Populism

Veronique de Rugy | 12.4.2025 1:45 AM

Spend five minutes listening to the American left's most theatrical tribunes—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.)—and you'll probably hear tales of a country on the verge of collapse, crushed by a rigged system that can be fixed only through a radical redesign of government. Then spend five minutes with the New Right—including Vice President J.D. Vance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), and any number of nostalgists yearning to restore an idealized 1950s America—and you'll hear much the same.

The American experiment is failing, they say. The economy is broken. Our society is in decay. Only sweeping power exercised by government can save us. For two camps that claim to despise one another, their worldviews are actually quite aligned.

The populist poles of the left and right are now linked in what political scientists call the "horseshoe." As each gets further from the center, it bends closer toward its counterpart on the other side. Both distrust markets, both want to micromanage industry, both are protectionist, both romanticize manufacturing work and resent the disruptions that come from open global competition. Both, in........

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