I’ve only ever seen Breaking Points content through either a Reddit feed, YouTube suggestion, or the TikTok ForYou Page. I was looking a little more into their show and who these hosts were after getting a video served to me today. Krystal Ball is a registered Democrat and one-time failed U.S House candidate for Virginia, and Saagar Enjeti is a political commentator, former White House Correspondent for The Daily Caller, and registered Republican.

They both describe themselves as “Populists”, and their show as a “fearless anti-establishment Youtube show and podcast.”

I’m not sure how useful the analysis would be from these two. They seem pretty intent on maintaining this “Plurality” of political perspectives thing they have going on. This was the video that got me looking into them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1JaVBYptaU

so what’s the temp check on Breaking Points?

  • multitotal@lemmygrad.ml
    10·
    24 days ago

    They used to be good when they were willing to go against the State Department line, and they did that often re: Syria, Libya, Gaza, etc. They are also pro-nuclear and they platformed some left voices. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke their brain. On the Ukraine war they repeat NATO talking points (while tacitly recognising Russia’s “worries”), they’re Russiagaters and they both repeat red scare propaganda against China. When Putin made that speech at the start of the invasion they dismissed it and repeated Western media talking points about how he wants to conquer Ukraine, bring back Soviet Union and so on.

    That said, I haven’t watched them since the start of the Ukraine war so their takes may have improved. I’ll just never know cause I’m never watching them again.

  • OrnluWolfjarl@lemmygrad.ml
    7·
    24 days ago

    I used to watch it on and off. I still do sometimes just to see what US liberals are thinking about. Is it better than CNN? Yeah, sure. Is it actually good? No.

    In the beginning, their show was actually anti-establishment. They spoke out about Syria, Palestine, Libya, corruption in the US, etc.

    Then they started slowly going downhill, and now they’ve basically become establishment news masquerading as an anti-establishment independent youtube news channel.

    Crystal Ball is a liberal hack who gained her “progressive” stripes by supporting Bernie Sanders the first time, and speaking out against the Democratic Party for a while. Then she immediately went right back to supporting them wholeheartedly when Bernie capitulated to Biden.

    Saagar Enjeti is closer to being anti-establishment, and he certainly holds better-informed and more nuanced positions that Crystal Ball from time to time. But since the Ukraine war he’s become more and more of a Russiagater.

    They are both fervently anti-China (considering it to be an “authoritarian” hellhole), they support Ukraine with a facade of being balanced about it, and last I saw them I understood that they consider BRICS to be a bad thing for the world.

  • knfrmity@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    3·
    24 days ago

    Ball and the more Establishment-critical left leaning guests (like Max Alvarez) they would have on were a big part of how I got from peak lib to ML. Enjeti is insufferable though, as well as the other right wing guests they have on. I watched regularly in 2020, before they left The Hill, but didn’t like the transition to the independent platform.

    It’s kind of a forced "look we can have totally differing views and still be friends* kind of presentation, but in terms of getting people to start asking the right kind of critical questions it may be ok.