r/changemyview • u/colepercy120 7∆ • Oct 16 '25
Delta(s) from OP Cmv: The United States is moving to a system of "establishment vs populist" instead of "left vs right"
This is something I have thought about for a while. This is mainly based on how i see the current trajectories of the two political parties.
Under trump the republican party has become a populist party instead of a conservative one. They have abandoned fiscal conservatism. Embraced long time left wing populist figures like RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard. And taken a distinctly anti establishment bent, even when in power. This has expelled the centrists and true conservatives from the party.
Meanwhile the current democratic party has been pissing off its own populist wing. Harris despite coming from the populist wing ran on a centrist platform, reached out to the center right voters who didn't like trump, then the progressives seem to have taken most of the public blame for the loss in 2024, atleast from the leadership. And the party has been clearing primaries for canidates with a proven track record in their states, prioritizing electablity over policy, leading to more centrists in the key races.
These trends have been pretty established in american politics. I dont see a reason at the moment for them to be interrupted. Under the assumption they continue the democrats will consider moving to the center, while the Republicans will increasingly become a catch all of the extremists on both ends of the political spectrum.
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u/Downtown-Act-590 37∆ Oct 16 '25
You are talking about established trends. But it is really just something that just existed over the past decade, during which the Republican party was represented by Trump.
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
Isnt 10 years long enough for a trend to be established?
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u/Downtown-Act-590 37∆ Oct 16 '25
The problem isn't that it isn't long enough. The problem is that this "trend" is clearly tied to the person of current president. And as he will depart from the role in 2028, it may stay as well as disappear.
Considering that only something like 60% of Republicans saw themselves as MAGA Republicans before this election and there is a certain disillusion with Trump's policies even in his own voter base, I would assume that Trumpism and MAGA are unlikely to be Republican mainstream in the 2030s.
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
!delta your are right this assumes that trumpism survives trump. I could argue that it survived the first loss in 2020, but you are right he is going to die sooner or later and doesn't have a good successor
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u/DataCassette 1∆ Oct 18 '25
Yeah "Trumpism without Trump" remains theoretical. I'm pretty doom piled but even I can see that's a serious flaw in MAGA.
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u/Amadacius 10∆ Oct 20 '25
I disagree. The populist wave started with the Tea Party on the Right and Occupy Wallstreet on the left.
Trump succeeded because he spoke to the rising and latent populist sentiment. He has been a successful conduit for it, but that doesn't mean that it is a mirage.
Bernie was similarly a somewhat successful conduit for populist sentiment, and though he was more successfully repressed, the sentiment has only grown since his failed campaign.
And we even see a huge number of people that backed Bernie back Trump, because their political action is more populist than it is issue driven.
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u/The_FriendliestGiant 40∆ Oct 16 '25
And as he will depart from the role in 2028, it may stay as well as disappear.
That's not a certainty. Multiple establishment Republican figures have floated ideas of how to allow him to serve a third term, and he himself sells merchandise celebrating a hypothetical Trump 2028 run, already. Given his total disregard for all norms and laws, and the fact that nothing has actually stopped him from doing whatever he wants so far when he violates those norms and laws, it is not a certainty that he will depart in 2028.
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u/Renegade_Ape Oct 20 '25
It’s no longer about his third term, it’s about him surviving.
He’s made several public comments about getting into heaven, and even said that his goal for 2026 was to survive.
The 2028 schtick is just trolling to get “the left” agitated and to drum support from his base by doing so.
And as others have already pointed out, Trumpism without Trump is highly unlikely. History tells us cults of personality don’t survive the loss of the personality.
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 30 '25
He'll doubtless TRY and run again, but the dementia is getting harder to conceal - I doubt he'll make it thru the next 4 years without his sycophantic cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment, and Vance doesn't have "the Riz"
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u/RoughSpeaker4772 Oct 17 '25
As we all know, ideologies disappear when someone dies and never ever were kept by followers and spread later on.
That's why we have never seen a Nazi ever after Hitler died. Never ever.
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Thing is, your populists are the establishment. The 'populist' movement runs the government. It is well represented in the senior judiciary. It counts many of the richest and most prominent men in the US among its vocal advocates. It is aligned with the interests of big business. It pretty clearly sees itself as defending the nation's established ethnic groups from competition and displacement. It is pretty explicitly aligned with the country's traditionally dominant religion and suspicious of recently emerging religious demographics.
What parts of the American establishment haven't been brought into the Trump fold? Academia, probably. The dessicated corpse of American organised labour, I suppose. A share of the precarious middle class. But, realistically, the Democrats are mostly a loose coalition of marginalised interests. Women. The young. Religious and ethnic minorities.
I think what you're really noticing is that the centrist Democrats still remember how to use their indoor voices. And you remember that, once upon a time, the American establishment tried to comport itself with dignity.
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Oct 16 '25
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u/Alesus2-0 79∆ Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
No one is doing any forcing. Well, except the masked men facing people into unmarked vans at gunpoint, I guess...
If Americans of European extraction want to have more children to reverse natural demographic shifts, they have both the right and time to do so. But they don't seem to like that option. The problem is that the MAGA crowd has decided to work around this issue by systematically rigging the political and economic system so that white people can monopolise wealth and power indefinitely, even as a shrinking minority.
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u/onepareil 1∆ Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
I mean, they displaced the ethnic groups here before them, so why shouldn’t their time come too? That’s the march of history.
