Okay, here’s a rewritten and expanded version of the article, formatted with Markdown and striving to exceed 600 words:
The ‘MAGA Leftist’: How Trump Forged an Unlikely Coalition in 2024
President Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in the 2024 election sent shockwaves through the political establishment. Analysts and commentators scrambled to understand how he had defied expectations, but one writer believes the key lies in his appeal to a demographic often overlooked: the "MAGA leftist."
Batya Ungar-Sargon, a columnist for The Free Press and author of "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women," argues that Trump’s success stemmed from his ability to connect with working-class individuals, including those who traditionally identify with left-leaning values.
Ungar-Sargon’s perspective gained national attention after a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO program, "Real Time." Maher, seemingly bewildered, challenged her support for Trump, mistakenly labeling her a "conservative Republican."
"I was never a Republican or a conservative," Ungar-Sargon retorted. "I was a leftist, and I’m still a leftist. I’m just a MAGA leftist now because–"
A perplexed Maher interrupted, "That makes no sense."
However, Ungar-Sargon’s self-description resonated with many. "Since I was on Bill Maher, I have gotten thousands, and I mean thousands, of messages from people saying, ‘I am just like you. Thank you so much. That’s who I am. That’s what I am.’ And these are the people who gave President Trump his victory," she explained to Fox News Digital.
She emphasized that Trump’s win wasn’t solely fueled by traditional Republican voters. "He wouldn’t have won if he only got people who had voted Republican in 2020, in 2016. He won because he convinced millions of people in swing states and across the country that he had their best interests at heart, many of them who had been Democrats. And I guess that’s who I speak for."
Ungar-Sargon defines a "MAGA leftist" as someone who aligns with the "labor left," prioritizing the well-being of the working class. "The working class is the backbone of any society, and their ability to achieve a middle-class standard of living is the defining feature of whether we will have a stable democracy or not."
She elaborated on her definition, stating, "To me, that’s sort of what ‘left’ means, along with all the other stuff being anti-war, being pro-free speech, you know, this was all, like, left stuff, and now it’s MAGA stuff."
The independent journalist, who also authored "Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy," rejected the notion that her views had undergone a radical "political evolution." While she conceded that she once suffered from "Trump Derangement Syndrome," her core values remain largely unchanged.
"In 2015, I hated him. In 2016, when he won, I stopped going to my favorite bar, Wheelers, the local cop bar in Sheepshead Bay [in Brooklyn, New York], because everybody there had voted for him, and I felt that it was a personal betrayal," Ungar-Sargon admitted, laughing at her past self. "Like I was one of those lefties. I really had the derangement bad, ok? I’m embarrassed to say. Of course, now I’m back at Wheelers more often than I should be, probably."
The catalyst for her shift wasn’t necessarily Trump himself. A 2018 Yale University study proved to be a turning point. The study revealed that white liberals were more prone to using simplified language when communicating with people of color compared to white conservatives.
"I remember when I read that I was so shook because I instantly recognized that it was true," Ungar-Sargon recalled. "And it was an indictment of not just my milieu, but my entire worldview, which I immediately could recognize was built on the same thing that makes white liberals behave in such a racist way, which was this idea that Blacks and Hispanics are beneath us and need our help. Like, it’s disgusting. But the entire progressive movement is really based on that idea."
This realization triggered a period of introspection. "I remember looking at that study and feeling like I’m about to lose all my friends because this is true, and it’s undeniable, and it’s an indictment of everything I think," she continued. "And so I remember I put it in a desk drawer in my office. I closed the door and I said, ‘I’m not ready to deal with the fallout here. I’m not ready to acknowledge this. I’ll be back in three months.’ And three months later, I came back, and I was like, ‘Okay, what does this mean, Batya? Like, what does it mean you’re wrong about?’"
This self-examination gradually altered her perception of Trump. "Everything I thought was, you know, the fundamentals of what I believed were so clearly wrong. And again, you have this feeling of like, ‘Well, if I’m wrong about this, what else might I be wrong about?’"
She described the 2020 election as a "toss-up," ultimately casting her vote for Joe Biden.
However, the events of the COVID-19 pandemic, including perceived misinformation and the impact of lockdowns and vaccine mandates on the working class, further alienated her from the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Trump was actively reshaping the Republican Party.
