Progressive journalist unleashes on liberal intolerance that drove her away from Democratic Party
“The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian explained what drove her to ditch the Democratic Party while on Jillian Michaels’ “Keeping It Real” podcast on Monday.
The progressive media host described feeling “politically homeless” over the past few years, as she started seeing an intolerance to debate and the free exchange of ideas as well as an embrace of soft-on-crime policies by the left that she believed were detrimental to society.
She ripped efforts to “demonize and even dehumanize the other side” while admitting she used to be a person who believed you could not be friends with conservatives or someone who supported former President Trump. Both women said they identified with disaffected Democrats who now feel unwelcome in their former party.
Kasparian said a turning point for her was when she was scolded by liberals after confessing she was fearful to leave her house after being sexually assaulted by a homeless man while walking her dog in Los Angeles in 2022.
Ana Kasparian on Jillian Michaels podcast talks about intolerance and cancel culture on the far-left. (YouTube/Jillian Michaels podcast screenshot)
“Before I knew it, I started getting these messages, and it’s really, really harsh stuff, about how, ‘You are painting a picture of the homeless community. How could you be like this? These are your unhoused neighbors and they need help,'” she said of the negative messages she received.
“A few people accused me of being racist, even though I had never disclosed the race of the individuals who did this to me. And in fact, they were White,” Kasparian continued.
“That woke me up,” Kasparian said. “Some of the people that I’ve associated myself with because I thought they were the good people….They definitely have stereotypes in their head and are totally blind to the fact that they have those stereotypes and go around accusing others of being bad actors when they themselves need to do the work.”
Kasparian said she also disagreed with the “defeatist mentality” shown towards minorities.
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A homeless person sleeps covered with a blanket on cardboard in Los Angeles, California on February 24, 2022. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
“At some point last year, the other thing that really hit me was the difference between my upbringing and what the Democratic Party espouses,” Kasparian said.
She described being raised by “very tough” parents who taught her to work hard to be self-sufficient and create her own opportunities. While she acknowledged there are obstacles today that some younger people are facing that older generations may not have had to face, she still sees America as a land of opportunity, which she said goes against messaging from the Democratic Party.
“However, we all get to wake up in the morning and make choices for ourselves. And when I hear the Democratic Party constantly disempower people of color, because that’s what they’re doing,” she said.
“They keep using this messaging that infantilizes them and makes them seem as though, you know, if it weren’t for us White saviors, messing around with these laws and policies, they would never be able to survive. And I find that so gross,” she continued.
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(Photographer: Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Kasparian gave examples of how a Los Angeles school district scrapped its honor student program because there wasn’t enough Hispanic students enrolled in the program.
“That p—d me off,” Kasparian said. “It’s doing away with an opportunity rather than seeing what the flaws are in our education system and then rising to the occasion to help these students, where we do see the disparity, to get to where we want them to be. That’s the right way to approach it. But there’s just this weird defeatist mentality. And I’m honestly also very sick of White people going around being offended on behalf of marginalized people.”
“They’re just virtue signaling. It’s disgusting,” Michaels agreed.
“We should celebrate people who want to better themselves and better their lives,” Kasparian said later in a discussion about the “fat-acceptance” movement on the far-left.
“Instead, there’s this effort to basically tell people, ‘you’re fine the way you are, you don’t need to change a thing,’ even if that thing is slowly killing you. It doesn’t make any sense,” she continued.
TV Personality / Fitness Expert Jillian Michaels has been critical of California Gov. Gavin Newsom since she left California. (Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)
The pair also said they’ve seen their home state of California become “crazy” over time from when they were growing up.
Michaels, who left California in 2021, has previously shared how the deep blue state’s soft-on crime policies drove her and her family to leave and move to Miami.
“Nothing was crazy like this right?” Michaels told Kasparian. “Homelessness, crime, advocating for medicalization of children, advocating for late-term abortion?”
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Gov. Gavin Newsom is leading the “madness” in the state, Michaels said. “The concern is that it goes from California to a federal problem.”
“Unfortunately, some of the failed policies we’ve started here have been exported to other states,” Kasparian agreed.
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for comment, but did not immediately hear back.