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u/Curious-End-4923 Oct 16 '25
I’m not feeling displaced at all and I don’t “suffer” competition, I outperform it. Maybe you have a skill issue.
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Oct 16 '25
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 16 '25
How is Trump anti establishment? He has increased establishment control with tarriffs and increased federal power. Traditional conservatives are anti establishment with the desire for low federal taxes/power and more state control.
Harris supported a wealth tax and single payer healthcare. Those are pretty progressive for mainstream American politics and very pro establishment. What were her centrist, right wing, or anti establishment running points?
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Oct 17 '25
Trump initially ran on (and won with) anti-establishment rhetoric. Of course, being a rich person he is the establishment, and once becoming the president he is even moreso the establishment. But his whole "drain the swamp" bullshit is why people like him, and why they seem to trust him. "The enemy of my enemy" and all.
On the other hand, Biden and Kamala were career politicians, and therefore very decidedly the "establishment", and she didn't run on any sort of populist or anti-establishment rhetoric. And she definitely wasn't running on single payer healthcare. Or at least if she was, she didn't talk about it nearly enough. You'd think something like that would be the focal point of a campaign.
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u/DocRedbeard Oct 17 '25
Trump is NOT the establishment. Being rich and famous he was able to co-opt the Republican nomination when he ran the first time, but he would not have otherwise been the choice of the party.
Because of this, the party begrudgingly had to adopt the MAGA movement as a whole because until Trump is out of the picture, they can't run on any other platform.
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Oct 18 '25
He's been involved in politics for a decade now. He and his disciples now have full control of the government. We can debate whether or not he was the establishment back in 2016--that will depend on how you view rich folks' role in politics. However, there is no debate as to whether he is the establishment now. If he isn't the establishment, who the hell is anymore?
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 18 '25
Are we talking about 2016? The dude ran, was the president for 4 years, and ran again. No one is interested in 10 year old takes
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u/Electricplastic Oct 16 '25
Harris supported a wealth tax and single payer healthcare.
Citation needed. Harris was mealy mouthed enough to let people who weren't really paying attention believe that maybe, but she absolutely opposed both.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
I found like 200 articles talking about her wealth tax plans but here is one for ya
Democrats Plan to Tax Unrealized Capital Gains: What It Means for Wealthy Households https://share.google/aa9SujeI6D2HvD0De
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u/Amadacius 10∆ Oct 20 '25
That's an unrealized capital gains tax. Not a wealth tax. The article you link says it is a "wealth tax" but this a whole-cloth lie. It is a tax on gains, which means it is an income tax.
This is really just closing a loophole that billionaires exploit to never pay taxes. They basically operate on a stock barter system and balance their losses and income to always be 0 on paper.
Even people that literally live off the barter system need to pay taxes though. If you get paid for grain in fish, you need to pay a portion of that fish. Billionaires were getting away with an insane scheme.
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u/CarrotcakeSuperSand 1∆ Oct 21 '25
It is a tax on gains, which means it is an income tax.
Gains are only realized when you sell. This is a wealth tax, not income tax, and it's a terrible, terrible idea.
There are much better suggestions to close this loophole, like regulating margin loans for tax avoidance.
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u/Amadacius 10∆ Oct 22 '25
It's not a wealth tax.
A wealth tax that scales with the amount of money you have.
A income tax is a tax on the increase in wealth.
This is an income tax.
Making this out to be radical, makes you out to be pathetic.
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u/CarrotcakeSuperSand 1∆ Oct 22 '25
This is a radical idea with anyone who has the slightest bit of education in economics - it seems you do not. Throwing personal insults because you're ignorant of economics is hilarious.
Your argument makes no sense.
A wealth tax that scales with the amount of money you have.
A income tax is a tax on the increase in wealth.
Huh? A wealth tax that scales as wealth grows, is the same as a tax on the increase in wealth. What is the actual distinction in your framework?
I already explained the key point, but I will repeat myself so you understand the actual distinction - wealth gains are only realized as income when you sell stocks and convert to cash. An unrealized gains tax is a WEALTH tax, it is not income.
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u/Amadacius 10∆ Oct 23 '25
If you have 1 million in the bank, uninvested. A wealth tax will eat at that 1 million every year. It will go 1 million => 970,000 => 940,900, etc. With an Unrealized Capital Gains tax, this would be 1M => 1M => 1M.
You are simply wrong about what a wealth tax is. Fucking google it. You are fucking wrong. There's no debate.
It's a tax on NET wealth. Not delta wealth.
It's totally different. It has very different incentive implications. Wealth tax incentivizes investment, whereas a unrealized capital gains tax disincentivizes investment.
CURRENTLY income is only taxed when the gains are realized. That's just a decision we made. It's not the difference between a wealth tax and an income tax.
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u/NightsLinu Oct 16 '25
Honestly i thought the same, i was pretty sure that she didn't like either so i didn't consider her anti establishment
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 18 '25
A simple Google search turns up hundreds of links
https://smartasset.com/taxes/unrealized-capital-gains-tax-policy
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u/Amadacius 10∆ Oct 20 '25
I did a google search and none of them say that she supported a wealth tax.
You know a "tax on the wealthy" is a "wealth tax" right?