"And in doing so," she argued, "he built a coalition that included pro-life, pro-traditional marriage conservatives and pro-choice, pro-gay marriage leftists like herself."
Ungar-Sargon sees this as Trump’s "genius." "He looked at the party. He looked at the Reagan party, which was socially conservative, free trade and foreign interventions and foreign wars. And he had the confidence to say, ‘That is not where the American people are at. They’re not socially conservative, they’re socially moderate. They support gay marriage, and they want there to be exceptions for abortion.’"
"Can you imagine the confidence to not only take on the Democrats, but to destroy and rebuild the GOP? People say [it’s rebuilt] in his image, but it’s not in his image. It’s in the image of the American working class. On every issue. You look at the polling and President Trump is where 65 to 90% of Americans are at. And he just had the confidence to say, like, ‘This is where the electorate is at. I love the American people, and I’m going to represent them.’ And that is exactly what he did," she added.
Her research for "Second Class" reinforced this understanding. Ungar-Sargon found that many working-class Americans praised Trump’s policies from his first term. "People would make a very persuasive case to me about how his protectionist economic policies, specifically around trade and the border, had put money in their pockets and helped them become people who could aspire to the American dream once again after they had thought that that was really off the table for them."
"And I started to see the president as somebody who was a polarizing character only for the elites. But when you got out of the elites, he was actually a very unifying person who had a very unifying agenda when it came to kind of normies."
"And I really came to respect what he had done in terms of seeing through the interests of the elites that had been pushed for 50 years by both parties and saying, ‘Actually, I’m going to take on the elites on both sides on behalf of the forgotten men and women of this great country,’" she continued. "And I think that I just could no longer deny that that was the real story, despite what all of us were told all the time about President Trump."
Ungar-Sargon feels welcomed by the MAGA movement. "People would reach out and tell her, ‘I don’t agree with you about everything, but you are so welcome in this movement.’ And it’s the exact opposite of the left. The left – if you agree with them on 99.9% of the issues, and you have a 0.1% disagreement on some issue, like, ‘Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t defund the police, how about reforming the police?’ You are dead to them. You are out. They will do anything to destroy your life."
"And there’s clearly an appetite within MAGA not just to be part of a multi-racial coalition, which I think a lot of people in the movement are very proud of, and not just to have people from all walks of life and all religions represented, but even to have people from all ideological walks of life. It is a very welcoming movement for people who come at the abortion question, let’s say, from a slightly different point of view. I mean, President Trump and JD Vance come at the abortion question from different points of view, and there’s no reason that the GOP shouldn’t be a big tent around this kind of beautiful diversity."
In the 2024 election, she voted for Trump, a decision she defended on "Real Time."
Maher challenged her: "I mean, you must have a feeling in your gut – look me in the eye and tell me you don’t – that this is really going badly, and I shouldn’t have thrown my lot in with this team."
Ungar-Sargon responded, "Oh, no, I feel the opposite."
She credited Maher for engaging in a genuine attempt to understand her support for Trump, suggesting that the ideological divide might stem from economic differences. "The argument that I made in both of my books was that for the leftist progressive elites, a lot of this is economic. And I’m not saying this about Bill [Maher] specifically, but I think as a class, their economic interests are very much at odds with those of the people that Trump represents."
"They’ve made trillions of dollars collectively out of the open border, and they’ve been able to dress up the economic benefits of their progressivism as virtue while actually it’s wage theft of their working-class neighbors, right? Because they can hire illegals instead of having to hire working-class people, which puts money back in their pockets. A lot of money."
Ungar-Sargon believes that the liberal elite would rather "raise the bar on what counts as poor and pay people off not to work" than strengthen the lower and middle classes. "It’s kind of like a plane, you know, and the knowledge industry, leftist elites, the over-credentialed, you know, multi-credentialed top 10% who now control 60% of the GDP, they’re in first class. And what they’re basically saying to the American people is ‘We’re happy to pay your ticket, and you can fly on this plane for free as long as you stay in coach, you know. Don’t you dare use our bathrooms. And there’s no upgrades. And you don’t get to say where the plane is going. But as long as you’re happy to sit in economy, you can sit there for free, and we’ll pay your ticket.’ That’s really, like, the best metaphor for the Democratic Party right now."
In contrast, she said Trump understands his supporters don’t want a free ride but want an economy that delivers a "modest version of the American dream."
