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Opinion
The recent governorship races in the States show the divide happening in American politics. For the first time, we could be seeing a break in the two-party culture that we have been used to for a long time. American voters are no longer voting Republican or Democrat but are voting the people versus the elite.
This is a trend that was a long time coming. We’ve seen this divide before with the Democrats splitting between the Occupy Democrats and the elite Democrats and the Tea Party Republicans and the elite Republicans. It happened when the people realised that there was a political elite class that controlled finance, the media and politics.
Of course, the only problem at the time was that people were confused as to who was and was not in the elite which meant that the elite were able to take advantage of these populist movements to push their agenda.
Don’t get me wrong; it was good for people to realise their freedoms were being taken away but unfortunately they were still unsure how to regain these freedoms and to whom they should listen. The media even explored this idea with shows like ‘House of Cards’ and ‘Mr Robot’ appealing to a generation that had lost its sense of security in the shadow of a global financial crisis, foreign wars and a growing surveillance state.
However, this changed over the following years. Under the Obama administration the country learned that neither party cared about the common man. The Republicans only cared about the money they could make from big corporations which included sacrificing America’s sovereignty, flooding America’s labour market with cheap foreign labour and moving manufacturing overseas as well as allowing the American market to lose out to the global market. The Democrats only cared about power which is why they continually were willing to give more and more political power to international organisations and technocrats.
Perhaps this is why we are seeing a revolution within both parties right now. In 2018 we started seeing what would become the Freedom Caucus supported by Trump and the Save America Super PAC winning the primaries or at least becoming a threat to the establishment members of the GOP. I think of candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene who made a stand for freedom against the vaccine and mask mandates.
However, I believe for the first time that we are seeing the people reach a realisation about who is and isn’t in the political establishment.
For this article, there are two candidates I wish to focus on. One is Laura Loomer and the other is Michael Shellenberger.
Some of you may remember Laura Loomer. Her wikipedia profile describes her as a “far right and anti-Muslim activist.’’ A conservative Jewish woman, she started off working for Project Veritas and Rebel News as a journalist and commentator. She did a number of stunts. Her most famous was to crash a revised version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar featuring the left’s archetype of Donald Trump and showing the liberal fantasy of killing Trump in theatre. She became notorious for her guerilla journalism, confronting left-wing and Democrat figures on camera for their antisemitic statements including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and Women’s March leader, Linda Sarsour.
In 2018, during Twitter’s purge of “far right figures”, she organised a one-woman protest outside the home of politicians who supported the bill and chained herself to the entrance to Twitter’s headquarters.
In 2019 she invited a group of Latin Americans to join her in jumping the fence at Nancy Pelosi’s house. She repeated the stunt at Governor Gavin Newsom’s home in California after both Democrats supported open border policies.
In 2020 she stood for Florida’s 21st congressional district, beating five opponents to become the Republican nominee before losing to the Democrat incumbent.
She’s now running again for Congress against both the Democrats and members of the GOP. The new divide that she represents is the patriotic base vs the ‘RINOs’ (Republicans In Name Only), people who claim to be Republican while caving to the woke agenda. People like Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney represent the military-industrial neo-conservative establishment that cares more about foreign money. Now they face a base that loves America and stands for the United States. This is just one example of the new divide. I hope that Laura Loomer ends up joining the growing ‘Freedom Caucus’ in the house.
The other candidate is Michael Shellenberger. An ardent environmentalist, he is, however, part of the eco-pragmatic wing which focuses on practical solutions to environmental issues such as using the market and technology. At one point he was a leading figure in the fight against climate change. However, two things caused his expulsion. The first was suggesting nuclear power as a possible alternative to fossil fuels. The second was writing a book on the doom and gloom prophecies of the climate prophets. The book was appropriately titled Apocalypse Never.
In 2018 he challenged the California governorship, criticising incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom for his soft on crime and homelessness policies. He also did the unthinkable and challenged the power of the teachers’ unions.
We are now seeing a divide between the cultural liberals and the wokesters, because woke ideas are dividing the Democrats. In fact, some scholars believe this to be a divide between ‘elect’ Democrats and ‘elite’ Democrats. We have those in the party who stand for the workers and we have those who stand for the technocrats.
What this shows is that the people are aware of who these elites are and are expelling them from both parties. Hopefully, we see in both the Democrats and Republicans a government for the people, by the people and not for the political elites.