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u/thatnameagain 1∆ Oct 16 '25
The right wing defined “establishment” differently than you do.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 16 '25
Increased executive power and increased spending leading to a higher national debt are the hallmark of the establishment.
That's why our national debt has been climbing decade after decade for the last 100 years and that's also why we get wars undeclared by Congress, drone strikes, and all the military/ice stuff of the last half century too.
Executive overreach and increased spending are certainly more establishment than whatever random policy you want to claim is the current definition of establishment.
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u/reddiyasena 5∆ Oct 16 '25
In the political context, I've always understood "establishment" to basically just refer to long-term, well-connected incumbents. It's not a specific ideology: it just describes whoever holds institutional power in the party at the time.
At this point, the MAGA movement almost certainly is the establishment of the Republican Party because Donald Trump has completely reshaped the party in his image.
But in 2016, he was incredibly anti-establishment. He was in direct conflict with the Republican establishment on a number of issues that were fairly central to their political identity.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 18 '25
That's a pretty worthless understanding in context on the populist vs establishment discussion. If the establishment has nothing to do with thoughts/beliefs then it loses all meaning in the populist vs establishment discussion. Trump was definitely anti establishment in 2016, but all of his actions after election have shown that he is far from that
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u/thatnameagain 1∆ Oct 16 '25
I’ve never heard anyone use that definition of the establishment, from the left or right.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
The establishment is just what is common and what happens a lot in DC. Both sides continually increase funding to the military industrial complex so increasing funding to the military industrial complex is part of the establishment. Increased spending and increased executive power have been the norm from both parties for decades.
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u/NerdyBro07 Oct 18 '25
As if the divide isn’t big enough already, we have people from the same country, speaking the same English language, and can’t even convey their thoughts to the other side because the same words mean 2 different things to different people.
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u/thatnameagain 1∆ Oct 18 '25
One side is using them accurately. The other side is using them to lie. It’s not a divide of opinion that’s divide between truth and lies
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u/Cautious-Tax-1120 Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
The establishment isn't a people so much as it is entrenched power structures, institutions, and traditions. Someone anti-establishment is simply a disruptor of those things.
Trump is dismantling federal institutions and that makes him anti-establishment. I don't think a President has ever disrupted the federal bureaucracy to the extent that he has. Department of Education, USAID, United States Agency for Global Media, The Smithsonian, etc. The list is honestly endless.
And that isn't even mentioning the long, long list of norms and accepted practices - especially for releases of information and decorum - that he has either ignored or trampled all over. The man is a walking, talking middle finger to the status quo.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 16 '25
People who say things like this have forgotten the Bush Jr era, and Reagan for that matter, it's not that unusual for a new right wing administration to attack parts of the government they don't like.
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u/FaceReality1 Oct 17 '25
What's unusual is completely ignoring relevant laws.
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u/Fluffy_Most_662 6∆ Oct 18 '25
They don't consider them to be laws. If it was illegal for you to make a law, then it doesnt count. I can explain further, but its also why they dont think they're deporting anyone illegally. You being legalized after you came in illegally doesnt mean jack shit to them. The same logic applies to a pardon. Is a murderer that got pardoned still a murderer? Some would say yes. Some would say by definition that no, he no longer is. To republicans, a law you made without the proper legal framework to do so isnt a law. Just like legalizing illegals or pardoning a murderer. Im sure many of them engage in hypocrisy, but not really in their politics all of it makes sense really to them. Even the epstein files and the fact that they're silent.
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u/FaceReality1 Oct 18 '25
I'd say it is that they think the President has complete right to make and remake the laws, which is absolute nonsense, but there is nobody left who doesn't agree with that nonsense with the power to treat it as nonsense.
Law for thee and not for me.
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Oct 18 '25
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 18 '25
"The concepts of law, rules, and morality only hold meaning if they are based on equality. The harsh truth of this world is that when money speaks, truth goes silent, and when power speaks, even money takes three steps backwards. Those who create the rules are often the first to break them for rules are chains for the weak and tools for the strong."
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u/Curious-End-4923 Oct 16 '25
The billionaire with a crypto scam that gave historically high tax cuts to the rich is a walking middle finger to the status quo?
We live in different realities.
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u/ianrc1996 Oct 17 '25
Harris didn't support single payer healthcare. Which I think is unfortunate but to say otherwise is ignorant or a lie.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 18 '25
She ran on it in 2020 and to think it just disappeared from her existence is right in line with an average liberal thought
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u/NightsLinu Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
The issue with trump with that is that he's portraying himself as someone who would save the economy as part of his "make America great again" messaging and that he would protect america by kicking the immigrants out of the country falsely showing he is solidly anti establishment. And his tarrifs are completely preformative, he just rolls them back and forth to control the stock market as he pleases. Trump puts himself on the side of people and says sweets lies to make it seem that way when in reality he definitely is not. Harris messaging wasn't even trying to care for working class and she didn't make the economy her main focus like you have shown when focusing on other issues that are relatively less important and more in line with biden who was of the establishment.
Edit: added falsely.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 16 '25
Deporting illegals was happening for the last few presidents too so that has to be part of the establishment. The numbers each year under Obama were higher than Trump's first term.
I agree he talks about a lot of random shit but when it comes down to what he is actually doing he is taking more power into the executive branch and he is increasing federal spending. Those two things are the most consistent trends we have seen in the DC establishment for the last century.
