Batya Ungar-Sargon

Batya Ungar-Sargon is an American journalist and author. She is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek and formerly served as the opinion editor of The Forward. She is the author of two books, including Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women, which addresses issues related to the working class in the United States and its relationship with the elite.

Education

Ungar-Sargon is of Jewish descent. She is the daughter of Julian Ungar-Sargon, a neurologist. She attended high school in Israel. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Chicago in 2004 and completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2013. Her dissertation, titled Coercive Pleasures: The Force and Form of the Novel 1719–1740, examines, among other elements, how rape and colonialism contributed to the development of modern English fiction.

Career

Ungar-Sargon began her career as a journalist and news analyst, reporting on topics such as the rights of undocumented immigrants and liberal perspectives on Israel and American Jews. In 2019, she discussed the significance of developing an American Jewish identity that is distinct from Israeli politics and aligned with civil and minority rights. She also served as managing editor at the wine and spirits media outlet VinePair.

In 2017, Ungar-Sargon became the opinion editor at The Forward. During her tenure, she faced criticism from some commentators on the political left, who accused her of weaponizing claims of antisemitism in a politically charged manner and of displaying a right-wing, Zionist editorial stance.

Ungar-Sargon has contributed to various publications, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, The New York Review of Books, and The Free Press.

In 2019, Ungar-Sargon publicly criticized United States Representative Ilhan Omar on Twitter, alleging that Omar had employed antisemitic tropes by suggesting that financial motivations underlie U.S. support for Israel. In response, Omar stated that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) influenced politicians. The exchange drew criticism of Omar’s comments, leading to a public apology from the congresswoman.

In 2020, Ungar-Sargon was selected for the 2021 Civil Society Fellowship, a program of the Anti-Defamation League and the Aspen Institute.

In 2021, Ungar-Sargon published Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. The book argues that contemporary media has shifted from class-conscious reporting toward race-conscious coverage, which she contends caters primarily to affluent, educated, urban audiences.

Political views

Ungar-Sargon has described a shift in her political views over time. In the 2010s, she identified as an American liberal, but in the 2020s, she reported distancing herself from that ideology. In 2021, Bari Weiss characterized Ungar-Sargon as a left-wing populist. Ungar-Sargon later adopted this label herself in 2023, though she noted that some observers view her as echoing right-wing viewpoints. She attributed this perception to her focus on social class, which she argued has been deprioritized by the political left and adopted by elements of the political right. In a June 2022 interview with Dennis Prager, Ungar-Sargon described herself as a Marxist.

In an April 2024 interview with Newsweek, Ungar-Sargon expressed support for limiting immigration to the United States, reducing welfare fraud, expanding vocational training, implementing a government-backed catastrophic health care plan, eliminating degree requirements for jobs that do not necessitate them, banning software that filters applicants based on educational credentials, reforming zoning laws to increase urban density, expanding the child tax credit, and expanding tariffs on foreign goods.

Ungar-Sargon has expressed criticism of environmental and green politics, asserting that such movements often reflect elite priorities and neglect the interests of working-class communities. She argues that progressive opposition to environmentally harmful industries like coal mining often overlook perceived economic benefits these jobs provide to workers. She has criticized politicians who advocate green policies for engaging in environmentally harmful practices, such as flying in private jets. She has also criticized the outsourcing of labor and environmental harm to countries like China.

Since 2022, Ungar-Sargon has written articles opposing U.S. support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion. She has argued that American resources should prioritize domestic needs, questioned the strategic importance of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, legitimized Russian land claims regarding Donetsk and Luhansk, and expressed skepticism toward U.S. foreign policy, which she views as exacerbating international conflicts. In response, journalist James Kirchick of The Atlantic criticized her stance, characterizing it as part of what he called the "Intellectually Bankrupt Anti-war camp" and accusing her of minimizing Russian imperialism.

In 2024, Ungar-Sargon stated that the typical Republican voter is working-class and now rejects previously prominent party policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy and foreign military interventions. She argued that this sentiment underlies opposition to Donald Trump from some within the Democratic Party. In October 2024, she described Trump as a centrist, diverging from the prominent classification of him as right-wing. Commentator Jonathan Chait responded by arguing that Ungar-Sargon’s portrayal of Trump as a working-class advocate as incorrect and misleading because Trump's rhetoric on policy rarely matches his actions. In November 2024, Ungar-Sargon publicly encouraged American Jews to vote for Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election.

In March 2024, Ungar-Sargon criticized elements of the political left in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. She claimed that left-wing discourse often centers on portraying groups as marginalized as a means of asserting influence and silencing dissent.

In April 2025, on a NewsNation segment, Ungar-Sargon argued that issues such as wealth inequality, housing prices and the loss of manufacturing jobs were all a factor of elites being "too lazy to get out from behind their laptops....because they would rather die than work in a factory...or clean their own toilets". She explained that middle-class people working in meatpacking plants could be a solution to the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States.

External links

• Batya Ungar-Sargon | City Limits
• Batya Ungar-Sargon | VinePair
• Batya Ungar-Sargon at IMDb
• Batya Ungar-Sargon on Twitter
• Appearances on C-SPAN