Online Lefty, liberal journalist, Right-wing podcaster and alt-Right adjacent. These are just some of the labels applied to Tim Pool, a YouTuber and citizen journalist who first rose to prominence in his coverage of the Occupy Movement nearly 10 years ago. That he’s been called all these different names is something of a badge of honour for Pool, whose heterodox opinions have led to criticism from all corners of the political spectrum.
Though he would broadly categorise himself as a Left-libertarian, he is no friend of the Democrat Party, describing it as the ‘War Machine Party’ and even voted for Trump in 2020. We were interested to learn more about Tim’s rationale behind this move, which also seemed to reflect a broader realignment in American life. Then years since the Occupy Movement, in which anti-corporate, anti-capitalist protesters used social media to advance their cause, they have become, according to Pool, the biggest advocates for censorship:
Somehow now, the Left today that opposed major corporations are the ones primarily saying private companies have a right to regulate speech…So there’s been this strange realignment which shows that many of these people from Occupy Wall Street and from these past protest movements were more interested in tribal victory than they were in the actual cause.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On the global reach of Big Tech:
One of the problems with centralised Big Tech social media is that Twitter’s interests are going to be heavily influenced by American politics. And that’s going to affect a bunch of other countries, creating this weird kind of progressive American cultural supremacy… It makes no sense that Twitter would impose its American values on other countries around the world. That’s essentially America spreading its influence, forcing these companies to use their platforms, either through sanctions or more importantly, Apple and Android can just ban you if you oppose them. They’re making sure that their technological systems are the only systems other countries can use.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On ideological CEOs:
You’ve got a very strong, very fringe but growing political ideology in the US. And this is a worldview held by people like Jack Dorsey…The ideas they hold are held by a very small minority of people in the world; their worldview, about say, critical gender theory is not held by a majority of anyone in any country….It’s particularly strange when they’re literally protesting in Europe over the death of Mike Brown, as if the protests in Europe can influence American policy. They can’t. But that’s the power of social media. And that’s what happens when you have ideological CEOs that only enforce rules based on a fringe subset of political beliefs.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On disliking Joe Biden:
Joe Biden was the Vice President under the Obama administration, where they escalated this massive drone programme and bolstered the US presence in the Middle East. Barack Obama signed the National Defence Authorization Act with the indefinite detention provision, which is one of the most horrifyingly draconian things we’ve ever seen… Barack Obama also authorised the extrajudicial assassinations of American citizens. I look at that with Joe Biden and I’m never gonna support that.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On why he voted for Donald Trump:
He passed an executive order banning critical race theory in the government and companies they are contracted to. Donald Trump also favoured school choice, meaning that people in low income communities could choose to go to better schools. I thought that was very important. And Donald Trump oversaw the Abraham accords bringing historical peace agreements in the Middle East.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On China:
I thought the threat posed by China and their human rights abuses would be a unifying factor in the United States. But now we’re seeing a bunch of articles emerge from outlets like the
Washington Post where they say that criticising China is sinophobic and that leads to violence against Asians… It’s also creating this rhetoric that being critical of China is hysterical, and we can’t do it. That’s coming from the woke and the critical theorists. So it feels like even when we have a bigger threat — they’re actually putting Muslims in concentration camps — there are still tribalists who don’t want to admit that we have a common crisis. They just want to be tribalist.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On Gen z attitudes towards authoritarianism:
Gen Z is entering a non-existent dystopian reality. So it’s no surprise that they don’t care about what’s going on. They’ve not lived in a world outside of this crisis. So to them, if you’re at rock bottom, why should you care about what the government is doing? Why should you care about freedoms that you’ve not been able to experience? These are kids who were young during the financial crisis, and now, they’re finally old enough to get into work and to vote. And once again, we have another major crisis. So as far as they’re concerned, just let the government do it.
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
On a brighter future:
I’m hoping that while we may go through very severe hardship in the next several years, maybe 10 years from now, we’re all going to be very well off and everything will just be in a new booming period, which we’ll see another 60 years of prosperity
- Tim Pool, LockdownTV
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