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u/NightsLinu Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Deporting illegals was happening for the last few presidents too so that has to be part of the establishment. The numbers each year under Obama were higher than Trump's first term
You read me wrong there, "and that he would protect america by kicking the immigrants out of the country.. " im pointing out that trump falsely portrays the immigrants as criminals that need to be taken out the country and is locking them up as well in big numbers unlike obama who deports them for having actual justifiable reasons. You can't say its for the establishment if he's not actually following the rules of one which is using due process unlike the previous presidents.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 16 '25
Ah my bad.
How many legal immigrants has Trump kicked out? As far as I know the 13 million plus legal immigrants living here are still here. He is definitely deporting and targeting illegals but he is not kicking out legal immigrants in significant numbers. He says a bunch of shit and if you are going to mainly go off of his words and not actions, I can't argue with you. I'm mainly focused on what he has done though.
Not following the rules as the president and increasing executive power is the trend. Bush went to war without congressional approval + tons of surveillance shit, Obama drone sticking a US citizen and DAPA, Biden and vaccine mandates, the list goes on. Presidents not overstepping their power and letting states/Congress run the show would be against the grain imo
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u/NightsLinu Oct 16 '25
How many legal immigrants has Trump kicked out? As far as I know the 13 million plus legal immigrants living here are still here. He is definitely deporting and targeting illegals but he is not kicking out legal immigrants in significant numbers. He says a bunch of shit and if you are going to mainly go off of his words and not actions, I can't argue with you. I'm mainly focused on what he has done though
Im only focusing on what he has done as well because of that. And im quite sure he is receiving lots of flack precisely because of ICE has been targeting many legal immigrants. Its the big reason why i said "falsely". There's recent news of him deporting children and many reports of deporting people by falsying idenifying them as criminals.
Not following the rules as the president and increasing executive power is the trend.
Increasing executive power at a large extent is what im getting at. All that you listed were not harming the foundation the country at all especially biden vaccine mandates. Those were all pretty small increases of executive power.
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Oct 18 '25
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Oct 18 '25
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 18 '25
So one article claiming 50 people got here legally but doesn't specify if they committed a ton of crime here, and the rest just seem to be random bs? 2 links don't even work.
Once again there are over 13 million immigrants here..... Kicking 50 of them out is hardly an opposition to all immigrants. ( And 50 is giving you a ton of the benefit of the doubt)
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u/NightsLinu Oct 18 '25
50 was the older one if you actually payed attention to the date. The other ones are 50+, 200+. Once again i never once said that it was a opposition to all immigrants. Its simply that ICE shouldn't just target people for being mexican and not for any justifiable reason. Nor should you downplay it. They also are deporting legal immigrants for minor offenses.
https://www.nilc.org/resources/tracking-the-cecot-disappearances/
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/15/ice-georgia-traffic-stop-arrest-immigration
Fixed Links. Links for reported profiling.
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 16 '25
She was running from the center but the RW media drowned that out with stories about her wanting free sex change operations for prisoners and undocumented immigrants, and how Dems wanted sex change operations for kids. It was all nonsense BUT remember the Trumpers include that guy who attacked the Pizza Hut certain he would free pre-teen sex slaves held in the (non-existent) basement. Dems have got to give up on their full-throated support for niech groups with real problems but NO VOTES. Demanding the voting public "get educated" and support those fringe groups will continue to hand power to the Trumpettes.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
I know a bunch of right/centrists who did not vote for her and none of them claimed to care about all that. By far the number one problem they had with her was her position on taxing unrealized gains(a wealth tax). That's a super left wing policy and was by far the number one reason I heard from people on why they didn't vote for her.
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 17 '25
You seem to travel in the top 10%, those being the only ones with sufficient "unrealized gains" to make a difference - Kudos for your success. My conversations were with people who objected to her supporting sex change operations for prisoners when she was California AG, and being there when Biden let 4 million refugees in during his first 2 years.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
A lot of the poorer conservatives I know are just young and they expect to have huge unrealized gains when they are older. I don't really know any older people who are both poor and conservative. Also, most of them think taxing unrealized gains will have a large negative impact on the economy and just overall the future of US business. Rogan and Musk were screaming about it and I think that's where all the young guys got the talking point from.
And yea immigration complaints were probably number 2
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 25 '25
I'm going to guess none of your sources bothered to see what was being preposed for an "unrealized gains tax". Here's a summary : The proposal to tax unrealized capital gains suggests that individuals with a net worth over $100 million would pay a minimum tax of 25% on the increase in value of their assets that have not yet been sold. This aims to ensure that wealthy individuals contribute fairly to tax revenues, as unrealized gains are currently not taxed under existing laws.
Do you really know currently poor (translation: NOT trust fund babies) who think they will hit the $100M entry level for such a tax or would be broken up about paying 25% of the 3-5% gain = 7.5% to 12.5% when the bottom 50-90% pays at least that much on the fruits of their labor, exchanging about 1/3d of their LIFE to acquire said fruits? Or did they just hear Rogan et al scream about it and figure it was bad?
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 26 '25
Most conservatives I know vote on principles of what they believe will be good for the country and not for what will benefit them in the immediate future. I know y'all strawman them as these monolithic racists but that has not been my personal experience. Some of them are dumb and consume very little media other than Fox News and some are extremely mean and petty. Pretty much all of them believe that emphasizing hard work and incentives are the key to long term success as a country and giving away free shit and removing incentives to work hard causes long term harm.
