Jacobin is not your typical news outlet with a thin veneer of objectivity hiding a partisan agenda. It is, proudly and openly, a socialist publication, founded in 2010 by Bhaskar Sunkara and based in New York City. Though rooted in the United States, it draws heavily from European Marxist traditions and global Leftist thinkers. It is not just left-leaning—it is ideologically radical, championing the dismantling of capitalism, the reengineering of society through class revolution, and the elimination of private ownership of the means of production.
Its funding comes from subscriptions, donations, and syndication of content to left-leaning outlets, but also from university networks and international partnerships. It receives significant support from like-minded entities in Europe and South America, including socialist parties and academic institutions sympathetic to Marxism, especially in the UK and Latin America.
Jacobin makes no pretense about being “objective.” Its mission is to revive Marxist and socialist ideas in the Anglosphere and turn them into politically viable platforms. It celebrates figures like Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and Rosa Luxemburg while treating market-based democracy as a temporary inconvenience to be overthrown through persuasion, policy, or popular mobilization.
This is not progressivism of the MSNBC or CNN variety. Jacobin is openly revolutionary, seeking a new political order based on state control, class warfare, and the abolition of “bourgeois liberalism”—a category that includes not only capitalism, but also religious freedom, private property, and many constitutional rights.
Typical Claims and Outlook
Jacobin articles are full of grand, moralizing denunciations of capitalism, often describing it in terms normally reserved for totalitarian regimes: “exploitative,” “barbaric,” “imperialist,” “racist,” and “ecocidal.” It calls for the nationalization of major industries, the abolition of prisons, an end to borders, and the collectivization of labor.
Its writers speak with certainty, not nuance. While the tone is often academic—reflecting the graduate school backgrounds of many contributors—it is ferociously anti-capitalist and anti-Christian in both substance and sentiment.
Jacobin treats traditional families, religious institutions, and market-based systems as tools of oppression, and elevates identity politics and class revolution as the primary means of achieving justice. While it sometimes critiques the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for not going far enough, its ultimate goal is to move beyond liberal democracy entirely toward what it calls “democratic socialism”—a euphemism for state-managed society.
This makes Jacobin uniquely dangerous. Where many progressive outlets hedge or use soft euphemisms, Jacobin declares its goals openly: abolish capitalism, religion, and hierarchy in favor of a secular, egalitarian utopia built through coercive state power.
Specific Incidents of Bias
1. Defense of Riots as Class Warfare (2020–2021)
In the wake of the George Floyd riots, Jacobin published a series of pieces defending looting and destruction as legitimate forms of protest. One article praised “redistributive” violence, likening rioters to modern-day revolutionaries. It dismissed calls for peace or order as bourgeois cowardice, even ridiculing leftists who condemned the violence.
2. Uncritical Praise for Communist Regimes
Jacobin has repeatedly published articles whitewashing the crimes of authoritarian socialist regimes, including Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, Cuba under Fidel Castro, and even elements of the Soviet Union. While admitting “mistakes,” the tone is often apologetic—blaming Western imperialism or capitalist sabotage for failures rather than the inherent flaws of central planning and political repression.
3. Hostility Toward Israel and Sympathy for Hamas
Following the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians, Jacobin ran pieces framing the violence as the understandable result of “colonial oppression.” Israel was portrayed as a genocidal apartheid regime, and even minimal condemnation of Hamas atrocities was absent. The magazine gave glowing coverage to pro-Palestinian resistance movements, equating them with anti-fascist liberation.
4. Open Advocacy of Anti-Christian Policy
Jacobin has argued for the removal of religious influence from all public institutions, the revocation of tax-exempt status for churches, and the banning of “religious bigotry” in hiring and education—especially in Christian schools. It depicts Christian orthodoxy on gender, sexuality, and marriage as not only outdated but dangerously oppressive and ripe for state suppression.
Most Ideologically Reflective Figures
Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder and original editor of Jacobin, remains one of the most prominent voices in the socialist revival in American media. He has also served as the president of The Nation and contributed to The Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post. Sunkara envisions a world where market capitalism is dismantled and replaced by a “democratically planned economy”—though how such planning would function without Soviet-style repression is never explained.
Meagan Day, another prominent Jacobin writer and podcast host, focuses heavily on labor policy, health care nationalization, and youth radicalization. Her writing routinely calls for revolutionary change and paints opposition to socialism as a symptom of ignorance or capitalist indoctrination.
