Is there a nascent "left" faction soon to emerge in the Republican Party?

Politics & Elections
1

I do not mean a revival of liberal Republicans, but something quite different.

There doesn’t seem to be a common label yet for the contingent of people I’m referring to. They don’t seem to all agree on everything or have exactly the same talking points. Some of them are explicitly supporting Trump “from the left”, but many do not identify as Trump supporters. In general, these people:

  • Frequently express disdain for “liberals”
  • Are enamored with the stuff that anti-Trump conservatives complain about
  • Do not mind, or actively support, Trump’s tariffs
  • Generally approve of Trump’s foreign policy, though many are opposed to the Venezuelan boat strikes
  • Lap it up when Trump says stuff like, the USA hasn’t always been the good guys, we’ve done bad things too
  • Are not fans of moderate Republicans like Phil Scott and Lisa Murkowski, preferring right-wingers who gesture at populism like Josh Hawley
  • Think the “threat to democracy” stuff is lib hysteria and mock the protests
  • Have various grievances with Joe Biden, but inflation is not high on the list
  • Either ignore the culture war or side with Republicans on culture war issues
  • Don’t care for NATO at all and don’t care if it dissolves
  • Are fine with scrapping USAID, which they see as a tool of American imperialism
  • Are not China hawks, and do not care about Taiwan, or even supporting Japan and the Philippines against China
  • Many of them are squarely pro-Russia, but not all
  • Even the ones who aren’t pro-Russia refer to Russiagate as a hoax
  • Think Bill Clinton signing NAFTA was the greatest sin, and the #1 reason that Democrats have lost ground with working-class voters
  • Are generally obsessed with Republicans now being “the party of the working class” and are largely working backwards from there

Jackson Hinkle refers to himself as a “MAGA communist” and Batya Ungar-Sargon identifies as a “MAGA lefty”. Most of the people I’m referring to, though, don’t identify as MAGA anything. They usually claim to be left-wing populists or anti-liberal leftists. Some of the media figures are on the older side, but the overall audience for this stuff seems to be overwhelmingly gen-Z. Internationally, they are close cousins with people like George Galloway, Glenn Greenwald, and the BSW in Germany.

My actual question is this: In the near future, say 10 to 15 years, will the people described above represent an identifiable “left” faction in the GOP, with associated politicians, representation at conventions, and so on? Or is this a style of politics that’s not really going anywhere and will more likely cease to be a thing?

2

Sounds like the so called radical centrist.

3

No.

Stranger

4

Sounds kind of like what Marjorie Taylor Greene is turning into. She is surprisingly un-Republican in many ways. She wants Obamacare subsidies for her voters, opposes aid to Israel, calls what’s happening in Gaza “genocide,” opposed the strike on Iran, wants the Epstein files released, opposes the Argentina bailout, etc.

5

Josh Hawley is my senator. He’s an opportunistic hack with no defined political beliefs other than what can get him a headline.

Although I suppose you can fool enough of the people enough of the time…

6

Best example being Hawley having been the lone Senator to vote against Sweden and Finland joining NATO. The vote was 95-1. He had apparently felt that pulling a Jeannette Rankin would get him the most attention (and did.)

7

I think the closest we will get are Fiscal conservatives and social progressives. Anything more centrist you might as well go to the left side and be a Democrat.

8

Sounds like the horseshoe people. Rotten apples, I call ‘em: Red on the outside and brown on the inside.

9

If there is you will not see it till Trump is out of office. His power is he is a kingmaker and all republicans bow to him.

But, once he is gone there really is no heir-apparent. That’s where you will see a schism (probably).

I was talking to someone who is in the political mix and they told me there is a real difference between Trumpers and other republicans. How that will play out once Trump is gone is anyone’s guess.

Like most despots Trump can not tolerate an heir-apparent. It’s all a mess then.

10

I don’t see any of them now.

While certainly the media have let people down bringing a lot of political news to people, have I missed these supposed people voting against Trump on the economic front? If so, you’d think that I would have heard about the Republicans willing to vote for extending ACA subsidies for instance.

So it doesn’t matter, Congress-wise.

It doesn’t provide a policy to navigate for liberal/progressives, either. Copying Trump on liberal democracy and human rights is a non-starter. And there is already a variety of views on trade relations in the relative left half of the nation, with the added advantage of being sane and measured views (an important quality when other nations are planning their own economies!)

