The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Ari Hoffman during a Newsweek episode of The Debate about quality control within political parties. You can listen to the podcast here:
The problem is that party loyalty has become this litmus test on both sides of the aisle. So let's look at the Democrats for a second. Tulsi Gabbard identified as a Democrat. I had her on my show earlier this week, and actually had a whole discussion with her about why she left the party. And it really came out that more of the party left her, didn't represent the things she thought it represented anymore, things she believed in anymore.
On the Republican side of the aisle, a lot of people said "I'm out of here" when Trump came around, or "I'm out of here" when Marjorie Taylor Greene came around. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the right's version of AOC. You're seeing the same extremes that are pulling in different directions. It's really these extreme things that are leading the direction of the parties these days. Now, the Republicans have embraced more of a big tent kind of idea. It's like, "Hey, we're getting all these new people. Let's bring them in."
Now, you can see that that can affect things detrimentally, like it did with Kanye West. Look at the train wreck that became. But you look at the left and you look at the people they're including, [and] their litmus test seems to be a lot stricter. The Republicans have the people who say, "Yes, we're the party of Trump. No, we're not the party of Trump," and there's a fight there. But they're all saying, "hey, let's bring in more people. Let's bring in more people."
The Democrats are more like, "if you don't adhere to these specific ideals, whatever they are, you can't be in our party anymore." So a lot more people are feeling like the Democrat Party is leaving them, not so much that they're leaving the Democrat Party. And just to illustrate that, I'm a conservative talk radio host. And I'm constantly shocked with the number of Democrats, more and more, that are showing up in our in-depth demographic breakdowns of the show. More and more are coming, because they're just looking for more common sense as opposed to radical extremes.
We're looking at this all over the country. At the end of the day, it really comes down to [this]: it doesn't so much matter what Trump endorsed, or what Bernie Sanders endorsed, or what The Squad says, or what Marjorie Taylor Greene says. It comes down to, and what I think you're gonna see play out in the election, how much money is in Americans' pockets… Do they think that this person is going to make their lives better financially? Do they think their kids are gonna get a better education? Do they think that their kids are gonna be locked down because of COVID? Do they think that they're going to be safer? I think it's really going to come down to that, as opposed to who endorsed who.
Ari is the host of The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI and the West Coast Editor of The Post Millennial. Originally from New York, he now lives with his family in Seattle, WA.
The views in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
