Many subscribers are aware of YouTuber and ‘political commenter’ Carl Benjamin or his Alias, ‘Sargon of Akkad. Now Sargon got his start covering topics of social justice and gamergate, and while many of his views in this field are dubious, I will leave that to the kind folks over at r/badphilosophy to break down. I however will cover his more recent views and videos on politics and his ‘classic liberal’ thought process, but considering that there is so much to mock, ridicule and critic, I will break my biggest issues into categories.

**Sargon is seemingly unable to correctly label, well, himself.**

“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself” - Friedrich Nietzsche

As I stated before, Sargon regularly identifies himself as a ‘Classic Liberal’ and ‘Left of Centre’. Now while we could argue that ‘Classic Liberalism’ doesn’t align with ‘Center-left’ politics, but that would be semantics, what we can do however, is point out contradictions or anomalies in his identification. While Sargon is hesitant to give full statements on his direct beliefs, he has done two tests which reveal information about his beliefs. The tests he use are the Political Compass Test and the 8 Values Test, and if we ignore the fact that he treats both hilariously incompetent tests with respect, they do provide us with some statements to work with. The image painted from these tests seems to be someone with moderately liberal social views, (Legalised Gay Marriage, Pro Choice, Pro Decriminalisation), but is somewhat more tricky on economic and domestic issues. While saying he disagrees with nationalism, he seems perfectly fine with supporting a Hard Brexit as it interferes with a country’s National Identity. This doesn’t necessarily sound like a contradiction, but when he also states in the video that his nation’s values are universal and should be spread, it seems quite like he does endorse nationalistic traits, at least in a way similar to neo-conservatism.

On economic issues, Sargon is a bit of a mess. On one hand, he seems much like a neoliberal, with support for some public institutions and regulation, but with not too much meddling in the economy or workers ownership. Yet when asked about these issues, Sargon seems to move much further Left, advocating for workers’ rights (and yes, I did watch most of that 3 hour fucking clip), and then suddenly moves to the Right for private rights which it seems that it would look better for him. Now, the issues is that his views of economics seem to contradict themselves, and he seems to take the approach that ‘To the left of me is Venezuela and to the right is killing workers, so I am perfect’, but the views in some of his videos seem to contradict within only 3 minutes of discussion. Also, for someone who identifies as a liberal, he seems all to content to admit that civil liberties and privacy from the government should be suspended for protection, which is awfully questionable considering one of the main tenants of Classical Liberalism is the protection of civil liberties. Considering that he is also supportive of some government intervention in the economy and holds these views, I would hesitate to fit him under liberalism at all, it doesn’t help that he stated he would have supported the social democrat Bernie Sanders against both Trump and Hilary and has now seemingly embraced Donald Trump. I understand and respect that people can hold views which change over time, but when they repeatedly contradict and wildly vary based on the scenario, I have to be ‘sceptical’ about your perspective.

**Sargon is unusually quick to accept Right-wing Populism, even when it goes against his ‘values’.**

“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world” – Albert Camus

It should be noted that for this section, when I refer to ‘Right-Wing Populism’, I mostly am referring to highly nationalistic candidates who wish to limit immigration, bolster national identity and tend to be protectionist. While I have already explained that Sargon is quite contradictory and seemingly incoherent, he does seem to give of the appearance of ‘Liberal’, or at least he seems to call himself as such, what makes this so strange however is that even while maintaining this view, he seems all too comfortable to support candidates who exemplify this ideology. The Earliest start was in the U.S. election of 2016, in where he supported Trump over Hilary, while her campaign was closest to his personal views, he seemed to imply that her personal issues surrounding her and the Clinton family were worrisome and that Donald Trump would be, in his own words ‘The Lessor of Two Evils’.

While I can support and understand people voting based on surrounding issues and possible corruption rather than policy, he seems to ignore the potential issues surrounding Trump and other candidates which likely had more of an impact (cough cough Russia cough cough). The issue grows even worse if we examine his video covering the Dutch election in which he offers cautious support to Geert Wilders^[1] and says that he often talked about issues which are relevant and should be focused on. The same applies to the French election in where he covered how Le Pen was focusing on issues which would allow her to win^[2]. This is quite evident, as in all of these elections, candidates representing progressive and somewhat classic liberal ideas were present. In the US, while more neoliberal in her business approach, Clinton was a relatively progressive liberal, in the Dutch, D66 was quite liberal, alongside the conservative-liberal VVD and in France, Macron was a liberal is his purest form. The only issue with all of these candidates was the potential issue of the EU in the two latter, but they still represented liberalism, albeit in slightly different ways. Sargon however, seemed to support the antithesis of what he claims to support in his support for Trump, Wilders and Le Pen. His support for Trump seemed to focus on not being corrupt as Hillary, but when faced with Wilders receiving money from foreign investors, and Le Pen’s Dubious ties to Russia, he still seems to support these candidates based on them ‘Focusing on the Right Issues’. This clearly illustrates a man with no consistency in whom he supports, and someone who wishes either to ignore potential corruption or misaligning politics to an almost laughable level. Frankly I think that Sargon agrees with both Wilders and Le Pen, but was caught out in his support for corruption and illiberalism, but I will leave that for you to decide.

