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Two diametrically opposed groups of people, operating under two totally different definitions of “the enemy,” cannot unite in any meaningful sense.

By Adam Johnson, The Real News Network

Every few months—sometimes for sinister and ideological reasons, sometimes for just plain ahistorical and dimwitted reasons—a pundit comes along who thinks they’ve cracked the DaVinci code of class politics. “What if,” they ask us (as if the question has not been asked countless times before), “left and right unite to take on the elites”? The phrasing of the question can vary, but it’s invariably some version of the same claptrap. This take has a particular superficial appeal: What if the right and left could set aside their seemingly insurmountable differences and unite to take on these mysterious “elites,” or “those in power”? What if, indeed! On its face, the proposal sounds like something everyone can get behind, and it’s effective RT-bait:

right and left desantis and protestors

This line is used primarily, though not exclusively, by two groups: (1) milquetoast corporate liberals and centrists embodied by Third Way and other Wall Street-funded front groups attempting to push the Democratic party even farther toward the center than it already is; and (2) right-wing “populists” of varying tendencies (third positionists, producerists, outright fascists). I’ve detailed the problems with Group 1 elsewhere, but I’d like to take some time to discuss this trope’s popularity with Group 2 and why those on the left—or anyone genuinely concerned with the plight of the working class and racial justice, however they define themselves—should be wary of this second group.

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