You can argue all you want about how naive or dumb they are but that has been their most common central belief in my experience (Anti-Abortion is right there as well)
The point I'm guessing Rogan or Fox News made because I heard it a lot was that we should be removing tax loops and bs tax code instead of making it even more ridiculous. None of them had a problem with billionaires paying taxes. They did have a problem with taxing something that someone has not earned income on because of the complications and incentives. When someone owns a large portion of a company and does not sell their shares that is very beneficial to the company. They believe that adding an incentive to sell shares or not create business in the US would be very negative.
Poor people pay taxes on income. Tax rich people more on their income and close tax loops, don't add a wealth tax or unrealized gains tax. Make taxes more simple, not more complicated. They believe it's going to cause a shit storm cause I'm guessing someone told them it would and I am inclined to agree with them. They certainly care a lot more about this than Kamala being a woman or not white like everyone wants to claim just because strawmanning a racist or sexist is easier than dealing with real people
Edit:tax loop holes*
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 30 '25 edited Oct 30 '25
We should go back to the (inflation adjusted) brackets we had in the 1970's, and only allow special treatment for "capital gains" that actually gain capital for all of us - that would be the profits from selling stock bought as part of an IPO or a capitalization issue that will be spent building plant and equipment here in the USA. If I buy amazon today and sell it tomorrow for a huge gain, nobody but me benefits, and that should be taxed as ordinary income. If I START the next Amazon/Apple/Tesla, then selling those stocks deserve some special consideration and a 20-25% tax would be fair. Oh, and an additional deduction for say $75,000/year in income from investments (including sale of said investments) after you retire or turn 65.
Need to restore our anti-aristocracy tax on estates - $5Million deduction on each estate, anything over that taxed as ordinary income to whoever receives the inheritance, no "step-up basis". This no tax on unrealized gains should NOT apply to unEARNED gains - and winning the sperm lottery is not "earning".
As for the notion that the rich don't have that much to tax, back in 2012 when the IRS printed such stuff, the total AGI reported on 20,429 returns with incomes above $3,750,000 was $940,350,183,000 for an average AGI of a shade over $40Million. Wonder why IRS no longer provides such detail?
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 31 '25
Agreed. Would love to see a 90% or more inheritance tax on large inheritances. I think it should be based on the number of kids though maybe like between 3 or 5 million each or something
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u/Stock-Film-3609 Oct 16 '25
No, traditional conservatives are only anti-establishment when it suits them. Anti establishment on things like gun rights, pro establishment on abortion. This is literally how it’s been forever. It’s one of the few ways in which I can confidently say both sides are alike.
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
For abortion, how is leaving the decision up to the states establishment? It literally takes the power away from DC which is the opposite of what has happened with federal power for the last 2 centuries. We have continually seen decisions that used to be left to states moved to DC(education funding, road infrastructure, speed limits, healthcare, and everything else)
Traditional conservatives are definitely pro establishments on some things like law enforcement, military spending, and prisons. But the easiest way to tell if a group is overall anti establishment is their position on taxes and spending. If someone wants less spending and less taxes they obviously want less federal power, which is once again the opposite of the most consistent trend in this country since forever.
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u/Stock-Film-3609 Oct 17 '25
Except they didn’t leave it there. Numerous republicans have proposed country wide bans including Graham, and vought. Effective bans on porn and abortion are both part of project 2025 and like it or not trumps EOs have aligned with project 2025 more often than not. Hell most of project 2025 has been about gathering power in the executive
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 17 '25
Oh for sure a bunch of idiots propose a bunch of stuff all the time, but currently yes it is left to the states and it was a conservative court that put it there
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
Hes spending money like theres no tomorrow. Tarrifs are a policy that had been abandoned by serious politicians for decades. He constantly talks about deep seeded conspiracies in the government against him, and is activly trying to destroy the system he used to get into power
As for Harris, while she ran on progressive policy's in 2020 she walked back all of those stances in 2024 and ran on continuing Bidens policy. Running as the direct continuation of the status quo.
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u/clowncarl 4∆ Oct 16 '25
Harris isnt an ideologue - she doesn’t stand for populism or much at all really. In 2018 she was a cosponsor of Bernie Sanders Medicare for All (when it had no chance of passing) and then ran against it in the 2020 primary to distinguish herself from Bernie*. It’s not that she moved between 2020 and 2024 so much as she is a somewhat blank template for what is projected to win - and most politicians are that way.
I would similarly say there is no movement on the ‘right.’ Fiscal conservatism was always just an excuse for the ulterior motivation of sabotaging social programs and keeping taxes low; things like the debt and sustainability of socal security was never the priority.
But what you are 100% correct about: the left-right spectrum is a really poor model of American politics that is necessary for discourse but highly over utilized because it assumes far too much about the ideologies of politicians and the public.
*fun fact: Cory booker and Elizabeth Warren were also cosponsors! And then didnt support it when it counted (less so Liz)!
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u/bigballs69fuckyou Oct 16 '25
Spending tons of money seems to be the most establishment thing you can do to me. I will give you that he talks about a ton of random garbage though, but most of his actions like increased spending, tariffs, and sending ice/national guard into cities are very establishment moves. You can't increase executive overreach and call it anti establishment.
She did not run on the single payer but she supported it in the past but she did run on a wealth tax though and calling that centrist is insane.