**‘Why Don't I Criticise the Right’**

“Politics have no relation to morals” - Niccolo Machiavelli

For much of Sargon’s online presents, he has received support from some groups not usually accolated with liberalism, including those of Conservatism and those of the Far Right. This of course led to many asking why he only criticizes the left and never the right. This ultimately led to one of his most infamous videos, ‘Why Don't I Criticise the Right’. This video is ultimately full of amazing quotes and quips which would fill an entire post, which I might do one day later, but first I would just like to break down some points here which prove his contradictory nature (Seriously, watching Sargon is painful, but this is the second most embarrassing video he has ever released and I implore you to watch it).

The video states with him stating that ‘I rarely criticize the right, because I don’t really care about the right, as far as I am concerned, they are usually wrong’ and leads to him inferring that individualist liberals are left wing, as well as stating that the right ‘is not good to poor people, but I don’t think they are trying to undermine western civilization…pumping out an ideology which is going to advocate for, like, open boarders, advocate for communism and socialism and all this sort of crap’. Even if we ignore the fact that liberalism is not really a left wing ideology (Sargon should know, with his understanding of European politics), even if we ignore how overly simple it is to completely write of a political side because you don’t care for it, even if we ignore that his belief of ‘left wing’ (mostly what he calls SJWs and neoliberals) leading to Communism and Socialism is irrational and comedic, that this leaves the fact that he boils entire political sides into simple inaccurate statements and places himself as an all knowing political mastermind, who in reality, knows practically nothing.

He also argues that the right would only be ‘mildly oppressive for poor people’, and argues that he doesn’t want to improve the right, while still wanting to improve the left. Not only is this confusing, considering his support for public services which have been threatened by the ‘right’ (As in healthcare and some other public services of the like), but he also has at several points suggested against surveillance and any form of oppression, and despite his claims that he would “Advocate against it, whatever form of oppression they are imposing”, he seems very hesitant to criticise leaders on the right who impost those laws (See points 2 and 4). Alongside this, he repeatedly mentions ‘Cultural Marxism’, and ignoring the very chequer history of the term, he fails to fully explain himself in most of his videos beyond saying that it will destroy “Western Values”. He then goes on to mention how caring about Cultural Marxism is more important than protecting abortion rights, by saying (and I quote directly here) “Every other right is more important than your right to get an abortion”. While a debate about abortion is always going to be tricky, for someone who repeatedly claims to protect western liberal values and labels themselves as ‘centre-left’ is quickly turned around when topics surrounding actual civil liberties. Much of the rest of the video derails into a tangent about social justice courses on college campuses, but ignoring the fact that he is seemingly unaware of how college campuses work, as illustrated in Hbomberguy’s excellent response video, he seems to believe that the left “Command’s social capital”. As illustrated in several of the laws targeting Transgendered Individuals and laws appealing to Christin Traditionalists have been present in ‘western society’ with only minor criticism, this is clearly not the case.

Finally, he seems to claim that his general views are somewhat accurate because despite the occasion hit piece on him, he is still more persuasive because of his subscriber count continuing to rise. I don’t even think I have to target this point other than saying that as long as content is being produced, the subscriber count will likely rise as well. The rest of the video seems to derail into arguments about ‘The Left’ and how they are quick to label people with ‘Right-Wing’ and ‘Fascist’, yet he fails to notice the notable hypocrisy in criticising the left as only leading to ‘socialism and communism’^[3]. Ultimately this is a revealing video which shows how his labelling the left as “A Cancer” and his other criticism of the left would put him on the right. But he only seems to disagree with the religious right and fails likely fails to criticize the right as it seems to be a solid support of his Income.

**Coming all together for his view of the UK election of 2017**

“What. A. Shitshow” -Carl Benjamin.

Earlier on in his YouTube career, Sargon seemed to loath the Conservative Party and the right, issuing two Seriously Condemning videos on the Conservative Party. I mean Seriously Condemning videos which illustrated his view of the party the party as being a party for the rich, which is corrupt and failing to even cut down on the debt. These videos are quite surprising, considering his later support for the conservative party in 2017. What’s funny however is the fact that much of his issues with the conservative party in 2015 are still consistent in 2017 in the cases of Privatisation, and Corruption. The only issue which seems to have changed however is Brexit, but before we analyse, let’s look that election video.

