Post-Partisan Forum: Red & Blue Populism Starting to Overlap?

U.S. politics are beginning to change dramatically, creating reasons for hope. The current administration has slipped to only 40% approval (Nate Silver’s poll average, 28-Nov). The independent and minority voters that elected it are starting to drift back to the opposition party. Morale among House Republicans is sinking, and GOP insiders warn that more mid‑term resignations are coming and put their narrow majority at risk (Yahoo News, 24-Nov).

It’s chaos, but history has shown that starting with periods of great turmoil, the America system has often taken great strides in synthesis and reform. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s fascinating resignation speech contained many points that sounded like leftist populism. She even railed against the “political-industrial complex,” accusing corporations and party elites of betraying the American people.

A few days later, several of her points were echoed—perhaps unintentionally—by Cory Booker in an interview with NYTimes. Put their statements side-by-side, and the overlap reveals that compromise and collaboration between Red & Blue is now possible. Both sides are calling attention to affordability, corporate influence, and dysfunction in our political system.

So…as the definitions of conservative and liberal start to blur, can we, the people, take advantage of the political class’s uncertainty? Can we get our representatives to focus at last on numerous policies that a super majority of Americans have long supported?

In this month’s Forum, we’ll use AI to combine the messages from MTG and Booker to synthesize a third way for Americans to consider. We’ll discuss how we voters can and should start nudging, even pushing, our representatives into a red-blue collaboration to break the logjam we’ve had in Washington over the past few decades.

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Sound interesting? New participants welcomed! Please note that many "Hub regulars" attend the Forum without making a Meetup RSVP. We usually have 30 or so people there with opportunities for discussion in both small and large groups. See you soon.