The Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954 [PHOTO: Library of Congress, Thomas J. O’Halloran]
By Todd Lassa
After former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was hospitalized May 3rd with pneumonia President Trump blamed the far left, Truth Socialing, “what a tragedy he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL.”
[READ ‘The Economics of Engagement’ by Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay in The Gray Area.]
After Trump took office for his second time last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) launched his Fighting Oligarchy Tour, co-starring his fellow democratic socialist (note the lower-case “d” and “s”), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Political rhetoric from the progressive left is that the nation is becoming – or has become – a tech-oligarchy under the Trump White House, with David Sachs, Peter Thiel and, of course, Elon Musk leading the way.
Once politically liberal – at least on social issues -- Silicon Valley and even its cosmopolitan bastion of the left to the north, San Francisco, are leaning rightward from the influence of those tech-oligarchs, who oppose DEI, city streets open to the unhoused and neighborhoods open to the undocumented, and especially, Democratic politicians proposing wealth taxes and imposing stiffer corporate regulations.
Are these tech-oligarchs hard-right populists? Laissez-faire capitalists? Straight-up libertarians (though not in terms of religious beliefs)? All of the above?
Likewise, are politicians like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani who favor rent control, free city buses and those wealth taxes progressives? Socialists? Marxists? All of the above?
That’s the question tackled by our pro-MAGA right-column Contributing Pundit Rich Corbett and left-column Contributing Pundit K.E. Bell.
In the spirit of our no echo chamber civil media ethos, please be sure to read both columns and consider voicing your own opinion on the issue with an email to editors@thehustings.news and be sure to indicate your political leaning in the subject line, irrespective of which side here you agree or disagree with.