This week’s news regarding the Biden Administration’s effort to force Alphabet to divest Google Chrome is consistent with shared anti-big business sentiments in large parts of the Republican right. The attack on American pillars of U.S. prominence, including technology, the food industry, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and higher education—all the envy of the rest of the world—hints an anger that is now bringing together America’s political opposites.
Today’s self-styled MAGA followers and self-styled “progressives” are anchored in the common tradition of early 20th century agrarian populists like publisher politician Tom Watson on the right and urban populist union organizer Eugene V. Debs on the left. Despite the obvious partisan split in the nation revealed by Trump’s close victory, which nonetheless swept him into office with a decisive electoral college win and popular vote win, we are witnessing an emerging bond between the political extremes. In fact, I talked often with Donald Trump in 2015 as he planned his first candidacy, and he confided in me that he considered going to the left of Bernie Sanders to tap into national outrage.
Of course, it was not surprising when MAGA enthusiast, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) endorsed Trump’s selection of RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health & Human Services, proclaiming that “He could not be happier with the choice” despite RFK Jr.’s insistence that drinking water determines people’s gender and that vaccines cause autism. What was surprising was last week when Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis exclaimed that he was excited to endorse Trump’s anti-science HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. given shared anti-corporate perspectives suspicious of vaccines, weight-loss drugs, and other miraculous products from pioneering U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Democratic Senator Cory Booker stated he shared many of RFK Jr.’s accusations over “corporations feeding us unhealthy products” while flooding us with “dangerous chemicals.” Similarly, the now-withdrawn attorney general nominee MAGA field marshal Matt Gaetz has been defended by Democratic firebrand Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez when he earlier faced possible expulsion from Congress.
Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a “deep state” antagonist and a former “progressive” Democrat presidential primary candidate, was nominated to be Director of National Intelligence. GOP Senator Mitt Romney and former Democrat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have labelled her a Russian asset. But progressive lightening rod Senator Bernie Sanders rushed to her defense saying, “Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line to defend this country. People can disagree on issues, but it is outrageous for anyone to suggest that Tulsi is a foreign asset.” This past weekend Bernie Sanders attacked Democrats for spurning the hugely popular libertarian, conspiracy promoting, podcaster Joe Rogan, a Trump supporter, who actually endorsed Sanders.
Directly parallel to such cynicism, this week’s news on the left-leaning Biden antitrust policy is seen by many business leaders to be an attack on U.S. global competitiveness with companies such as Microsoft and Apple feeling the heat, while others see it as opening the door to new enterprise. The Department of Justice’s antitrust chief Jonathan Kantor’s potential forced divestiture of Google Chrome, which controls over 60% of online searches, would undermine this gateway to Alphabet’s portfolio of services such as Gemini, its promising AI chatbot. Both Matt Gaetz and Brendan Carr, who is to be nominated chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, have asserted they too would crack down on tech giants.
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Related severe antitrust enforcement, spearheaded by FTC Chair Lina Khan, was the target of U.S. business leaders who persuaded Vice President Kamala Harris to throttle back on such perceived anti-business rhetoric. Ironically, J.D. Vance applauds these Biden antitrust moves this year. Vance declared: “A lot of my Republican colleagues look at Lina Khan, and they say, ‘well Lina Khan is sort of engaged in some sort of fundamental evil thing.’ And I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden Administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.” Vance this year partnered with progressive colleagues including Senator Elizabeth Warren to introduce bills ranging from the “Stop Subsidizing Giant Mergers Act” to efforts to break up big banks.
Political leaders and journalists must acknowledge the deep history of populist anger embedded in American society. Some is anchored in a class identity battle resenting elitist institutions and income disparity leading to widespread feelings of injustice. Some is anchored in fear of technological change, as with the Luddites of the early 1800s, English workers who destroyed machines in revolt against industrialization. Some is anchored in fear of demographic shifts in the nation’s racial, ethnic, and religious mix. And some is the cultural resentment historian Richard Hofstadter in 1966 labelled the “anti-intellectual” tradition in American life.
Regardless of the legitimacy of the sources of this populist anger, it is real, and it is deep, not defined by political party let alone the language of left-wing or right-wing ideologies—despite commentators’ efforts to do so. We must know it is quite combustible, easily triggered by charismatic demagoguery as well as frightening global and domestic shocks.