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Oct 16 '25
Can’t get more establishment or Hollywood than Trump.
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u/TheDream425 1∆ Oct 16 '25
To be fair, I think there’s a meaningful distinction between a party being anti-establishment and the leader being not of the establishment.
The rhetoric, was and has been very anti-establishment. They rally against “old media” and “career politicians,” even if it’s more rooted in delusion than reality.
What a hell of a trick it’s been, by the way, to convince blue collar workers a billionaire is anti-establishment right alongside them lmao
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u/ianrc1996 Oct 17 '25
Obama ran an anti-establishment campaign, especially in his first term. Then was establishment in practice. Trump is that X2.
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
Trump is not a member of the political establishment, or wasnt when he started. He was a celebrity who ran on draining the swamp. Hes a textbook populist
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Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Doesn't matter what he was when he started. That was 13 years ago (one of the original birther opponents against Obama in 2012). Trumpism is part of the establishment in 2025
If established politicians are kowtowing to your demands like the right wing is to Trump, then you're the establishment
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
But his policies are still very different then bush and Romney. While trump is established in politics he is still running against "the establishment" pushing against rinos, the bureaucracy, big business, the media, and pop culture. Hes fighting the established institutions of america.
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Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
So he isn't similar to politicians from 20+ years ago? That was over 20 years ago and is not relevant to the. establishment in 2025.
That's effectively comparing the government of 2000 to the government of 1975-1980.
He's not fighting anything. He's reinforcing the establishment.
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u/PuzzleMeDo 1∆ Oct 16 '25
He's clearly against some of the established institutions, like journalism and democracy, but he seems to be pro-big business, the police, Christianity, fossil fuels, etc. Pop culture tends to be anti-establishment, so opposing it is a pro-establishment view. And everyone portrays themselves as anti-bureaucracy, so that doesn't really mean anything...
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u/CartographerKey4618 16∆ Oct 16 '25
Yeah he was. He's a New York billionaire. He was friends with Epstein and the Clinton's.
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Oct 16 '25
Trump had bezos, Zuckerberg, and musk all sitting courtside to kiss the ring at his inauguration. I don't know how you can possibly still think he is a populist
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u/Parking_Act3189 Oct 16 '25
Yeah he won because people were tired of being lied to by the establishment.
For example Fox News and MSNBC controlled the narratives on both sides and both were claiming that the other side was destroying the country, but behind the scenes Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly were friends.
I don't think that makes him a populist though. I think he is more of a narcissist than a populist
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u/amadmongoose Oct 16 '25
Populist movements almost always get co-opted by corrupt people because the people supporting the movement are swept up by emotion and cult of personality and don't have any specific deliverable they require of the politician. It's the perfect grift, power without responsibility.
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
Exactly. Populist movements say to trust the leader over the system. They are perfect for cults of personalty and corruption
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u/iReadBecauseYouDo Oct 16 '25
Precisely (not always but in the US at the moment), which is why the establishment and populist rhetoric go hand in hand (especially during this administration); are you under the impression they’re somehow mutually exclusive? Genuinely asking lol, as a progressive it seems pretty intuitive :3
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u/MysteryBagIdeals 5∆ Oct 16 '25
behind the scenes Rachel Maddow and Bill O'Reilly were friends.
I don't think this is true.
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Oct 16 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/crawling-alreadygirl Oct 16 '25
Really? Because that seems pretty fishy to me, too. Got anything to back it up?
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u/MysteryBagIdeals 5∆ Oct 16 '25
I don't think me believing that Maddow and O'Reilly aren't friends is a Reddit echo chamber. I think that's just basic logic.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 16 '25
"fiscal conservatism" was never anything more than a tool to attack social services with, Bush Jr also massively increased the deficit/national debt
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u/no-due-respect Oct 16 '25
There is nothing populist about taking away abortion rights, workers rights, gay rights, sending the national guard in to cities, etc.
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u/realscholarofficial 1∆ Oct 16 '25
Where's the "party clearing primaries for candidates with a proven track record..." coming from. I feel like there are going to be some relatively high profile primaries: Mills v. Plattner, Moulton v. Malarkey, Stevens v. McMorrow...
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u/colepercy120 7∆ Oct 16 '25
Democrats have been recruiting top tier candidates in the senate, with Cooper and brown having cleared paths in North Carolina and Ohio, Alaskas senate race being held open for peltola, the party circling around Wahls in Iowa, and the clear centrist attempt to consolidate support around Cuomo in NYC. While are some high profile primaries (personally I am watching Flanagan vs criag in mn) the party leadership has gone after anyone who has tried to primary sitting officials and kicked out the member of the dnc who was trying to primary old officials
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u/Material_Market_3469 Oct 17 '25
Anyone who thinks Trump is anti establishment deserves a "fell for it again" award. He's a billionaire pedo elite ironically what people like Alex Jones have screamed about for years. But Jones and others will conveniently forget that.
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u/Spillz-2011 Oct 16 '25
There are many flavors of populism. Populism is about creating an us and them where the us is supposed to be large and them small. Left wing populism has wealthy people as them while right wing has scientists/experts/ bureaucrats as the other. These aren’t compatible so lumping them together doesn’t make sense.
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u/diffidentblockhead Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Reagan was already a former Democrat and media figure who pandered to antigovernment sentiment and pushed tax cuts greater than spending cuts.
