Yeah, you make some good points. When I first encountered Pool’s videos, I thought of him as a contrarian myself — and he is. But there’s a bit to it, I think.

It’s perfectly legitimate for a liberal to criticize liberals. I believe Jame Lindsay has a good argument for why he spends most of his effort looking left rather than right. And I certainly agree that Pool could be trying to fill a niche, which, given the size of hi audience, he’s done pretty damn well.

But I do think a few other things are going on that make Pool different from someone like Lindsay. The most important is that Pool embraces questionable right-wing sources. When true liberals criticize the left they are going to do so mostly from he left, or maybe from the center. Only occasionally will they attack the left from the right, and when they do, they do so with mainstream right sources, say Fox News or National Review. But Pool embraces sources that are even controversial on the right. The best example of this is Project Veritas, which has been criticized by many on the right for its questionable tactics. I just don’t think a true liberal would be so quick to accept Project Veritas.

And then there’s Pool’s criticism of sources like CNN, while he defends Project Veritas and others as legitimate. Criticism of CNN is fine — after all, they suck. But if you don’t see what’s wrong with right-wing sources, then you’ve probably got a blind spot.