In a way I don’t blame these putative people for not pressing their purported economic differences. History has seen what happens to actual national socialists. Their views on the economy are just not that important. Not even to them, or they would be illiberal, anti Trump socialists rather than pro-Trumpers.

11

Many of the people you mention are Russian assets. Jackson Hinkle, for example, was a Bernie Bro who got so asspained about Bernie losing that he became a Putin devotee (after he started dating a Russian handler model).

I’m dubious as to how… Authentic… Many of the big names in this group are.

Nah, there are two things going on here.

First, when you’re an authoritarian fascist ultra nationalist, you aren’t a liberal, so you don’t give a shit about liberal values like freedoms for people and markets. You’re happy to trample all over those things, as long as you’re doing it for the right people. The far right ultra nationalist doesn’t object to communism for the same reason you or I do - namely, that it doesn’t do a good job of allocating society’s efforts to produce things that benefit everyone - they oppose communism because the “to each according to his needs” part just doesn’t fly if the “each” includes those people.

As long as you sidestep that issue, and tell far right ultra nationalists that the redistribution efforts will be geared towards making life better for the “right” sorts of people, there isn’t really anything that an ultra nationalist would object to.

A conservative would, because conservatism as it existed in the US in the pre Trump era was a Liberal movement (in the sense that it upheld Liberal values); Trumpism is very much not a liberal movement.

So there are things that Trumpists and Leftists will agree on - namely, illiberal things - because they’re both illiberal.

There are other things they’d disagree on. But there’s no reason to think that the illiberal far left is more aligned with the liberal left than it is with the illiberal far right. Illiberals have a lot in common, whether they reject Liberalism from the Left or the Right.

I doubt it’s going away - illiberalism has always been with us. But they aren’t a “left wing of MAGA”, they are far leftists who view Liberalism as the ultimate toxic force in our society and seek to destroy it, and they’re willing to work with MAGA to do it.

In the Weimar Republic, the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) supported the Nazis against the Liberals, hoping that Hitler would destroy the Liberal order at which point they’d be able to step in and guide Germany towards a socialist utopia. “Nach Hitler, uns!” they said - “After Hitler, us!”.

Of course, that’s not quite how things went for the German communists after Hitler took power.

12

Despite Trump’s domination of the Republican party the better part of the last ten years, we’ve seen cracks the entire time. There’s been a lot of in-fighting, even among the decidedly pro-MAGA adherents, so I think you’re right. The MAGA movement isn’t an ideological one, it’s a cult of personality, and once the lynchpin is removed it’s all going to come crashing down. I don’t think the Project 2025 folks can continue successfully without Trump. Not unless they solidify their power and prevent free and fair elections.

I am still trying to understand those who vote for Trump. Some, like my own MAGA mother, were largely apolitical until Trump entered the picture. In the last election, Trump probably picked up a few votes among the anti-vaxxers, medical quacks, and food weirdos thanks to RFK, Jr. What really gets me is how MAGA became a core aspect their identity for many people, so much so they’re willing to turn a blind eye to venality, lies, and outright stupidity of their Dear Leader.

13

My post above was a bit rambly. To try and make it more succinct:

The fact that some people who support far left ideas like wealth redistribution while also supporting Donald Trump stems from two distinct pools of people.

You have far right ultra nationalist types who support redistribution as long as it comes from everyone and goes to their in group. They support this not because they are far left pro redistribution supporters, but because they do not have a Liberal attachment to free markets (which on the old Democrat to Republican scale kinda tracks to left vs right, but if you zoom further out it stops doing so because both Democrats and old school Republicans were solidly pro-market overall), so they don’t oppose it, and they support anything that boosts their in group over others.

And you also have far left accelerationist types, who oppose the current Liberal system and want to see it replaced with a more left wing system. They support Trump not because they align with Trump but because they view him as the best way to topple the current system, and they hope that once the current system falls their system will beat out Trumpy fascism on a scramble to the top.

I was going to say that Jackson Hinkle falls in the second category, but I actually don’t think that’s true; he and people like him (Ana Kasparian, Dave Rubin, Tucker Carlson, Cadence Owens) fall into a third group, of grifters and agents of hostile foreign powers. That’s how you get Tim “I Took $10 Million From Russia” Pool (aka Dim Tool).