Realignment Within The Realignment

Or, Two cheers for Jackson Hinkle

“I think a lot of people have awakened to the fact that libertarian economics was a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system that they were defending…I've been here 54 years and I watch carefully…This has become a much uglier place, a much more crowded place, a much more hostile place, a place that cares much less about people, so whatever system that produces that outcome is a bad system and you can call me whatever you want—‘a socialist,’ I don't care—but it's bad and I oppose it.”

- Tucker Carlson, December 17, 2023

There’s been much despair among populists this past fall as the grassroots network that had been built up in resistance to Trump Derangement Syndrome, medical tyranny and Woke McCarthyism seemed to be torn asunder by the latest and ugliest dispute around Israel-Palestine.

And yet there may be a realignment within the realignment.  We’ve recently seen anti-Zionist Jew (and anti-Woke Marxist) Norman Finkelstein share an extraordinary and heartfelt conversation with conservative Candace Owens. We’ve seen a similar encounter between Max Blumenthal and Tim Pool. And we’ve seen the internet’s most-cancelled American nationalist, Alex Jones, invite Jackson Hinkle, a self-described “MAGA Communist” for a civil discussion.

The time for this is urgent given that the much lauded post-Trump realignment has yet to bear any fruit for the American people, or even the  Republican Party—The Democrats maintained technical control of Congress in 2022, and also consolidated control of key statehouses, far exceeding expectations.

A detailed analysis by American Affairs attributes this failure to the reluctance of populist leaders to part ways with the free trade and libertarian-inspired economics of the Reagan era. The majority of all US workers, regardless of their race or gender, have seen these policies drive the de-industrialization and corporate plundering of their country. Yet outside of Trump himself, leaders of MAGA have no consistent critique of neoliberal economics; only progressives seem to acknowledge the pain it causes. The authors warn that a critical mass of voters will never be peeled away from the DNC unless they’re offered “a positive governing agenda that would use the power of the state to bolster the national industrial economy and support the American family.”