President Donald Trump's historic comeback in the 2024 election left many political critics foolish, but one writer believes that Trump's support within a rather rather uncontroversial group brought him to the finish line.
She was one of those voters.
Batya Ungar-Sargon, a columnist for the Free Press columnist and author of “Second Class: How Elites Betrayed Working Men and Women in America,” had a virus exchange with Bill Maher, who challenged his support for Trump last Friday in his HBO program “Real Time.”
He accidentally called her a “conservative Republican.”
“I wasn't a Republican or a conservative,” Unger Sargon told Maher. “I was a leftist and I was still a leftist.
“That doesn't make sense,” Maher responded, confused.
Her label was not loyal to Maher, but it rang out to many other labels.
“I was at Bill Maher and they said, 'I'm the same as you. Thank you. That's me. And these are the people who gave President Trump his victory,” Unger Sargon told Fox News Digital. “If only people voted Republican in 2016 in 2020, he would not have won. He won because he convinced millions of people across the swing state and across the country that he had the highest profits at the center.
Ungar-Sargon defines the working class as someone who equates the “labor left” who believes that the working class is the backbone of society and the ability to achieve middle class living standards is a critical feature of whether or not they have a stable democracy.
“To me, it means “left,” and everything else is anti-war and non-professional speech.
The independent journalist who wrote “Bad News: How Awakened Media Impairs Democracy,” pushed back the notion that she had undergone “political evolution” since saying that her views hadn't changed much.
However, she admitted that she was once a “awakening leftist” with “Trump Mad Syndrome.”
“In 2015, I hated him. When he won in 2016, I stopped going to my favorite bar, Wheeler's, local cop bars on Sheepshead Bay. [in Brooklyn, New York]because everyone voted for him, and it felt like a personal betrayal,” Unger Sargon admitted with a laughing laugh at himself. I'm really embarrassed to say that I'm really confused. Of course, now, I've probably returned more often than I should have. ”
It was Trump herself not exactly involved that sparked her structural shift from TDS (her Pro-Trump Orthodox rabbis certainly helped).
That was Yale University Survey 2018 It shows that white liberals are more likely to make fun of their language when talking to people of color compared to white conservatives.
“I remember reading something that was so shaking because I instantly realized it was true,” Unger Sargon recalls. “And it was accusation of not just my environment, but my whole worldview. What I could quickly recognize was built on the same things that white liberals behave in such a racist way.
“So, looking at that research, I remember feeling like I was about to lose all my friends because this was true and I can't deny. “So I remember putting it in the drawer of my office desk. I closed the door and said, “I'm not ready to deal with fallout here. I'm not ready to admit this. I'm coming back in three months.” And three months later, I came back and I was like, “Now what does this mean, what does that mean you're wrong?”
“And this slowly began to change my perception of President Trump because it was such orthodox. I think everything I thought was clearly wrong in the basics of what I believed in.
She explained that the 2020 election was ultimately a “throwing,” a vote for Joe Biden.
What the country went through during the Covid pandemic, how everyone “lied” about the virus and harm lockdown and vaccine missions, was all done by the elite, and it was deterrent to continue supporting Democrats who say she rejected her. Meanwhile, Trump was redesigning the Republican Party.
And in doing so, she said he, like himself, built a coalition that included the promotion of life, traditional marriage conservatives and pro-sex marriage leftists.
“That's his genius, right? He saw the party. He saw the Reagan Party, a socially conservative, free trade and foreign wars. And he said, “It's not a place where Americans are. They're not socially loose. They support gay marriages and seek exceptions there.”
“Can you imagine the confidence to not only take on the Democrats, but also destroy and rebuild the GOP? [it’s rebuilt] In his image, it is not in his image. It lies in the image of the working class in America. About all the issues. You see the vote and President Trump is where 65-90% of Americans are. And he said, “This is where the voters are. I love the people of America, and I'm going to represent them.” And that's exactly what he did,” she added.
Ungar-Sargon learned this firsthand while interviewing working-class Americans for her book, Second Class.
“People will make very convincing claims to me about how his protectionist economic policies, particularly the protectionist economic policies around trade and borders, put money in their pockets and helped them become people who can once again become people who can aspire to America's dreams after thinking it was really off the table,” the author said. “And I began to see the President as someone who is polarized solely for the elite. But when you got out of the elite he was actually a very unified person who had a very unified agenda.
“And I have come to respect what he did in terms of seeing through the interests of the elites that had been pushed out by both parties for 50 years. “And I think we can no longer deny that it was a real story, even though we all always talked about President Trump.”
Throughout her political journey, Ungar-Sargon was welcomed by the Maga movement, saying that people would reach out and tell her, “I don't agree with you about everything, but you are very welcome in this movement.”
“And that's the exact opposite of the left. On the left, you agree with them at 99.9% of the matter and say, “Yeah, maybe we shouldn't refund the police. How about reforming the police?” You're dying to them.
“And I think that Maga is clearly part of a multi-ethnic coalition, and many people in the movement are very proud of. They don't just represent people of all life and all religions, but they even have people of all ideological life. With abortion questions from various perspectives, there's no reason why GOPs should not be a big tent around this kind of beautiful diversity.”
In the 2024 election, she voted for Trump for the first time. This is a decision that expressed zero regrets in “real time.”
“I mean, you must have a sense in your gut – look at me and say you won't – this is really going badly and I shouldn't have thrown a lot of me into this team.”
She praised Maher for inviting her back to his show in what she and others call it a “real attempt” to understand why she and others continue to support Trump. She suspected that ideological severity could result in pure economics.
“The argument I made in both books was that for the progressive left elite, much of this is economical, and I'm not saying this about Bill. [Maher] Specifically, as a class, I think their financial interests are very conflicting with the people Trump represents,” Unger Sargon said. Because they don't have to hire working class people, they can hire illegal people. Lots of money. ”
The columnist went on to say that instead of strengthening the lower and middle classes, liberal elites want to “be considered poor and pay people to pay if they don't do their jobs.”
“It's like an airplane, the knowledge industry, the left-wing elite, the overly unlimited elite, the big top 10% you know, currently controlling 60% of GDP, they're in first class,” says Ungar-Sargon. “And you know what they're basically telling Americans is, “We're happy to pay your tickets and as long as you stay with the coach, you can fly for free on this plane.” It really seems to be the best demographic for the Democrats right now. ”
In contrast, she said she understands that Trump doesn't want his supporters to ride freely, and that he wants an economy that offers a “slack version of America's dream.”