Bronco Marchéno, Jacobin’s European editor, often writes admiringly of Latin American strongmen and defends populist Marxist regimes abroad. His coverage of events like Venezuela’s collapse or Bolivia’s political turmoil is a masterclass in ideological distortion, always blaming capitalism or “Western interference.”
These voices exemplify Jacobin’s core aim: not merely critique capitalism, but foment a radical revolution. Their worldview is not reformist—it is revolutionary, and at times, aggressively totalitarian in its disdain for dissent.
Scandals and Controversies
1. Praise for Authoritarian Regimes
Jacobin has faced criticism for its glowing treatment of Cuba, Venezuela, and even China’s model of “state-led capitalism.” It has downplayed mass incarceration, religious persecution, economic collapse, and even anti-gay policies in these regimes—so long as they oppose the U.S. and claim socialist credentials.
2. Antisemitism Allegations
Its harsh criticism of Israel often crosses the line into leftist antisemitism, particularly in its refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist or defend itself. While not outright Nazi-style antisemitism, Jacobin’s intersectional framing routinely isolates Jewish nationalism for condemnation while excusing far worse conduct from Muslim-majority nations and Marxist revolutionaries.
3. Anti-Christian Rhetoric
Jacobin writers have repeatedly attacked the existence of Christian colleges, religious hospitals, and even Bible-believing churches as “reactionary forces” that must be dismantled. Their hostility toward Christian sexual ethics and parental rights is profound, with multiple writers openly calling for “deplatforming” conservative religious groups.
4. Class Warfare as Justification for Violence
Jacobin frequently promotes class conflict as a legitimate political tool, even if it leads to violent outcomes. One article argued that the moral legitimacy of revolution overrides democratic norms or property rights. This mindset, if mainstreamed, would devastate any constitutional order.
Jacobin’s Perspective on 20 Defining Issues
1. Election Integrity and Voter Laws
Jacobin views any restriction on voting—such as voter ID or signature verification—as capitalist suppression of the working class and people of color. It supports mass mail-in voting and lowering the voting age to 16, and frequently equates Republican voter integrity laws with “Jim Crow 2.0.”
2. Abortion and Reproductive Rights
Abortion is seen not merely as a healthcare right but as a class struggle issue. The magazine equates pro-life laws with patriarchal capitalism and supports taxpayer-funded abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
3. Gender Identity and Transgender Policies
Jacobin is all-in on radical gender ideology. It supports state-sponsored transitions, opposes parental consent laws, and frequently denounces any concern about biological males in female spaces as “transphobic hysteria.”
4. Race and Systemic Racism
Race is a central theme, but always reframed as a subset of class struggle. Jacobin supports reparations, wealth redistribution, race-based hiring quotas, and Critical Race Theory—but insists these must be coupled with the abolition of capitalism to be effective.
5. Climate Change and Energy Policy
The magazine calls for a full Green New Deal, fossil fuel bans, nationalization of energy industries, and eco-socialist planning. Private companies are blamed for the “climate apocalypse,” and nuclear energy is cautiously supported—but only under full government control.
6. Immigration and Border Security
Jacobin supports open borders, amnesty for all illegal immigrants, and the abolition of ICE. It opposes national sovereignty as a concept, calling borders tools of “imperialism and xenophobia.”
7. Israel and the Middle East Conflict
It is openly anti-Zionist, calling Israel a “colonial settler state.” The magazine rarely condemns Palestinian terror attacks and frames Hamas as a “resistance force” rather than a terrorist organization.
8. Second Amendment and Gun Control
Jacobin opposes civilian gun ownership but supports the right of revolutionary “people’s militias” in leftist movements. It wants the police disarmed but tolerates guns in the hands of labor radicals or social justice militants.
9. LGBTQ+ Rights and Religious Liberty
The magazine views religious liberty as a barrier to social progress. It supports mandatory LGBTQ+ curriculum in schools, bans on conversion therapy (including voluntary counseling), and restrictions on religious schools that affirm biblical marriage.
10. COVID-19 Policy and Mandates
Jacobin supported strict mandates, lockdowns, and vaccine requirements—but often critiqued them as insufficiently redistributive. It demanded stimulus checks, rent cancellation, and universal government control over health care.
11. Policing and Criminal Justice
It calls for the abolition of police and prisons, labeling them tools of capitalist oppression. It supports “community justice models,” which amount to ideological reeducation and social work militias funded by the state.
