J. J. McCullough
John James McCullough (born July 17, 1984) is a Canadian political journalist based out of Vancouver, British Columbia who works and writes for the Washington Post (often abbreviated "WaPo") and National Review, contributing as a columnist to WaPo's "Global Opinions" section and National Review Online. McCullough self-identifies as a political conservative in the context of Canadian politics, and has repeatedly emphasised his opposition to the Quebec sovereignty movement, or other forms of radical political change in general, lending to the notion that he is broadly sympathetic to politically centrist notions. Despite this, however, MCullough has generated some controversy over articles he has produced denouncing Quebec as the most racist Canadian province, and comparing the lack of democracy within the Canadian system of government to that of Turkey's. McCullough also makes videos on his own YouTube channel ("J. J. McCullough" which also has 169K subscribers as of May 23, 2020) which produces content surrounding infotainment, and enjoys drawing political cartoons.
Childhood
McCullough is of diverse European descent. His mother hailed from the Netherlands. His paternal ancestor is Thomas McCullough a Scotch-Irishman, as indicated by their surname, who immigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland in the 1820s.
McCullough grew up in a white, mildly Catholic middle-class background in the Vancouver suburbs and cites this as one of the reasons for his moderate personality to which he theorizes he owes his centrist political views in one of his video essay's concerning middle-class culture.
Journalistic career
McCullough started appearing on TV and radio when he was 18. From 2010 to 2014, he was the only paid columnist at the Canadian version of the Huffington Post, writing biweekly political columns titled Media Bites.
From 2012 to 2016, he did weekly appearances on True North Politics for CTV News, and from 2014 to 2015 he was a commentator on Sun News, a Canadian news channel known for its right-of centre editorial stance. Sun News abruptly signed off on February 13, 2015, however it is not clear whether McCullough resigned prior to this, or if his employment was terminated by the dissolution of the network.
He has also written for the National Post, the Toronto Sun, CNN, , Foreign Policy, Loonie Politics, The Federalist, and Metro.
McCullough currently contributes to the Global Opinions column for WaPo and the National Review, producing editorial articles entirely concerning Canadian politics.
YouTube channel
McCullough's eponymous YouTube channel started with the username "wartmamu". When he began producing infotainment videos he took inspiration from the Green brothers, Craig Benzine (Wheezy Waiter), and fellow Canadian infotainment YouTuber Matthew Santoro. The channel uploads his videos every Saturday which are generally targeted towards an international educated millennial audience. On occasion, videos are produced in collaboration with other fellow infotainment YouTubers including Quebecois YouTuber Thomas Gauthier and British YouTuber Half-Asleep Chris.
The channel also features McCullough's travel vlogs depicting his travels to places both in Canada and overseas. Many of these travel vlogs are to various countries of the world with relatively high levels of proficiency in English, of which he has visited Ireland, Israel, Sweden and Chile, however, they also depict McCullough's travels across Canada, in Ottawa (Canada's capital city), Quebec, Saskatchewan and Vancouver (where he lives), and several prominent US cities (i.e. Seattle, Chicago and New York City). Once, while returning from New York City, he lost his passport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and, under the advice of the Canadian consul, managed to cross the US-Canadian border with only other means of identification to prove his Canadian citizenship.
The channel weekly releases video essays between 20-30 minutes long which take on more serious tones and discuss deeper political issues about which McCullough possesses considerable understanding and experience which he shares with his audience accompanied by his personal opinions which he tends to leave out in his other videos, having stated that he would prefer his YouTube channel to be a less political aspect of his life (being consumed with political writing in his journalistic career). These include video essays about Canadian left-wing nationalism, the role the French language plays in Canadian politics, middle-class culture, male insecurity, the "broadness" of political conservatism, the "Mandela Effect" (the video was largely centered around the abuse of the concept by proponents of QAnon), and the conflict between the Falun Gong and the People's Republic of China (both of which McCullough is thoroughly opposed to; the former for being a religious cult with ties to the far-right and a severe lack of any standards to produce credible evidence in backing their claims, and the latter for being a highly authoritarian regime with insufficient regard for human rights). Every Wednesday, McCullough live streams a Q&A session on the channel, but sometimes hosts a phone-in stream.
The channel also shows some projects and video formats that McCullough has abandoned such as mail-unboxing videos in which he would unbox mail packages for about 20 minutes (he briefly switched to unboxing mail packages at the end of every one of his videos, but now no longer accepts mail due to lack of storage space), and the "Every World Leader Series" in which he would alphabetically go through every country and briefly discussed the political careers of their heads of state. McCullough stopped doing this as both he and his viewers were getting bored seeing as a significant portion of world leaders have rather similar backgrounds as career politicians.
