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Batya Ungar-Sargon

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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.

Batya Ungar-Sargon
Ungar-Sargon in 2024
Ungar-Sargon in 2024
OccupationJournalist, Author
Alma mater

Education

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Ungar-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]

Career

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Ungar-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 views

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Ungar-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:

Greatly expanding vocational training. Greatly limiting immigration. A government-backed catastrophic health care plan. Outlawing degree requirements for jobs that don't require them, and [outlawing] software that weeds out those without a college degree during the application process. Making zoning laws illegal and expanding light-touch density housing which greatly expands the housing stock by allowing for duplexes and triple deckers to be built in areas currently zoned exclusively for single-family detached homes. Expanding tariffs on foreign imports. Reducing welfare fraud but expanding the child tax credit.[20]

In 2024 Ungar-Sargon wrote

The average Republican voter is working class and truly loathes the Bush-era version of the Republican Party, which meant tax cuts for the rich, failed wars, and an economic agenda that outsourced jobs to China. Whether they realize it or not, this is why Democrats truly hate Trump.[21]

In 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 rhethoic on policy rarely matches his actions.[21]

In 2022 Batya Ungar-Sargon began writing articles detailing her opposition to American support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[25][26] 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.[25][26] 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.[26]

In March 2024, in an article discussing the Israel–Hamas war, Batya Ungar-Sargon expanded her feelings about left-wing politics, stating that

At the end of the day, 7 October revealed how little of the left’s ideology is about values, and how much of it is about power – specifically, about using a person or a group’s supposedly abject status as a method of wielding power. That is the leftist playbook now. Masquerade as powerless so as to grab power. Bray about being marginalised as a way of silencing dissent. Screech about being oppressed as a way of firing your boss and getting their job, or casting your political opponents as unworthy of the franchise.[27]

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.[28]

Books

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  • Coercive Pleasures: The Force and Form of the Novel 1719–1740 (PhD dissertation). University of California, Berkeley. Fall 2013.
  • Ungar-Sargon, Batya (2021). Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. New York City: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1641772068.[29]
  • Ungar-Sargon, Batya (2024). Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. New York City: Encounter Books. ISBN 978-1641773614.[30][31][32]

References

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  1. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon | AJC". American Jewish Committee. 2021-08-25. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  2. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon", Encounter Books
  3. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon on Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy", Washington Journal, October 24, 2021
  4. ^ Ungar-Sargon, Batya. "Coercive Pleasures: The Force and Form of the Novel 1719-1740".
  5. ^ "Immigrants' Fate Depends on Access to Lawyers". The Brian Lehrer Show. December 28, 2015.
  6. ^ "How the Israel Lobby Captured Hillel". Foreign Policy. November 23, 2015.
  7. ^ "Across the Divide: Understanding the Generational Gap". YouTube. 2019.
  8. ^ "About Batya Ungar-Sargon".
  9. ^ Zonszein, Mairav. "What happened to The Forward?". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  10. ^ Burton, Nylah (2019-05-19). "The Forward's "Both Sides" Approach Has Failed". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  11. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon". The Daily Beast. 2020-03-22. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  12. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon", The New York Review of Books
  13. ^ "Batya Ungar-Sargon". The Free Press. Retrieved 2024-07-12.
  14. ^ "The Forward's Batya Ungar-Sargon chosen for ADL and Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellowship". The Forward. November 19, 2020.
  15. ^ Stengel 2023.
  16. ^ González-Gallarza 2021.
  17. ^ a b Klein, Amy (13 April 2024). "In her new book, Batya Ungar-Sargon speaks on why Jews need to rethink their alliances". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  18. ^ Batya Ungar-Sargon (1 November 2021). "How Journalism Abandoned the Working Class". The Free Press. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  19. ^ a b Batya Ungar-Sargon (15 February 2023). "The left has given up on ordinary Americans". Spiked. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  20. ^ Wolf Schizer, Meredith (3 April 2024). "Free College Won't Make the American Dream Attainable for the Working Class". Newsweek. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  21. ^ a b Chait, Jonathan (25 January 2024). "Donald Trump's Economic Populism Remains Extremely Fake". New York magazine.
  22. ^ "The Republican Party has lurched towards populism and illiberalism". The Economist. October 31, 2020. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
  23. ^ Borger, Julian (October 26, 2021). "Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study". The Guardian. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
  24. ^ Chotiner, Isaac (July 29, 2021). "Redefining Populism". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 14, 2021.
  25. ^ a b Batya Ungar-Sargon (29 August 2022). "Fueling Zelensky's War Hurts America". Compact. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  26. ^ a b c Kirchick, James (29 September 2022). "How the Anti-war Camp Went Intellectually Bankrupt". The Atlantic. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  27. ^ Batya Ungar-Sargon (12 March 2024). "The left's sickening betrayal of Israeli women". Spiked. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  28. ^ "The left has given up on ordinary Americans". Spiked. 15 February 2023. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  29. ^ Stengel, Richard (2023-10-07). "Press Gangs: Four recent books wrangle with threats to — and from — the American news media". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  30. ^ Klein, Amy (2024-04-13). "In her new book, Batya Ungar-Sargon speaks on why Jews need to rethink their alliances". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  31. ^ Renn, Aaron M. (2024-05-14). "Review of "Second Class" by Batya Ungar-Sargon". City Journal. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
  32. ^ Bates, Suzanne (2024-05-18). "Wondering why Trump won? Here's what you don't know about Americans in the middle". Deseret News.

Sources

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