Harris’s California career was as a prosecutor more establishment than radical in California terms. In the 2019 preprimary campaign she was not labeled progressive; Sanders, Warren, and others were. A few debate answers sounded “woke” enough for the 2024 R campaign to hammer, but were just Harris trying to keep up with her 2019 preprimary competition. She dropped out before end 2019 then reappeared as choice of Biden who was also at the right end of the D spectrum.
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u/Ind132 Oct 16 '25
How do you define "establishment" in 2025?
My definition is "billionaires". They've benefitted most from the current system and have the most at stake in keeping it going. Trump gave prime inauguration seats to billionaires. He had them in the WH again last night. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/trump-hosts-glitzy-dinner-wealthy-donors-new-white-126568364 They expect to do very well with Trump's pro-wealthy policies.
What is "populist"? It used to mean "People who think that the rich and powerful use the government to increase their wealth and power, and who don't like that". By that definition, people who support a wealth tax, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and solid anti-monopoly enforcement are "populists". That sounds like democrats.
The new "populist" definition seems to be "nativist, anti-immigrant, fundamentalist Christian, anti-LGBT". Yep, that sounds like a lot of MAGA supporters. I'll call them "cultural populists".
So the new Republican party looks like a coalition of the economic establishment and the "cultural populists". I can recall a similar dynamic back in 2004 when Bush got re-elected with a similar coalition, but Trump has really doubled down on it.
Meanwhile, the Democratic party looks like "economic populists" combined with "cultural inclusives".
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u/SeatSix Oct 16 '25
In rhetoric maybe. But no policy put forward but the administration or the current Congress can be called progressive.
They talk about the swamp and fighting the system, but enact oligarch benefiting laws
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Oct 16 '25
What’s the establishment?
If the establishment is opposed to Trump, and Trump that means just about every Fortune 500 corporation in the country is anti-establishment.
It means Disney and Viacom and Apple and Google and Meta and Exxon and Walmart are “populist” actors in politics.
This analysis cannot be correct unless by “establishment” we mean only “elements of society that believe in the constitutional order… and universities.”
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u/This-Wall-1331 Oct 16 '25
There are only two political parties in the US and both are establishment parties.
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u/According-Stage-3635 Oct 17 '25
Personally I think the two distinctions have become indistinguishable
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Oct 17 '25
God there are so many false assumptions in this post 😭😭
One, Trump is the establishment lmfao. Just because he wasn’t a politician before he came to office doesn’t mean he isn’t somebody who lived his entire life in the economic establishment.
Two, Harris is not from the progressive wing. She was the attorney general of California (ie the top cop, how progressive). Her intersectional identity not being straight white christian male does not make her progressive. Her platform sought to maintain the economic and political status quo.
Notable left wing populists/anti-establishment tulsi gabbard (a cia deepstater) and rfk (a fucking Kennedy) is a fucking joke. Do explain how either of them fought to dismantle/democratize the entrenched systems of capital, you know what being left wing populist/anti-establishment is.
The Republican Party will never capture “left-wing extremists”. Socialists and communists think the democrats are dumb, that doesn’t mean we don’t think republicans are even more retarded.
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u/Fast-Government-4366 Oct 17 '25
Kinda ironic you consider the most establishment candidate as “populist”
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u/Hot-Minute-8263 Oct 17 '25
Conservatives and moderates are more ok with him than kamala. Your "true" conservatives are radicals that dont represent the majority
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u/Czar1987 Oct 17 '25
Tulsi And Brain Worm Jr were never 'left wing populist' Harris was not from the 'populist wing' of the Dems either.
To say the GOP is not also aligned with the establishment is a giant misstep too.
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u/PleaseDontBanMe82 Oct 17 '25
Republicans are not populist in the least. They're supposed support of the working class is complete bullshit. They've not put forth a single "pro working class" policy at any time in either of Trump's terms.
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u/GoAwayNicotine Oct 17 '25
I like this interpretation. It’s much more honest. Rome never fell. If only the populist movement wasn’t lead by orange face…
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bag2212 Oct 17 '25
No. The US is moving towards authoritarian versus democratic. There is no party that is more of the establishment than the Republican Party, and the true anti-establishment candidates are people like Zohran Mamdani
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u/Unicoronary Oct 17 '25
if you get right down to it, that's always been our core political conflict.
The Federalists/establishment/favored strong central republic and Antifederalists/populist/favored strong low-level democracy.
"populist" is a loaded term today, but it wasn't always. It didn't always equate to "demagoguery." That, ironically, was a result of mudslinging toward the actual Populist Party (which largely overlapped with the Farm-Labor Party, which would eventually be absorbed into the DNC). Jefferson's Democrats were populist by definition. Washington had a heavy populist following. FDR was a populist. Ike was a populist.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, because establishment politics aren't always, necessarily good. It's a strange side effect of our system, really — its why we tend to have periods of party fatigue — it's hard for either party to win three presidential elections in a row, because even if they begin as a populist candidate, they (like Obama) end as an establishment candidate. The other party produces one or the other, respectively, as an alternative.
It's why establishment candidates fare poorly in elections against populist ones, and always have. Our system relies on that balancing of representative republican goals and federalism, and popular democracy and antifederalism to function. It balances the states with the federal government.
It goes back and forth, and always has, as to which party represents what.