McCullough has produced several Q&A videos in which he has answered various questions his viewers submitted to him (including personal ones) from which most of the information in this page was derived.
Political views
McCullough is a conservative. He is opposed to the constitutional powers of the Canadian monarchy, and thinks of it as a “foreign institution with no relevance to Canadian culture or values” and “as a constitutional matter, it does not add anything of value to Canadian democracy, and doesn’t deliver the things it promises.”
He is critical of official bilingualism, calling it “the worst dysfunction of Canadian democracy”. He argues that it creates a bilingual elite that dominate the country's political landscape, which he characterizes as a “linguistic aristocracy” that "preserves comfortable fantasies that everything they have was earned."
McCullough is also critical of Canadian anti-Americanism which he perceives to have remained a toxic aspect of Canadian political culture since the American Revolution, and nowadays plays into what he perceives to be Canadian left-wing nationalism.
Controversy
Once, McCullough was invited as a guest to a broadcast interview during which he as well as his interviewer espoused their negative opinions on Quebec separatists, accusing them of seeking "maximum benefits with minimum responsibilities", however, the interview was discarded and never allowed to air. This may be because Sun News was actually owned by Quebecor Media at the time, Quebecois members of which may have been personally offended by the interview, despite the fact that Quebec separatism is often viewed as a vaguely left-wing movement.
As a vocal opponent of the lack of democracy within the Canadian system of government in general, McCullough especially criticises the Prime Ministry (which is often staffed by Prime Ministers unelected by the people) as an office capable of appointing persons to the most senior executive civil, military and even legislative positions of leadership without legislative oversight, and that given the centralisation of power around the political parties, backbench MP's are increasingly losing their powers to vote against the party line. In writing about this, McCullough has generated controversy in comparing Canada and Trudeau to other particularly undemocratic countries and their leaders such as Turkey and Erdogan, receiving criticism from Dr. Drew Brown a fellow Canadian political journalist fro Vice News.
In 2009, McCullough made the decision to teach English to primary-schoolers in Japan, however, felt uncomfortable in this occupation, pointing out his unfamiliarity with the language and culture, as well as a sense that he was wasting his time, and left after a year, having unfortunately not learned much Japanese. He rarely recalls his experiences in Japan in his videos indicating that he truly does find great discomfort in doing so.
McCullough is the creator of a number of websites, namely jjmccullough.com, a website briefly describing his professional career, and also referencing the other websites he has created. McCullough also created The Canada Guide, an encyclopedic guide to the country, with information split into several categories, such as the basics, history, places, symbols, government, and culture. The website was designed and developed by Alex Rakic.<ref name="About" /> Other websites McCullough has made include Americans that Matter about somewhat famous Americans and a website where he writes about his passion for video games, Tanooki Site.
Childhood
McCullough is of diverse European descent. His mother hailed from the Netherlands. His paternal ancestor is Thomas McCullough a Scotch-Irishman, as indicated by their surname, who immigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland in the 1820s.
McCullough grew up in a white, mildly Catholic middle-class background in the Vancouver suburbs and cites this as one of the reasons for his moderate personality to which he theorizes he owes his centrist political views in one of his video essay's concerning middle-class culture.
Journalistic career
McCullough started appearing on TV and radio when he was 18. From 2010 to 2014, he was the only paid columnist at the Canadian version of the Huffington Post, writing biweekly political columns titled Media Bites.
From 2012 to 2016, he did weekly appearances on True North Politics for CTV News, and from 2014 to 2015 he was a commentator on Sun News, a Canadian news channel known for its right-of centre editorial stance. Sun News abruptly signed off on February 13, 2015, however it is not clear whether McCullough resigned prior to this, or if his employment was terminated by the dissolution of the network.
He has also written for the National Post, the Toronto Sun, CNN, , Foreign Policy, Loonie Politics, The Federalist, and Metro.
McCullough currently contributes to the Global Opinions column for WaPo and the National Review, producing editorial articles entirely concerning Canadian politics.
YouTube channel
McCullough's eponymous YouTube channel started with the username "wartmamu". When he began producing infotainment videos he took inspiration from the Green brothers, Craig Benzine (Wheezy Waiter), and fellow Canadian infotainment YouTuber Matthew Santoro. The channel uploads his videos every Saturday which are generally targeted towards an international educated millennial audience. On occasion, videos are produced in collaboration with other fellow infotainment YouTubers including Quebecois YouTuber Thomas Gauthier and British YouTuber Half-Asleep Chris.