12. Education and Parental Rights
Jacobin supports federal control of education, opposes school choice, and dismisses parental objections to gender curriculum as “reactionary panic.” It favors a curriculum rooted in Marxist history, labor organizing, and sexual liberation.
13. Censorship and Big Tech
While skeptical of corporate power, Jacobin supports censorship of “hate speech,” conservative media, and religious content that conflicts with progressive orthodoxy. It favors public ownership of tech platforms.
14. January 6 and Political Violence
It portrays January 6 as fascist insurrection, yet openly excuses far-left violence in the name of “resistance.” Antifa is treated sympathetically, and rioting is often framed as the “voice of the unheard.”
15. Corporate Wokeness and ESG
Jacobin mocks corporate DEI efforts as shallow “woke capitalism” but insists real equity requires government-forced racial quotas, pay restructuring, and union control over businesses.
16. Hunter Biden, Biden Family, and Political Corruption
It sees Hunter Biden scandals as irrelevant, dismissing them as distractions from systemic critiques. It’s more critical of Democrats for not being socialist than for corruption.
17. Trump and the Republican Party
Trump is demonized as a proto-fascist, and all Trump supporters are generally treated as racist, ignorant tools of capital. Jacobin promotes the idea that “bourgeois democracy” can’t defeat fascism—only socialism can.
18. Affirmative Action and Racial Preferences
Jacobin supports affirmative action as both a moral imperative and a necessary prelude to broader socialist restructuring. It opposes all merit-based policies as “neoliberal tools of white supremacy.”
19. International Institutions and Sovereignty
While it critiques the UN, WHO, and IMF as imperialist, it supports international alliances that promote socialist revolution. National sovereignty is viewed as a capitalist construct that impedes global justice.
20. Culture War Issues
Jacobin embraces every radical trend: drag queen story hours, kink in pride parades, polyamory, and gender abolition. It mocks traditional values and sees resistance to these trends as reactionary bigotry fueled by religion.
Conclusion
At first glance, Jacobin may strike readers as an academic journal of the radical left—a quirky publication for political philosophy nerds with a taste for Marxist nostalgia. But beneath the vocabulary of dialectical materialism and labor theory lies a revolutionary firebrand with real cultural aspirations. Its articles don’t merely critique capitalism or expose social inequality. They seek to destroy the moral and economic order of the West and replace it with a utopia governed by coercive state planning, class-based morality, and the abolition of traditional norms.
What makes Jacobin so dangerous is not its honesty about its socialist goals—that’s at least intellectually forthright—but its mission to rebrand Marxist radicalism as enlightened justice. Its writers are articulate, often witty, and fluent in the language of human rights—but they wield that language as a weapon, not a guide.
Traditional families, private ownership, national borders, religious education, and even constitutional rights are not merely out of favor—they are considered obstacles to be dismantled. The publication doesn’t merely offer an alternative to conservatism. It offers a total inversion of Western civilization’s moral and structural foundations.
Unlike liberal outlets that still pretend to respect pluralism, Jacobin is refreshingly honest about what it wants: control of the means of production, education, media, and morality. It would not stop at “equality of opportunity,” but push for “equality of outcomes” by force—an agenda that history has shown leads to impoverishment, violence, and tyranny.
It is not asking to share the table. It wants to flip the table and rewrite the rules. In this vision, opposition is not merely political—it is immoral, oppressive, and subject to erasure.
Its admiration for authoritarian socialist regimes, dismissal of the Constitution as a “bourgeois relic,” and hostility to faith, family, and freedom place it not just to the left of CNN or The New York Times—but in ideological alliance with the same Marxist movements that brought untold suffering in the 20th century.
In the modern culture war, some players disguise their hand. Jacobin doesn’t. It shows it plainly: clenched into a fist, raised in revolution, ready to strike.
That is precisely why Jacobin belongs in the Hall of Shame. It is not a media outlet seeking to inform. It is a revolutionary instrument, using the appearance of intellectual seriousness to smuggle in ideas that, if implemented, would destroy liberty, collapse economies, and silence the Gospel.
Its pages are lined not just with theories, but with threats to constitutional order, religious freedom, and human dignity. In this era of soft tyranny and ideological confusion, Jacobin doesn’t flirt with totalitarianism—it courts it openly.
And for that, it earns its spot on the wall of infamy.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
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