Bizarre argument that Trump’s 'extremism' is 'Bill Clinton redux' shredded by Libertarian

11 March 2024

During a March 1 appearance on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon — opinion editor at Newsweek and author of the 2021 book "Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy" — argued that likely 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is a "liberal" who has a lot in common with Bill Clinton-era Democrats.

Ungar-Sargon told host Maher, "To you and to most Democrats, Trump is an extremist. But to Trump's supporters, he is a liberal. And they like that about him…. The liberal media is misunderstanding how he comes off to his supporters."

Never Trump libertarian/conservative journalist Cathy Young analyzes Ungar-Sargon's argument in an article published by The Bulwark on March 11 — and emphasizes that painting Trump as the continuation of Clinton-era Democrats is a flawed premise.

"Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton famously tacked to the political center on certain issues," Young explains. "And we all know that since the 1990s, Democratic voters have moved substantially to the left on several issues, including immigration and abortion. In 1994, nearly two-thirds of Democrats agreed with the statement that 'immigrants are a burden on our country because they take jobs, housing and health care'; by 2019, only 11 percent of Democrats agreed with it."

Young continues, "Meanwhile, the percentage of Democrats who described themselves as pro-life dropped from a high of about 42 percent in 1998 to just 15 percent in 2023. Still, no matter how you slice the data, there is simply no framework in which Trump's views on immigration or abortion match those of 1990s Democrats."

Young notes that Trump "touts the undoing of Roe v. Wade as one of his signature achievements," while Clinton-era Democrats were "committed to the preservation of Roe."

"The 1990s saw conflicted attitudes on immigration in the Democratic Party," Young recalls, "but it was among Republicans that you could see the rise of a punitive mindset that presaged Trumpism and its embrace of deliberate cruelty toward illegal migrants…. One could claim that Trump is Bill Clinton redux and that it's some weird liberal quirk to see him as an extremist. Saying that with a straight face, though, must take a lot of effort."

Cathy Young's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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