AOC: US Is No Longer A Democracy 'It's An Oligarchy' | The Kyle Kulinski Show

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"The first time I ever really listened to Kyle Kulinski’s show was in the back of a cab last summer. The driver had his phone hooked up through the stereo and was pumping out an episode through the car speakers — loudly, as if looking to convert a captive audience.

“Do you like Kyle Kulinski?”

The driver, Ahmed, was a recent immigrant and apparently a die-hard fan of Secular Talk, the political talk show that Kulinski broadcasts on YouTube. I told him, yes, in fact. I do like Kulinski, had come across his show several years ago, and, all things considered, he seemed pretty good.

“He understands what we’re up against,” Ahmed said. “Like Bernie.”

But I was surprised to hear Kulinski’s name mentioned in the same breath as Bernie Sanders, particularly with such adoration. Because what I did remember about Kulinski’s show struck me as mostly capital-P “progressive” takes on the news — the left wing of the Netroots crowd more than the democratic socialism Sanders has popularized.

It’s an impression that wasn’t entirely incorrect.

“I have no time for philosophical, airy bullshit,” Kulinski tells me from his home in Westchester, New York. “I don’t want to hear about Lenin. I don’t want to hear about Marx. I just want a super plainspoken, straightforward agenda with a straightforward way of selling it.”

With over 800,000 subscribers and nearly 670 million total views on YouTube, selling a progressive agenda is clearly something Kulinski knows how to do — even Democracy Now, the long-standing flagship of progressive media, cannot match his reach on the platform. Chapo Trap House can certainly boast a wildly devoted fan base (and a not insignificant degree of media influence), but their audience is roughly half the size of Kulinski’s.

While Secular Talk might be more likely to be looped in with the progressive networks around Air America and Pacifica alums like Sam Seder than the more resolutely socialist world, Kulinski’s fiery rhetoric, razor-sharp class instincts, and knack for withering takedowns sets him apart from his peers. Judging by his rhetoric alone, he’s closer to a Eugene Debs than a Chris Hayes.

But unlike Hayes, Amy Goodman, or his friend Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks — who began airing Secular Talk on his web network seven years ago — the thirty-two-year-old Kulinski is virtually invisible in the mainstream media. Despite his enormous fan base, his show has never once been mentioned in the obligatory trend pieces on “the Millennial Left” pumped out by the prestige media. Nor has Kulinski’s name ever popped up at all in the New York Times, Vox, the New Yorker, New York Magazine, or the Washington Post, despite his leading role in cofounding Justice Democrats, the organization widely credited with sweeping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of “the Squad” to power.

Just last week, his Wikipedia page was deleted. The reason? “There is very simply no [reliable source] coverage of this person,” according to one moderator. In new media, he’s king — the Sean Hannity of the Berniecrat left. In old media, he’s nobody.

I suspect there are a few reasons for that. There is nothing “cool” about Kulinski’s show. (As a friend put it, “‘Welcome to Secular Talk’ sounds like something you’d hear on Egyptian radio.”) His no-nonsense social-democratic politics won’t get him much cred with the Full Communism crowd. He records his show not in Brooklyn or Los Angeles, but in a studio he built himself in his modest Westchester home. His hair is too groomed and his taste in clothes too preppy to qualify as “Dirtbag Left.” Nor has he ever attended an n+1 release party. “Not only have I not attended one,” he says, “I have no idea what that means.”

And yet he’s astonishingly plugged-in for a young man in the suburbs. Wondering how Sanders ended up on the Joe Rogan Experience? Kulinski, a frequent guest on Rogan’s wildly popular show, introduced them. “You make the most sense to me,” Rogan told Kulinski on a recent episode. “You’re a normal person.”

Much like Sanders himself, Kulinski’s show has a massive audience that just doesn’t compute with our media’s understanding of “what the kids want” or even “what the left-wing kids want.”

It’s probably for the best — the very woke and very WASP-ish decorum haunting much of the media world is nowhere to be found in Secular Talk. “Corporate Democrats over-focus on identity as a trick to divert you from the issues that unite us all — class issues,” he said on a recent episode. “That Raytheon decided they don’t hate gays or trans people — frankly, I don’t really give a shit what their take on that is..."

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[lamarreerickson]

She’s simply stated the obvious that most level-headed People have been known for a long time now. When money decides who gets into office and what laws are passed, you know the super affluents are controlling the tides.

[DanT]

The United States has not been a Democracy for a long time. The people have absolutely have no bearing on policy on both sides of the aisle. The fact that the American Government, the richest country in the world relies on "Fund Raising" It is disgusting.

[NevadaSmith]

I remember reading a Princeton study like a decade ago that determined US was much more of an oligarchy than a democracy.

[TheYankeesUnited]

When was it a democracy? It has been an Oligarchy for as long as America has been America.

[randomentity]

American government is basically like running a copy of windows 3.1 without a reinstall for 245 years.

[Who]

Ugh duh. George Carlin told us this years ago. The “real owners” come on folks.

[henryford]

We've always been an oligarchy. Democracy is a veneer to hide that fact.

[tonyjones]

“No longer” a democracy? This has always been an oligarchy. Where’s she been?

[ekrenz]

It’s nice to hear oligarchy said more openly. Thank you AOC.

[sweetfeathery]

Preaching that the US is an oligarchy should have been the day one message from people in the squad. It could have pushed through red vs blue mindsets that television wants to push and could have better unified people around the idea that we need to fix our democracy.

[El_Rebelde_]

she voted to give ukraine 40 billion. why the fuck do i care what aoc has to say?

[Inquiringmind]

AOC tweets the right things, but never seems to DO the right thing.

[davidhutchinson]

I've thought the US is an oligarchy for about the last 30 or so years. Once you learn the truth about the influence of corporate lobbyists...well....that and the revolving door from congress to cushy corporate executive jobs....it's disgusting.

[EndGameEnt]

I was saying this when I was 16 and was called crazy by my mom. Now she says it openly. The problem is people like AOC and my mom taking WAY too long to realize and, in fact, will do NOTHING to stop it if given the power to. ALL TALK.

[cstick]

“Wait… America is an Oligarchy?”
“Always has been….”

From slavers to big industry to tech conglomerates, these have been what the US government has always sought to protect. It’s never been about the people. They present the facade of representation but the candidates are almost always pre-picked by two parties that are identical 80% of the time. They’ll grant some concessions when the contradictions become insufferable and the tensions raise to high, but as soon as the memory of the hard times fade away they’ll immediately roll back anything and everything they gave you.

[SclountDraxxer]

In regards to the Electoral College, we don't even use it as it was designed! At this point, it's ONLY purpose is to suppress the voting power for voters in some states, and artificially increase the voting power of those in other states. A single EC vote in Wyoming represents ~200, 000 people, while an EC vote in California represents ~800, 000. It's absurd.

[maxrobespierre]

Until AOC pushes Nancy Pelosi down some stairs, I have no faith in her veracity.

[vincentgschwindjr]

In Ohio, we did a direct ballet initiative to outlaw gerrymandering. But the state gov. refuses to even follow it. A true criminal class.

[tokenetta]

It's cringe that AOC have to say this. I won't give her clout for stating the obvious especially saying "no longer" as if it ever was. Saying things doesn't make her an effective congresswoman especially with her record on being so disappointing. Even AOC made bad votes.

[jerrybisbo]

Should marijuana be legalized for adults would be a great issue to vote on by the voters. Big Pharma won’t like it.