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Tim Dillon STRUGGLES As MAGA Remorse Takes Hold | The Kyle Kulinski Show

2025-10-06 News & Politics
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Secular Talk
Secular Talk
2.3m subscribers

Critique of Political Pundits Retreating from MAGA Advocacy

Discover the predictable rhetorical pivot—"enlightened centrism"—used by former Trump allies when their political bets fail, and why this non-apology is more revealing than outright support.

Short Summary

  • The "Rogan sphere" figures who enthusiastically backed Trump are now subtly distancing themselves without admitting foundational errors.
  • Commentators, exemplified by Tim Dillon, default to "both sides" arguments to escape accountability for past endorsements.
  • This evasion highlights a massive political blind spot: prioritizing being "cool" over supporting policies that benefit the working class.

This discussion analyzes defensive posturing from political commentators adjacent to the right wing. It contrasts their new moderate rhetoric with clear policy priorities, emphasizing failures in fiscal responsibility and foreign entanglements.

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Description

Support The Show On Patreon!: https://www.patreon.com/seculartalk Subscribe to Krystal Kyle & Friends On Substack!: https://krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com Join our Discord!: https://discord.gg/teyN4ce Follow Kyle on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kylekulinski "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. Read More Here!: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/kyle-kulinski-bernie-bros-secular-talk-joe-rogan-youtube #KyleKulinski #SecularTalk #news #politics #youtube #biden #economics #left #progressive #viral

Top Comments (10)

@noahleveille366 2025-10-06

The vibe of maga people is that they’re on the defensive. All the maga people I know are straining themselves to defend the admin or are just staying quiet.

1.1k 77 replies
@paultoc2657 2025-10-06

He openly admitted that he’s willing to sell out, he sold out, and people still care about what he says?

1.1k 66 replies
@blindfreddy9157 2025-10-06

American ignorance used to be funny. Now it's straight up disturbing.

837 36 replies
@1massboy 2025-10-06

Remorse? No. Tim Dillon is just looking for an angle for new grift

729 33 replies
@uncomfortabletruth5915 2025-10-06

My step sisters husband is die hard maga, my mom was on the phone with his wife, both daughters losing their healthcare, one on Medicaid the other on Obama care, now he has to buy both of them healthcare and his one daughter is losing her apartment. Now he is stuck supporting his 30 year old daughters, as the leopards feasts ..

533 31 replies
@llpolluxll 2025-10-07

"I told you so" doesn't cut it. They have been told so continuously for over a decade. No one should ever forget what these people openly supported.

236 34 replies
@Vertdefurrk 2025-10-06

Trump voters don't admit they were wrong. If they do walk away, it's a quiet quit and retreat into the hedge like Homer Simpson praying no one notices type of situation.

205 15 replies
@siniister710 2025-10-07

Worst part about being a leftist is being right about everything just like a year or 2 before everyone else realizes.

65 3 replies
@DisappearingNightly 2025-10-07

Tim Dillon comes so close to figuring it out, but then, just can't quite reach that coveted third grade level thinking that magats try so hard to attain. Damn. Frustrating doesn't even begin to cover it.

57 4 replies
@ASIMusic616 2025-10-08

Literally: "I was for Hillter until it wasn't popular to be for him. It's not my fault."

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