of misogyny on the left. I am tired of being told I am imagining misogyny on the left. I am tired of being told “progressive values” mean we have to overlook misogyny on the left. I am tired of gender equality apparently not being a “progressive value.”

— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) December 13, 2019

The best part is that most of the people who were so-called outraged at Cenk’s past statements like Jill did not care whatsoever about what he said in the past. If any of the people who did tweet about it want to prove their outrage bonafides then they can show me their tweets outraged at homophobic blog posts made by Joy Reid years ago. I won’t wait with bated breath for that evidence. The past statements were not made out of genuine concern but as a political weapon against a person who has railed against the mainstream media narrative for many years.

The entire episode validates a core problem for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other members of the American left. No matter how much you want to tout progressive economics, the intersectionality woke members of your coalition will always impose their pc litmus tests upon you. They will not allow a single concession from these candidates to the cultural right and will demand representation in any future administration they are likely to hold.

If they are rebuffed, then they’ll scream like hell and get their media allies to assist them in brutalizing you in the national press. And the thing is, if a progressive actually wanted to win in this country then concessions or at least a little respect for the other sides is needed on cultural issues. This is the only actual way that states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and others will ever get back into the Democratic column.

And while the American left is eating its own. My brethren on the right are beginning to wake up. As I said on Friday, the Conservative party in Britain has successfully distanced itself from economic libertarianism with concessions to the left on healthcare, climate change, and the minimum wage? Their economically center left policies are married to a staunch defense of conservative cultural values. The result is the most successful election in modern UK history for the conservative party.

Donald Trump tapped into this somewhat in 2016 and if my side wins the brewing republican civil war over the future of the right then similar returns are guaranteed in our favor. The American left would do well to listen if they want to compete because marriage of woke twitter with progressive economics is doomed to complete failure.