John R. MacArthur

Is Trump more left-wing than Biden?

The President has a surprising capacity for progressive-sounding political analysis

issue 23 May 2020

Just when it seemed that Donald Trump had finally committed political suicide — his notion of injecting disinfectant to cure coronavirus marking only one of his recent reckless absurdities — he says something off the cuff that makes one lament the sight of so much raw political talent going to waste in the cause of solipsistic mania.

A leftist anti-Trumper I may be, but I’ve been strangely impressed by the President’s capacity for perfectly credible, progressive–sounding political analysis, especially on the trade issues that sometimes bring together on common ground right-wing nationalists and left-wing defenders of labour rights. That an estimated eight million Obama voters chose Trump in 2016, and more than 200,000 Bernie Sanders supporters voted for him in the three crucial Midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, testifies to his appeal among a portion of the disaffected working class who cannot simply be written off as racist, right-wing or lunatic.

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