I never used to imagine myself a populist. The product of prestigious Northeastern schools and mindset, lauded for childhood accomplishments, I probably fit the cultural mold of an elitist more than anything else. I was born an instinctive Republican/libertarian, though, and the more I was exposed to the Marxist left (especially as an undergrad at Columbia U), the harder I turned right. But like most of you reading this, I was gradually disillusioned by the establishment Republican party.
Like many of you, I began to feel politically homeless. No, I didn't want a "third way" — a mid-point between the DNC and the GOP. I wanted the whole rotten edifice to make way for common-sense, truly fair, law-respecting, patriotic policies. I knew something was up when far-left hippie friends and I began agreeing on a surprising number of issues. We joked that we had both gone so far to the left or right that we had come around the full circle and met on the other side. The establishment was our common enemy.
Trumpism, MAGA, call it what you will — a staunchly Americanist form of populism — fits the bill for a surprising number of us anti-establishment rebels on the right and the left. Donald Trump is the powerful figure who brought it to bear in the United States, and not surprisingly, he is a polarizing specter. But conversions are always gratifying to see, and now there's a new leftist Trumpist making waves on the talkshow scene.
I had never heard of Batya Ungar-Sargon until very recently when clips of her straight-up spouting common sense and political and economic truth began populating my feeds. I was girl-crushed immediately.
"Journalist and author Batya Ungar-Sargon admits that she once succumbed to TDS—Trump Derangement Syndrome—and even stopped going to her local bar in 2016 because people there voted for Trump," writes my colleague over at RedState, Bob Hoge. "But now, she’s had a conversion and describes herself as a 'MAGA lefty.'"
"People always ask how I identify politically," Ungar-Sargon wrote in an X post last month. "I am a MAGA Lefty. Trump's pro-worker, anti-war, socially moderate America First agenda was the Democrats' platform for a century. Now it's MAGA. I'm deeply humbled by everyone who reached out to share that this resonated with them." In the post, she featured a clip of herself explaining her position to Bill Maher. It was the first time I ever heard of her, and I watched every second of the nearly three-minute video.
People always ask how I identify politically. I am a MAGA Lefty. Trump's pro-worker, anti-war, socially moderate America First agenda was the Democrats' platform for a century. Now it's MAGA. I'm deeply humbled by everyone who reached out to share that this resonated with them. pic.twitter.com/mhwQViidg9
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) March 17, 2025
It's true that Ungar-Sargon is a lefty and, like my hippie friends, she holds fast to her left-leaning principles, as I do my conservative ones. But she has a charismatic, infectious clarity when she speaks, and though I've only just heard of her, she's already pulled me out into new intellectual territory and opened my eyes to even more swaths of common ground with our pro-Trump allies on the left.
This cheerful, brilliant woman went on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" earlier this week and explained Trump's Liberation Day tariff regime within the framework of class warfare — and it's not the traditional Marxist-narrative class warfare of the haves vs. the have-nots that you're used to. It's the true communist version, where the elites decimate the middle class and force them into serfdom along with the already entrapped poor. It's the opposite of the American dream, where everything is possible no matter who you are or where you come from. And in pointing all this out, Ungar-Sargon brilliantly details the normal-people union between left and right that is MAGA.
I'll post the video at the end of this article because I recommend you watch the whole thing. Meanwhile, here is Ms. Ungar-Sargon's preamble to her fascinating remarks to her fellows on the panel, some pro-Trump and some real haters:
What I find so frustrating about the conversation around tariffs is that we all agree on the problem. We all agree that the de-industrialization of America led to the downward mobility of the American working class, deaths of despair, people working multiple jobs and not being able to afford the American dream. We all agree that it is deeply unfair for the American middle class to be bearing the burden of unfair tariffs from other countries. We all agree that it is great for the President to have leverage in order to demand reasonable things, like that country stop allowing fentanyl to murder 100,000 Americans every year, and that Mexico do its part to police its own border. And yet, when somebody has the courage to show up and say to Wall Street, "Screw you. I am waging war. I'm waging class warfare on behalf of the American working class, and you elites on Wall Street, you do what you need to do, because I'm not going to stop fighting for the American working class." Suddenly, everybody is sitting around going, "Oh no, the stock market!" Yeah, the stock market looks like that because the rich are punishing Trump for siding with the neglected and humiliated American working class over them.
Perhaps there is room for Ungar-Sargon in the Trump administration. She certainly wouldn't be the first leftist he brought aboard the Trump Train.
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We pause here to once again marvel at how a coarse, vulgar builder from Queens who also happens to be an international playboy billionaire while somehow also a successful father of remarkable children has turned out to be a true uniter and an unstoppable upender of our entrenched masterclass.
Trumpism, populism, anti-establishmentism, libertarianism — or maybe it's just the good, old-fashioned spirit of American liberty and opportunity.
Welcome to MAGA, Ms. Ungar-Sargon. You wear it well!
Here's the truth about tariffs: For 60 years they destroyed the American working class to funnel money upwards into the pockets of the rich. Donald Trump is the first president in generations to tell Wall Street to screw itself—he's for the working men and women of this country. pic.twitter.com/sCZRFeITYh
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 3, 2025
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