The channel also features McCullough's travel vlogs depicting his travels to places both in Canada and overseas. Many of these travel vlogs are to various countries of the world with relatively high levels of proficiency in English, of which he has visited Ireland, Israel, Sweden and Chile, however, they also depict McCullough's travels across Canada, in Ottawa (Canada's capital city), Quebec, Saskatchewan and Vancouver (where he lives), and several prominent US cities (i.e. Seattle, Chicago and New York City). Once, while returning from New York City, he lost his passport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and, under the advice of the Canadian consul, managed to cross the US-Canadian border with only other means of identification to prove his Canadian citizenship.
The channel weekly releases video essays between 20-30 minutes long which take on more serious tones and discuss deeper political issues about which McCullough possesses considerable understanding and experience which he shares with his audience accompanied by his personal opinions which he tends to leave out in his other videos, having stated that he would prefer his YouTube channel to be a less political aspect of his life (being consumed with political writing in his journalistic career). These include video essays about Canadian left-wing nationalism, the role the French language plays in Canadian politics, middle-class culture, male insecurity, the "broadness" of political conservatism, the "Mandela Effect" (the video was largely centered around the abuse of the concept by proponents of QAnon), and the conflict between the Falun Gong and the People's Republic of China (both of which McCullough is thoroughly opposed to; the former for being a religious cult with ties to the far-right and a severe lack of any standards to produce credible evidence in backing their claims, and the latter for being a highly authoritarian regime with insufficient regard for human rights). Every Wednesday, McCullough live streams a Q&A session on the channel, but sometimes hosts a phone-in stream.
The channel also shows some projects and video formats that McCullough has abandoned such as mail-unboxing videos in which he would unbox mail packages for about 20 minutes (he briefly switched to unboxing mail packages at the end of every one of his videos, but now no longer accepts mail due to lack of storage space), and the "Every World Leader Series" in which he would alphabetically go through every country and briefly discussed the political careers of their heads of state. McCullough stopped doing this as both he and his viewers were getting bored seeing as a significant portion of world leaders have rather similar backgrounds as career politicians.
McCullough has produced several Q&A videos in which he has answered various questions his viewers submitted to him (including personal ones) from which most of the information in this page was derived.
Political views
McCullough is a conservative. He is opposed to the constitutional powers of the Canadian monarchy, and thinks of it as a “foreign institution with no relevance to Canadian culture or values” and “as a constitutional matter, it does not add anything of value to Canadian democracy, and doesn’t deliver the things it promises.”
He is critical of official bilingualism, calling it “the worst dysfunction of Canadian democracy”. He argues that it creates a bilingual elite that dominate the country's political landscape, which he characterizes as a “linguistic aristocracy” that "preserves comfortable fantasies that everything they have was earned."
McCullough is also critical of Canadian anti-Americanism which he perceives to have remained a toxic aspect of Canadian political culture since the American Revolution, and nowadays plays into what he perceives to be Canadian left-wing nationalism.
Controversy
Once, McCullough was invited as a guest to a broadcast interview during which he as well as his interviewer espoused their negative opinions on Quebec separatists, accusing them of seeking "maximum benefits with minimum responsibilities", however, the interview was discarded and never allowed to air. This may be because Sun News was actually owned by Quebecor Media at the time, Quebecois members of which may have been personally offended by the interview, despite the fact that Quebec separatism is often viewed as a vaguely left-wing movement.
As a vocal opponent of the lack of democracy within the Canadian system of government in general, McCullough especially criticises the Prime Ministry (which is often staffed by Prime Ministers unelected by the people) as an office capable of appointing persons to the most senior executive civil, military and even legislative positions of leadership without legislative oversight, and that given the centralisation of power around the political parties, backbench MP's are increasingly losing their powers to vote against the party line. In writing about this, McCullough has generated controversy in comparing Canada and Trudeau to other particularly undemocratic countries and their leaders such as Turkey and Erdogan, receiving criticism from Dr. Drew Brown a fellow Canadian political journalist fro Vice News.
In 2009, McCullough made the decision to teach English to primary-schoolers in Japan, however, felt uncomfortable in this occupation, pointing out his unfamiliarity with the language and culture, as well as a sense that he was wasting his time, and left after a year, having unfortunately not learned much Japanese. He rarely recalls his experiences in Japan in his videos indicating that he truly does find great discomfort in doing so.
McCullough is the creator of a number of websites, namely jjmccullough.com, a website briefly describing his professional career, and also referencing the other websites he has created. McCullough also created The Canada Guide, an encyclopedic guide to the country, with information split into several categories, such as the basics, history, places, symbols, government, and culture. The website was designed and developed by Alex Rakic.<ref name="About" /> Other websites McCullough has made include Americans that Matter about somewhat famous Americans and a website where he writes about his passion for video games, Tanooki Site.
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