“I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m more optimistic now than I was before the election, even though I was so against the guy who won. I know now. MAGA is not my mortal enemy and neither is the extreme left. My mortal enemy is the establishment. And they have been defeated!” --cenk uygur, longtime left-wing activist, pundit and host of the neo-liberal cable show young turks
“Elon Musk is right.”--BSanders, senator and socialist maven
“Welcome home, bernie.”--Matt Gaetz, former Congressman
The concept of populist conservatives aligning or cooperating with populist progressives(1) on points where they agree is not new. In protesting war, militarism, defending basic civil liberties and opposing corporatism, the principled right and left have historically circled around to find common cause against a centrist right and left that often agitate for war, are keen on mass surveillance, censorship, overclassification, and serve, 1st and foremost, deep-state elites. Such a convergence of left and right, as cenk uygur, BSanders, and Matt Gaetz are flirting with, is not unprecedented.
Trump’s 2nd presidential term has a team and potential cabinet of former democrats like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, whose agendas line up with many traditional liberal concerns. It makes one wonder how many disenchanted leftists are out there with a similar outlook. Even a hard-left senator as high profile as BSanders agrees in principle with probable future Dept of Government Efficiency leader Musk that America’s budget is just too much.
There are 2 political sides in American politics currently that defy mere left and right. There are certainly diehard MAGA-acolytes who are less interested in the issues and most obsessed with Trump himself. Then there are their mirror images in the left-wing/democratic Party, for whom no matter what positive results might come out of Trump’s 2nd term, even if those results square with traditional liberal concerns and will never acknowledge any of it in their blind rage and hatred for the person and symbol of Trump. There’s just not much to work with there, in their mania and misery.
But there are also so many Americans, a likely majority, who might lean left or right, or perhaps somewhere in between, who genuinely want what’s best for the country and see the real problem is the people who have been in charge for so long. For too long. There is something to work with there. They don’t have to be enemies in this environment. How many might be able to clear their heads of Trump Derangement Syndrome long enough to finally see that the best hope of avoiding the next war or fixing the border, crime, the budget and inflation, health care, might come in the vehicle of a Trump White House?
A principled left-right coalition’s mortal enemy really is the current establishment. cenk uygur is spot on. May they be defeated.
1. What’s deceptively called the “progressive” promotes the support to achieve desired results, whether really good or not, for the members of a particular group.
Supplemental Info:
https://www.breitbart.com/poli....tics/2024/12/10/dhs-
https://freebeacon.com/nationa....l-security/days-afte
https://www.americanthinker.co....m/blog/2024/12/what_
https://www.outkick.com/cultur....e/clueless-aoc-gets-
https://thefederalist.com/2024..../12/11/data-show-the
https://thefederalist.com/2024..../12/11/how-doge-can-
https://thefederalist.com/2024..../12/11/instead-of-co
