This guy’s dad is the former VP of a multibillion dollar Turkish conglomerate, as well as the secretary of a government department. Mom and Dad were able to fly to their other home in NJ to give birth so he’d get US citizenship. His uncle is the founder and owner of TYT Media and gave him his media career. He went to Rutgers. He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills. This is by definition not the kind of person who can be a voice of the People. Saying “I recognize my privilege” over and over, while living his lifestyle, doesn’t negate his privilege and complete lack of real-life experience outside of the curated garden of the wealthy. He gets paid obscene amounts of cash to sit in his bedroom and word-vomit for 9 hours a day. Why are his unending opinions taken so seriously? He gives me strong controlled opposition vibes.
Edit: Thank you all for this discussion. I learned a lot.
In case you’re actually, seriously asking and not just trolling, having privilege and success under capitalism does not disqualify a person from being a leftist. You can’t really criticize a person for participating in a system where if you don’t participate, you starve.
He’s using his influence to organize the working class and advocate for collective action, which is the one tool workers have in the fight against their own exploitation. Even if you don’t like him personally or don’t think he’s part of the working class, he is a very strong ally and has undeniably strengthened the movement.
Posting and streaming (which is just video posting) is not “organizing the working class and advocating for collective action”. The closest he gets to this is fundraisers, but the buck pretty much stops there.
Money is important sure, but that’s not what organizing is. If fundraising is organizing than the Democratic Party should be Bolsheviks.
Going on stream to tell the people who decompress from their shitty McDonalds shifts that they should organize as they say hell yeah man and go back to the work the next day without doing anything isn’t organizing, it’s not advocacy, it’s entertainment.
Shame that seriously asking is so hard to distinguish from trolling at this point. For the record, I am a leftist, working a shitty physical job, who has to listen to this guy all day because of my coworkers. I am literally the archetype of the struggling worker class. I don’t need him or any other millionaire to tell me about the working class.
But there are working class people who like his message (the people you work w/). So clearly, he is saying something of interest. I disagree w/ him on a handful of issues, but don’t think that disqualifies him from being helpful in the fight for equality. The same goes for the likes of JB Pritzker for example. That doesn’t mean they’re my ideal candidates but any port in a storm. Turning away useful allies while we wait for a perfect representation seems like a way to alienate some people because they “aren’t like us” when it comes to their financial situation even if they agree on social and fiscal ideas.
Common-L among left-ish Lemmy instances when you start noticing the paint chipping off of their golden idols.
Problem with “rich people” in politics is integrity. There will always be the lingering questions of how they got their power and influence. Did they buy it? Did their daddy ask a couple favours? Did they steal it? Was their campaign financed by unethical practices?
I could never trust someone like that. They might have some good ideas, but even Hitler did (he build the Autobahn).
For now it might be a necessary evil though. At least until we can get a fair political system.