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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SubscribeIt’s great to see Tim on UH. I’ve been following him for some years now, watch some of his content every day, and have learned an incredible amount from him about US politics and culture.
He is possibly the most significant journalist of the last 10 years following the groundbreaking way he covered Occupy, then struck out on his own after being stifled at corporate entities like Vice and Buzzfeed. He reported from the ground during the Arab Spring in Egypt and elsewhere, and the only reason he doesn’t report live now is that he is too recognisable and BLM/Antifa would attack him.
His knowledge across so many areas of history, law, the Constitution, and economics is sometimes breathtaking, especially as he dropped out of high school aged 15 and didn’t go to college. (Although we all know that people who go to college tend to be very dumb).
My only criticism is that he doesn’t always fully understand some aspects of European politics, history and culture.
Anyway, now that UH has interviewed has interviewed Tim, I suggest it moves on to people like Jimmy Dore, the Officer Tatum, Antony Brian Logan and Steven Crowder. Also Vive Frei, the brilliant legal podcaster from Canada.
I have been watching a lot of Peter Hitchens on youtube lately, like Tim, I do love hearing some sanity from the Journalists, as there has been so little of it. Peter came from a militant Bolshevik youth who evolved to become a moral conservative.(A Liberal Mugged by reality) (his brother Christian never out grew it) which makes him such a great view on today. A reformed lefty has more clarity than a lifelong conservative often.
Hitchens is right about a lot of things, most importantly the largely unwarranted removal of our liberty over the last year. But I can never entirely take seriously people from middle class backgrounds who become militant lefties in their youth. I think the veneration of his brother is somewhat misplaced. He rarely said anything particularly interesting and was wrong about the invasion of Iraq.
“I can never entirely take seriously people from middle class backgrounds who become militant lefties in their youth“
Absolutely, you have gone straight to the heart of the terrifying malaise that is slowly killing this country.
It dates back to 1919 and was undoubtedly spawned by Oxbridge where it suddenly became ‘oh so smart’ to be a Bolshie/Socialist. Coupled with sodomy it was an of affirmation that you had a ‘social conscience. The quads of Trinity or Emmanuel reverberated with cries of “bring me another boy, this one’s split”, along with animated discussion about Marxist piffle. In fact if you weren’t a Socialist by graduation there was something seriously wrong with you.
Today, a century later, little has changed, although the sodomy is reported to have abated.
The Hitchens brothers, from a Naval family, bereft at the scrapping of our last battleship
H.M.S. Vanguard on the 8th August 1960 are but one example of how this pernicious culture has spread through our society.
Interesting as a Canadian to listen to people fret about American cultural imperialism. By the 1960s new technologies like radio and TV were enabling American cultural domineering in Canada. There was a range of responses such as Canadian Content laws for broadcast. The Canadian music scene benefited greatly. Pakistan did something similar vis-a-vis the Bollywood movie hegemony. They succeeded in boosting their local film industry.
It may be a coincidence, but Canada feels more separate and distinct from the US culturally, socially and politically now than it did a few decades ago.
CRT, Critical Theory comes from the Wiemar Republic German Marxists at the Goethe University who created ‘The Frankfurt School’. I really liked his mentioning it several times, especially where he said Trump banning CRT was one reason he liked Trump. CRT and CT are some of the most destructive things loosened on the World. Google ‘Frankfurt School 11 Points’ to see how it has been used to wreck us.
“Critical Theory, developed by the Frankfurt School in the 1930’s applied Marxist principles of power, oppression, and emancipation to gender studies, religion and other areas of sociology and culture. Critical Race Theory (CRT) applies Marxist CT ideology to race relations. Its philosophical roots are in postmodernism (relativism) and critical legal studies. Since its inception in the 1970’s, CRT thinking has grown in influence, both outside and, increasingly, inside the church. Most recently, it has been popularized by the Black Lives Matter movement, formed by three trained and committed Marxists whose worldview is antithetical to the Judeo-Christian worldview. Without question, CRT is a Trojan Horse for Marxism.” https://christiannewsjournal.com/socialism-101-critical-race-theory-another-gospel/
I really like this guy, although he is too Left for me to agree fully, but his mentioning of CT shows how vital this situation is to understand. That Dorsey is a main proponent of it is very frighting.
And I do not think 10 years from now will be prosperity, I think the Biden time will kill it. I cannot see us getting through the ‘MMT, covid stimulus 9 Trillion coupled with a year missed school and destruction of the economy and the intentional fragmenting of society. His Strauss-How Generational Theory gives a very loonish end to it all which is kind of fun, but mad. From Wiki
, “some applauding Strauss and Howe for their “bold and imaginative thesis” and others criticizing the theory as being overly-deterministic, unfalsifiable, and unsupported by rigorous evidence,[4][5][6][7][8] “about as scientific as astrology or a Nostradamus text.”[9] Strauss–Howe generational theory has also been described by some historians and journalists as a “pseudoscience“,[6][10][11] “kooky”,[12] and “an elaborate historical horoscope that will never withstand scholarly scrutiny.””
It strikes me that the “culture wars” are a distraction which gives the exploiters cover to go right on exploiting.
Fantastic show. How does he talk that fast and still make sense?
I was on Trump’s mailing list for a while after he became president. I cancelled after he ordered the air strikes on Syria which also offended Tim Pool. However, he was way the better choice in 2016 and 2020 in terms of foreign policy. The Republican Party is the War Party, too, but the Democratic Party is the WAR Party.