The Real Political Spectrum: Populism vs Establishment | Opinion

We’re all used to the political spectrum going Left to Right. Almost everyone in politics looks at issues through this prism. I believe they’re missing a second spectrum, however—one that can change how you view all of American politics. This spectrum goes from populist to establishment. Right now, I believe this second dynamic is more important than the first, and is the one driving electoral results.
Let’s take my political beliefs as an illustration. On the Right-Left spectrum, I’m center-Left. I believe in policies like paid family leave, universal health care, and protecting Social Security and Medicare. I don’t believe in defunding the police or decriminalizing border crossings. From this vantage point, I appear to be a moderate Democrat.
However, on the second spectrum I am an enthusiastic populist. I believe members of the establishment exclusively work for their donors, don’t mean a word of what they say, and help to maintain corporate rule over our lives. I believe we should get all big money out of politics, from corporate money to union largesse. I’m against George Soros or Elon Musk funding our elections. This leads me to believe that almost all politicians are enormous frauds. That kind of language will get you escorted out of the building anywhere in D.C., no matter where you are on the Left-Right spectrum.
Paid family leave polls at 84 percent, including 74 percent of Republicans. But it hasn’t passed in Congress. How is that possible in a democracy? It’s because Washington doesn’t care about Left or Right or middle—it cares about the money. Corporate donors don’t want paid family leave, so it wouldn’t matter if 98 percent of Americans agreed. You know all the politicians are liars because none of them are trying to pass this legislation. Only the most incompetent politician couldn’t get a bill passed that polled at 84 percent. No matter how much you look for the answer in the Left-Right spectrum, you’ll never find it on this issue.
Calling a politician a liar was once considered so extreme that mainstream media deliberated for years before finally using that word to describe Trump, after thousands of lies. Why? If the media is truly on the Left, why not call him a liar instantly? Why not call all Republican politicians liars? Because the media is on the establishment end of the spectrum, even if a Right-wing politician is prevaricating at record levels, it still hesitates to break decorum. That’s how the establishment thinks. Civility above all. Civility maintains the current order, and that’s what the establishment cares about.
If you want to see anyone in Washington politics or media outraged, tell them this obvious truth: Almost all politicians are dishonest. They pretend the millions they take from donors don’t affect them at all. You would have to detached from reality to believe such an absurdity. Democrats say that when Mitch McConnell takes millions of dollars from corporate donors over the span of his career, he is corrupt and is serving his donors. But when Nancy Pelosi takes the same amount of money, from very similar donors, she is an angel not at all affected by the money. To a normal person outside of politics, that sounds comical. If you think McConnell or Pelosi is not affected by all that money, you are on the establishment side of the spectrum, whether you’re on the Left or the Right.
I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris because I believe Donald Trump is a dangerously unstable conman. He called for the termination of the Constitution, tried to steal an election through a fake elector plot, and is a fake populist who gives the rest of us a bad name. Did you notice that I just used “us” in the context of a man I loathe and will be voting against? He is not on my end of the Left-Right spectrum, but he is (or at least, pretending to be) on my end of the populist-establishment spectrum.
There is a reason the campaigns of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump caught fire when no one expected them to, even though they were on the opposite ends of the Left-Right spectrum. It’s because populism is ascendant. This also applies internationally. Pundits can’t figure out why the electorate is swinging wildly between the Left and the Right in election after election in different countries. It’s because people aren’t voting based on the Left-Right spectrum. They’re voting for whoever appears to be the more populist candidate. They are voting to change the established system.
When I criticize Joe Biden or Kamala Harris as simple servants of the donor class, a lot of people assume I’m supporting Trump because they think politics is two dimensional. But it isn’t—and until the Democrats figure out that they’re playing the wrong game on the wrong field, they’re going to keep getting surprised by the populist wave Donald Trump has caught.
Cenk Uygur is the founder of TYT and host of The Young Turks.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.