"The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media" (2009) by ancestry

The first list of influential liberals I found, from Forbes.
The exercise is subjective, by definition, and Forbes Opinions editors canvassed the views of more than 100 academics, politicians and journalists. The list that follows is a distillation of that survey.
Jews make up over half the list. Apart from Jews, non-whites, Irish Catholics, and a Greek, we have:

13. Bill Moyers Host and commentator, Bill Moyers’ Journal ["Born Billy Don Moyers[1] in Hugo in Choctaw County in southeastern Oklahoma, he was the son of John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and Ruby Johnson Moyers. Moyers was reared in Marshall, Texas.[2]" Enough said.]

21. James Fallows National correspondent, The Atlantic ["born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jean (Mackenzie) and James Albert Fallows, a physician"; mother has a Scottish name; looking at his father's ancestors going back a couple generations, I find ancestors from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Germany, but none from New England; update: I've now checked farther back on both sides, and find German, Scottish, and non-Puritan English ancestry; I've continued to find no New England ancestry, and can rule out any meaningful Puritan contribution.]

23. Kevin Drum Blogger, Mother Jones [You can see his ancestry here, directly from him. 3.5/8 of his ancestors appear to be Irish Catholic and 3/8 German or Swiss; at most 1/4 of his ancestry is colonial American, with half of that being Pennsylvania German; he has one great-grandparent born in Connecticut, but with a Scottish name, so unlikely to be of entirely early Puritan ancestry.]

24. Kurt Andersen Writer and host, “Studio 360? [born in Omaha, Nebraska; Scandinavian name; update: I checked his twitter account, and based on comments he's made Andersen is 3/4 Danish and 1/4 German, confirming he has no Puritan ancestry]

So even limiting our consideration to the 4 apparent NW Europeans on the list who don't identify as Irish Catholic, we see vastly more Southern and mid-Atlantic ancestry than New England ancestry, and more known or likely German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry than Puritan ancestry. The people who imagine Puritan descendants form a dominant segment of modern leftists for the most part have no idea what a descendant of Puritans actually looks like. They simply circularly identify northern liberals as "descendant of Puritans" and ignore southern liberals, while frequently trying to rationalize away the very obvious actual trends in ethnic overrepresentation.

Jewish:
1. Paul Krugman Op-ed columnist, The New York Times
3. Fred Hiatt Editorial page editor, The Washington Post
4. Thomas Friedman Op-ed columnist, The New York Times
5. Jon Stewart Host, The Daily Show
7. Rachael Maddow Host, The Rachel Maddow Show [1/4 Jewish; raised Catholic]
8. Joshua Micah Marshall Founder and editor, Talking Points Memo
9. David Shipley Op-ed editor, The New York Times
14. Christopher Hitchens Writer [3/16 Jewish; born in England]
16. Matthew Yglesias Blogger, ThinkProgress [1/2 Jewish]
17. Hendrick Hertzberg Columnist, The New Yorker [1/2 Jewish]
18. Glenn Greenwald Blogger, Salon.com
20. Gerald Seib Executive Washington editor, The Wall Street Journal
22. Ezra Klein Blogger and associate editor, The American Prospect
25. Michael Pollan Writer and journalism professor, University of California, Berkeley

Non-white:
6. Oprah Winfrey Presenter, The Oprah Winfrey Show
10. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (“Kos”) Founder and publisher, Daily Kos
11. Fareed Zakaria Editor, Newsweek International

Irish Catholic:
12. Chris Matthews Anchor, Hardball [mother is Irish Catholic; father's parents are English from England and Northern Irish from Northern Ireland]
15. Maureen Dowd Op-ed columnist, The New York Times
19. Andrew Sullivan Senior editor, The Atlantic The Daily Dish

Greek:
2. Arianna Huffington Founder and columnist, The Huffington Post

23 comments:

FredR said...

It's good to have you blogging regularly again; I hope you keep it up.

Anonymous said...

Maddow is not really Jewish. From Wikipedia:

Her paternal grandfather was from an Eastern European Jewish family (the original family surname being "Medwedof"), while her paternal grandmother was of Dutch (Protestant) background; her mother, originally from Newfoundland, Canada, is of English and Irish ancestry.[15] Maddow has stated that her family is "very, very Catholic", and she grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative."

But if you think Hitchens was Jewish, then why not Maddow.

Anonymous said...

So James Fallows is the closest this list comes, and he falls short if we're looking for "Neo-Puritans". Even rounding up and just counting him as one, that is 1 person in 25, or 2.5%, a major under-representation of Colonial New England's share of the U.S. White population's overall ancestry.

Anonymous said...

I think Maddow may be found to have some Old-stock Yankee ancestry if an exhaustive analysis were done, but she very unlikely identifies with whatever she has.

JayMan said...

The key problem with looking only at elites is this: with political (or any such) movements, the leaders are one thing; hoi polloi are another. You can lead a horse to water... What's the ethnic make up of the people who follow these leaders? It's hard to get around a simple map of electoral results.

Not that I expect a fully reasoned discussion from you, you interesting contributions notwithstanding.

JJ said...

