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Batya Ungar-Sargon
Batya Ungar-Sargon is an American journalist and author. Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek[1] and the former opinion editor of The Forward.[2][3] She is the author of two books, the most recent of which is Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women, which discusses the challenges faced by the American working class and the gap between them and the elite class. EducationUngar-Sargon holds a 2004 bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago (AB) in English and completed her PhD in 2013 at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation, entitled Coercive Pleasures: The Force and Form of the Novel 1719-1740, addresses, among other elements, how rape and colonialism figure in the pleasures of modern English fiction.[4] CareerUngar-Sargon began her career as a journalist and news analyst. She reported on the rights of undocumented immigrants as well as liberal voices on Israel and the American Jewish community.[5][6] In 2019 Ungar-Sargon articulated the importance of maintaining an American Jewish identity apart from Israeli politics, but rather one which embraces the values of civil and minority rights.[7] She was also a managing editor at the wine and spirits media outlet VinePair.[8] In 2017 Ungar-Sargon became the opinion editor at The Forward. In this role she was criticized by some on the left for allegations of weaponizing claims of antisemitism and right-wing, pro-Israel bias.[9][10] She has written for The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, The New York Review of Books, and The Free Press.[11][12][13] In 2020, Ungar-Sargon was selected for the 2021 ADL and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship.[14] In 2021, Ungar-Sargon wrote Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. In the book, she argues that race-conscious "wokeness" provided by print media consumed by upper-class, educated readers has replaced the class-conscious reporting for a wider readership that dominated U.S. media in earlier periods, going back at least to the penny press era when all classes consumed low-cost newspapers.[15] The book says that an identity politics based culture war has become the focus of media "catering almost exclusively to the interests of urban, upper-class liberals".[16] Political viewsUngar-Sargon has stated that in the 2010s she self-identified as an American liberal; however, in the 2020s she felt herself drifting away from that ideology.[17] In 2021, Bari Weiss of the Free Press said that Ungar-Sargon was very hard to pin down ideologically, but identified her as a left-wing populist.[18] Ungar-Sargon herself self-identified as a left-wing populist in 2023, although acknowledged that many people would view her as repeating "conservative talking points".[19] Ungar-Sargon attributed this perception to her focus on social class, which she feels has become abandoned by the left and taken up by the right.[19] Asked by Newsweek in April 2024 which policies she would support, Ungar-Sargon responded:
In 2024, Ungar-Sargon wrote:
In October 2024, Ungar-Sargon identified Donald Trump as a centrist[17] rather than the more widely-held view that he is right-wing.[22][23][24] Jonathan Chait of New York magazine has suggested that Ungar-Sargon "depicts Trump as a tribune of the working man who is hated by the party elite because of his opposition to conservative economic policy", which Chait criticised as incorrect and misleading because Trump's rhetoric on policy rarely matches his actions.[21] In November 2024, Ungar-Sargon called upon American Jews to vote for Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election.[25][26] In 2022 Batya Ungar-Sargon began writing articles detailing her opposition to American support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[27][28] In those articles, Ungar-Sargon wrote that she opposes U.S. support for Ukraine, arguing that resources should prioritize economically disadvantaged Americans over foreign conflicts. She also questioned the significance of Ukraine's territorial integrity and legitimized Russia's claims regarding Donetsk and Luhansk. Additionally, she critiqued U.S. interventionism as exacerbating conflicts and warned that support for Ukraine could prolong suffering.[27][28] In response, James Kirchick of The Atlantic labelled Ungar-Sargon a member of the "Intellectually Bankrupt Anti-war camp", accusing Ungar-Sargon of being a part of a broader trend of among certain political commentators who excuse imperialism while criticizing U.S. foreign policy, labeling her approach as shortsighted and reductive.[28] In March 2024, in an article discussing what she perceived as a lack of left-wing solidarity for Israeli victims of sexual violence on October 7, Batya Ungar-Sargon expanded her feelings about left-wing politics, stating that
Ungar-Sargon has spoken against environmentalism and green politics, arguing they align with elite interests at the expense of the working class. Ungar-Sargon believes there is a disconnect between progressives and working-class individuals, noting that elites often oppose job-creating initiatives, like coal mining, that she believes would benefit the working class. While she acknowledges the sincerity of some political figures, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ungar-Sargon questions their commitment due to practices such as using private jets. Ungar-Sargon had critiqued the outsourcing of jobs and environmental consequences to countries like China, viewing this as elitist and dismissive of American workers' realities.[30] Books
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