The clip opens with a coverage of Venezuela and comparing it to a society under Corbyn’s Labour, with rich investors leaving the country and focusing on the economic effects of his policies. While there is certainly some criticism of his economic plans to be had, the comparison to Venezuela is simply questionable, as Venezuela’s economy issues were mostly down to over-nationalization of businesses creating an unstable economy, rather than higher taxes and public services. For Corbyn’s labour, the services nationalised were mostly water and rail, rather than the comparison to Chavez’s nationalization of even small businesses. He also repeatedly brings up ‘Capital Flight’ , A term referring to investors and sources of income leaving a nation, however when presented with the same issue for Brexit, Sargon seems all too comfortable to ignore it in favour of supporting Brexit and states that a strong government could manoeuvre these issues, whilst laughing off the ideas of the Liberal Democrats and Labour for being to revolutionary. Sargon also argues that Corbyn’s policies which are from trade unions are representing the few, as trade union membership is low. What Sargon fails to ignore is that these laws which are pushed through will allow people to receive these policies even if they don’t join a union, leading to them representing what they see as ‘The many, not the few”. He also argues that if you are middle class and have an education in any field other than economics or political science, you are not able to understand this issue. Not only has Sargon not revealed his level of education, but some people with education have admitted admiration^[4] to Corbyn’s promises, shooting a hole in Sargon’s theory that people versed in economics are opposed to Corbyn.

On the topic of the Tories however, Sargon is more realistic and admits for cuts to public services. At least I will give Sargon some recognition in acknowledging that his previous support for public services is likely being hit by the Conservative manifesto, but it is about to get even weirder. On the topic of security, he seems to return to biting into the Conservatives, with criticism of the Conservatives terrorism tackling plans. This seems to align with his ‘Classic Liberal’ views, which only makes his later statements even more confusing.

This leads to his final point, and that of Brexit. He claims that the EU wishes to appear strong and consistent, with member state maintaining to as many of the regulations as possible and that leaving the Union, and that a successful Brexit of the hands of the Conservative party could destroy the EU, or lead to mass exportation from the EU, which could be caused by a strong and stable government. This is quite a fallacy, as only a small group of Eurosceptic parties and individuals have gained ground in election and in representation, and most at the time of this videos release had failed, With Le Pen flopping in France, Wilders underperforming in the Netherlands and Hofer failed candidacy in Austria leaving only the ‘5 Star Movement in Italy’ with a strong enough voice representing real Euroscepticism. Sargon later argues that the UK would be best to try and hold off against the EU, and follow May’s belief of getting a good deal or “No deal”. His point of view is that this will either lead to a better deal with more compromise from the EU, or a European recession, both of which he seems to be either happy or at least content with. While his argument for a better deal is unlikely, considering Donald Tusk’s comments Regarding Brexit, that only leaves the latter, which would be an economic disaster on par of something akin to 2008-9. He then argues that Corbyn is giving in to the leverage set by EU chair people which would be used against the UK. The only issue with this is that Corbyn has stated that he would accept the deal likely because he wishes to avoid the ‘No Deal’ scenario. This leads to his ending statement, in where he endorses the Conservative Party, purely for their Brexit approach. As I have stated before, not only is this contrary to his beliefs of civil liberties and public services, but could potentially lead to economic instability of such severity, it could lead to an EU wide recession, which is awfully questionable for Sargon to support, as it would undeniably lead to undeniable death and disarray, in exchange of Sargon’s goal of dismantling the European Union.

The funny side of this however, was the video he produced following the results, which is undeniably the most embarrassing video he has ever produced. The video opens with him condemning Teresa May and the Tories manifesto, and may I remind you, a manifesto is not a piece of political advertising, it is a piece which illustrates what a party wishes to do, so he wholeheartedly supported a party, knowing that it had a bad manifesto. So Sargon essentially acts angry at this result and seems to act as though he never supported the Tory policies, but in supporting the Conservatives for 2017, he is. It is clear though the salty drag that was this video, Sargon wants to have his cake and eat it to, act as tough he supported the Conservatives if they won and act as tough he was hesitant if they lost, but his call for support backfired. Hard. He paints Corbyn’s mild celebration after a successful campaign is acting as tough he won the election, and fails to criticize him by calling him anything other than a “socialist”. This video is a cherry on top which shows a simply confirmation of his poor analysis.

Conclusion

Sargon is, to much of this sub, already a joke. With two Good Analyses on his poor political discourse existing, so why would I create a long winding post explain some of his deepest issues? The answer is simple, Sargon still wields a large influence and has a large group of people whom follow and admire him. As illustrated above, I believe that in the best case scenario, Sargon is someone who makes up arguments to gain support from alienated crowds, similar to someone like Glen Beck, or at worse, actually believe all of his points and continues to contradict himself. Sargon is, if anything, living proof that an English accent can get you a successful career, even if you have no clue about what you are talking about.

Notes

[1]. While even Sargon admits that his campaign is somewhat authoritarian and amateurish, I would argue that him stating that there are concerns he addresses and that “if the left-wing establish won’t answer them, then the right-wing will” registers as a mild endorsement or at least support.

[2]. Between relentless criticism of Macron and Memes he posts on twitter, I would consider that support.

[3]. I assume his mention of Communism is addressing the ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Belief, which is badpolitics for a whole different reason

[4]. I admit, ‘The Guardian’ is not the best source, but the article goes to disprove Sargon’s view on economists.

Oh, and first post. Please be gentle