And speaking of liberals, Dolce & Gabbana too conservative (Lol) :

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/fashion_design_icons_dolce_gabbana_the_only_family_is_the_traditional_one

Luke Lea said...

If that's all they've got I don't think we have much to worry about.

n/a said...

Hail,

"I think Maddow may be found to have some Old-stock Yankee ancestry if an exhaustive analysis were done, but she very unlikely identifies with whatever she has."

I haven't found any evidence of this. It appears most of the original settlers of this part of Newfoundland came directly from England. The English surnames listed by Smolenyak for the Newfoundland part of Maddow's ancestry are Gosse, Codner, and Cole.

The progenitors of at least two and probably all three of those families on Newfoundland definitely appear to have come directly from England:

www.angelfire.com/rock3/shelleyobrienfamtree/settlers.html

www.biographi.ca/en/bio/codner_samuel_8E.html

Nor have any distinctively New England surnames jumped out at me when looking at trees people have online for this part of Newfoundland.

n/a said...

"So James Fallows is the closest this list comes"

I've now checked farther back, including on his mother's side, and continue to find New England ancestry absent. So James Fallows has zero (or very close to zero) Puritan ancestry.

This leaves only Kevin Drum, with 1/8 New England ancestry.

Hendrick Hertzberg's mother is supposed to be related to Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman was partly descended from Long Island Puritans, though in his case this was mixed with Dutch (and I would guess also mixed with non-Puritan English ancestry). Since we're several generations on, I would expect Hertzberg's mother to have even less Puritan ancestry than Whitman. But even if she were 100% Puritan and Kevin Drum's 1/8 New England ancestry were 100% Puritan, the New England and/or Puritan ancestry I've been able to identify amounts to at most 0.625 / 25 = 2.5% of the total ancestry of this list (compared to 11.4375 / 25 = 45.75% Jewish, and at least around 12% Irish Catholic).

Anonymous said...

What is the figure among these 25 for NW European Protestant ancestry generally?

Anonymous said...

N/A,

Why do not we get more interesting topics such as intellectual differences of Caucasian and Mongoloid, or why South Europeans are more artistic than the North Europeans, or the Ashkenazi IQ.

All HBDs only speak about liberal vs. conservative, liberal Jews, American policies, Israel ... bummer!

Be more creative, as the European south. - Lmao.

n/a said...

Hail,

I think the NW European Protestant total (including partial NW European ancestry in Jews and Catholics) would be around 5/25 (20%).


My ESL friend,

It seems you missed the first 13+ years of internet HBD discussions. Go read the GNXP archives if you find "intellectual differences of Caucasian and Mongoloid [. . .] or the Ashkenazi IQ" to be the most fascinating of possible topics.

"or why South Europeans are more artistic than the North Europeans"

They're not.

Anonymous said...

"My ESL friend"

Yes, I am ESL, why?

"Go read the GNXP archives"

Oh, no! Thanks, I don't like GNXP, I prefer your blog.

"They're not."

Really? I would love to understand how this can be true.

Although Northern Europeans have more artists per capita , I highly doubt they overcome South European quality of his works, for this you only need to compare Catholic artists from Italy and France and " talented " Protestant artists from Scandinavia (there it?). Lol.

Interesting to note how the Catholic populations of southern Europe are less likely to adopt Marxist and liberal ideas .

The Nordic may have higher IQ , but Catholics meds have a more fluid thought process , thing missing , for example, the British.

Anonymous said...

@ ESL student,

What about IKEA, Volvo, Saab, etc.?

Anonymous said...

https://twitter.com/nero/status/584370988273524736

Anonymous said...

The Nordic people should never have ceased to be Catholic . The Protestant Reformation was a big mistake , and the persecution of Catholics even greater . I doubt that Sweden and the Netherlands can save your current situation without embracing Catholicism.

https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t702115-32/

https://bonald.wordpress.com/

n/a said...

ESL,

France (in particular, the more productive part of France) is not "South European", and the most southern European parts of Italy have contributed the least.

"Interesting to note how the Catholic populations of southern Europe are less likely to adopt Marxist and liberal ideas ."


It changed its name in 1943 to PCI and became the strongest political party of the Italian left after World War II, attracting the support of about a third of the voters during the 1970s. At the time it was the largest communist party in the West (2.3 million members in 1947[2] and 34.4% of the vote in 1976).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Communist_Party

ESL said...

Okay, you are correct.

Anyway , I still think that the Nordic people would have done a lot better if they were Catholics.

I'm not contradicting you. I like your blog and think you have a greater potential than the other HBDs, so I think you're wasting your talent with very little interesting posts.

A hug.

Anonymous said...

In ancient times, the only great European art came from Greece and Rome. In medieval and renaissance times, it almost all came from Italy, and those styles were copied in the north. It's only in modern times as art has gotten sloppy and degenerate that Northern Europeans have become more "artistic."

ESL said...

n/a,

The latter anonymous is not me.

Anonymous said...

"the largest communist party in the West "

Second Vatican Council...

Spanish and Portuguese were the pioneers in the great voyages.

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Anonymous said...

not sure how i crawled into this cave, i'll be sure not to turn the lights on as i leave.