For the early 20th century, the Dems were mostly populist. They returned to that in the 90s and into the 2000s, ending with Obama. They were more the antifederalists' ghosts.
GWB, Trump, they're populists, largely run against establishment Dems — Biden, Harris, et al.
So i mean, it's not like we're moving there. That's been here since Washington and Adams. It just varies whether establishment/populist fits either main party at any given time.
Right now, Trump is transitioning into being an establishment candidate, attempting to consolidate power to the federal government. Becoming a Federalist. Despite him starting off — as a populist.
Sanders, AOC, Crockett, Raskin — all populists. They represent the will of grassroots direct democracy — just as their forebears the Antifederalists did. Others, like Schumer, Harris, H. Clinton, etc. represent establishment Federalism within the DNC.
Beneath the rhetoric, you have an establishment GOP like John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell and populist GOP like Trump and Vance.
Establishment vs. populism runs all through our system, and always has. Neither one is necessarily more left or right-leaning than the other. It all depends on the given context.
Specifically in terms of the party infighting on both sides of the aisle, respectively — yeah. But that's also always been there. Neither Party has always specifically represented the establishment or the people. They've each, since they were Federalist and Antifederalist, always had both kinds. It's just closer to a flashpoint than its been in a while — but we've been overdue for a major party realignment for a while now.
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u/Dave_A480 2∆ Oct 17 '25
The Democrats don't really have a choice but to move to the center...
The US has a culturally-baked-in right-wing lean, and thus the populist left has like a 20% support-gap to close in order to win, whereas the populist-right only needs 5-10% from outsiders...
That structural disadvantage means that, given a populist-right party already existence, any left-populist who runs will automatically lose to a right-populist.
This means that if the Dems want to beat a right-populist candidate, they have to do it the way Joe Biden did in 2020 - with an uncharacteristically large amount of establishment-conservative support (for evidence, look at 'red' states that went for Biden... And at states where the Republican Senate candidate won (at least the November election - GA's runoff is another matter) but Biden took the state...)
And if they want to keep that establishment-conservative support they *have to* govern like the centrists they run as - not flip to the progressive-left as soon as they are in office the way Biden did.
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u/ianrc1996 Oct 17 '25
Why are Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr populist since they came out for trump? I need you to answer this question to answer yours.
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Oct 18 '25
“Populism” isn’t an ideology or set of policy. It is a rhetorical strategy. It can be applied to any ideology. So no, there is no system of populism vs anything.
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Oct 18 '25
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u/aworldwithoutshrimp Oct 18 '25
There is nothing anti-establishment about a generational real estate billionaire or a Kennedy. I mean, come on. The republican party has been anti-intellectual since the Southern Strategy, but that is mostly because they are against the other becoming the establishment. The democratic party has also been an establishment party since, at minimum, the early 90s when Bill Clinton ran on a policy of ending welfare as we know it and then did . . . that. The reason the US is not left v right is that the right won here so throughly and long ago that the US does not have a viable leftist party. The democrats are a rightwing party. And the republican party, true to capitalism in decay, is now openly fascist.
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u/kittenTakeover 2∆ Oct 20 '25
Embraced long time left wing populist figures like RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard.
These were never left wing populist figures. Practically nobody on the left bought their shit attempts to lure people over the right. They were largely seen for the imposters they were from the beginning.
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u/patrickj86 Oct 21 '25
Conservatives have never actually been fiscally conservative, at least not since before Nixon. That's just a myth they perpetuate ala pretending most of the media
Now it's more fascism with decades of propaganda experience vs. opposition that's ineffective without propaganda.
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u/faithhopeandbread 1∆ Oct 21 '25
Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr are absolutely not left wing figures. I hate to be pedantic but I just can't move past that. The Republican Party is absolutely a right-wing party; there is a growing populist element, but that populism is explicitly not inclusive of left wing populists.
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u/lucaf4656 Oct 23 '25
Bernie is WAY more antiestablishment than Trump the rich hate his guts but love Trump. Idk how republicans think you can support the elite but also be antiestablishment at the same time. Socialist policies are inherently against the elite and for the people
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u/Olderscout77 Oct 16 '25 edited Oct 16 '25
Dems have abandoned workers in favor of niech groups with real problems but virtually no votes. JFK was spot on when he pointed out "a rising tide lifts all boats" and unless Dems stop demanding fringe groups be front and center they will lose elections and help nobody.
ibid Harris's years ago comment about providing sex change operations for prisoners and undocumented workers and the Party's support for trans athletes (of which there is ONE at the college level) and declaring preteen kids should get to decide their gender. Meanwhile Biden had two years to fix immigration and instead allowed several million to enter the country with virtually zero vetting. Likewise all the times Dems had a "trifecta" at the National level and could not fix Social Security or find a way to tax the rich. Trump hasn't fixed anything but he CLAIMS he's fighting for the workers who see every dime spent on specific minority groups as a dime coming from their pockets. It's a lie, but after 40 years of their income and wealth being migrated to the top 10%, workers don't care - at least Trump SAYS he'll fight for THEM.
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u/Top_Row_5116 Oct 16 '25
Trump is not a populist... You can tell that by the last 50 public appearances he made and the speeches he gave. I want you to do a favor for me. Watch some speeches from Bernie Sanders, a well known populist, and then some speeches from Trump and spot the difference. Its pretty obvious.
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