One of the most interesting — and confusing — features of American politics over the last decade or so has been the shifting ideological landscape.
Donald Trump was a disaster in almost every sense, but one potentially useful thing he did was shatter the stale consensus in Washington. For decades, the Republican Party was an incoherent mix of laissez-faire economics and religious traditionalism; Trump blew that up.
Democrats, for their part, have spent most of their time battling Trump, which was necessary but also depressing because of all the opportunity costs. But Trump’s presence unquestionably pushed the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction.
One of the big questions moving forward is: What will American politics look like on the other side of this era? Regardless of what happens in 2024, what it means to be a liberal or conservative in the next decade will be different than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
Is it possible, then, that some kind of new coalition could emerge, one that actually addresses the roots of so many of our political pathologies?
A new book by conservative author Sohrab Ahmari called Tyranny, Inc. is the first text on the right (that I’ve encountered, at least) that seems genuinely interested in sketching out a foundation for such a coalition. Ahmari became one of the faces of the post-liberal American right early in the Trump era but has since emerged as a critic of conservative orthodoxy — and that makes him a worthwhile read, especially for someone on the left.
So I invited him onto The Gray Area to talk about how his New Deal-style economics align with his cultural conservatism and why I’m encouraged by his ambitions but still a little skeptical about how it all shakes out in the end. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
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