The Democrats are big on “identity,” for they’ve built an entire political system around forcing our institutions to yield to various racial and sexual identities. But here’s a new one: What does it mean when one of the most highly placed members of the Democrat media seems strangely disconnected from his American identity?
That’s the case with Jonathan Lemire’s analysis of the ongoing state of the Iran conflict. In discussing the matter on Friday’s Morning Joe, he twice used the word “they” when referring either to the U.S. or to the American military. Either usage was strange because it implies that he feels no affiliation with an American identity.
Jonathan Lemire grew up in uber-leftist Massachusetts in the 1980s and 1990s, before eventually receiving a bachelor’s from Columbia in 2001 (by which time the school was already a hardcore leftist bastion). Since leaving college, he’s never held a non-media job.
Beginning in 2013, he worked for the (leftist) AP and as an analyst for (leftist) NBC News and (hard left) MSNBC. In 2021, he got two new gigs, one as an MSNBC/MS-NOW employee and the other as White House bureau chief at Politico. The latter is left-leaning, while the former is left-insane. At some point, the Politico gig ended. Then, in 2025, Lemire began contributing to The Atlantic (once centrist, now leftist) and eventually became a staff writer there.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member