Batya Ungar-Sargon: The Case for MAGA Leftism

The author and columnist joins the show to discuss immigration, deportations, and being a "MAGA leftist."

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Batya Ungar-Sargon: The Case for MAGA Leftism

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Do people want President Donald Trump's deportation crackdown? And is the MAGA agenda actually a leftist one? Just asking questions.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, a columnist at The Free Press, joins the show today to address these questions and spar with us on immigration, tariffs, and wealth inequality. She's a self-described MAGA leftist and the author most recently of Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women.

Sources Referenced:

• The White House's Ghibli-style deportation cartoon

https://t.co/PVdINmsHXs pic.twitter.com/Bw5YUCI2xL

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 27, 2025

• Nayib Bukele on X

Oopsie…

Too late ???? pic.twitter.com/nDHL6deLJq

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025

The U.S. is facing a judicial coup.

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 19, 2025

Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable).

The United States will pay a very low fee for them,… pic.twitter.com/tfsi8cgpD6

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 16, 2025

• Text of the Alien Enemies Act
• Pew Research: "How Americans View the Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Its Causes and Consequences"
• U.S. government 20th century revenue history with charts
• Pew Research: "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades"
• American Enterprise Institute: Prices changes in U.S. consumer goods and services, January 2000 to June 2022
• Batya Ungar-Sargon on Bill Maher's show
• Video of Rumeysa Ozturk being arrested
• Marco Rubio's comments on the Ozturk arrest
• J.D. Vance discussing deportations in August

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Coming up…
• 00:00:30 Introducing Batya Ungar-Sargon
• 00:03:50 Are campus protesters being unfairly targeted for deportation?
• 00:10:01 The legal vs. moral case for deporting pro-Palestine students.
• 00:17:19 Immigration, assimilation, and the limits of free speech
• 00:24:00 J.D. Vance's deportation agenda vs. Trump's actual policy.
• 00:30:33 Are asylum seekers being unjustly deported?
• 00:35:23 How immigration policy affects the working class
• 00:41:10 Do Americans really need multiple jobs to survive?
• 00:44:18 Expanding state power and due process concerns
• 00:48:32 Trump, Nayib Bukele, and deportation to El Salvador's prisons
• 00:54:08 Should Trump defy judges? Constitutional limits and Supreme Court battles
• 01:00:19 What is the MAGA left's economic agenda?
• 01:06:22 Are tariffs and immigration really to blame for middle-class decline?
• 01:14:01 Is the American dream still achievable?
• 01:16:46 What question should more people be asking?

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Chumby]

This better be a whole lot of “JD Vance is wrong.”

[sarcasmic]

I should compile a list of things the left and MAGA have in common.

Off the top of my head they both are willfully ignorant of economics and proud of it. They both try to shut down critics using government force. They both judge everything by who, not what. They both worship cults of personality. They both support authoritarianism when they do it. They both support unions. I could go on. Yeah, I should make a list.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

Poor sarc.

[Idaho-Bob]

That sounds exactly like what YOU like. You just need to add hatred of cops.

[sarcasmic]

Right dude.

I'm not defending Trump using government force to go after people who edited an interview, you are. I never defended anything Biden did while you defend everything Trump does. Criticism of Obama's policies got me labeled a racist conservative by his cult of personality, and you Trump defending personality cultists call me a leftist with TDS when I criticize his policies. I have opposed authoritarianism no matter who does it while you rejoice when Trump taxes without representation and sends people to prison without due process. And I've always opposed unions, especially in the public sector, while you celebrate when Trump caters to them.

Face it. You're exactly like the leftists you hate. The only difference is the man you worship.

[Ragnar_the_Pirate]

So, as a newish commenter here, why is everyone so antagonistic to you? And also, if you happen to know, why is everyone so anti-libertarian on a libertarian magazine website?

[Public Entelectual]

The Commentariat turns on itself in a self-referential attack yet again.

[Rick James]

This is my favorite Batya rant.

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug - Jan 6 = 9/11 (same motive)]

Around here ML and Jesse are Big Gov MAGA leftists. ML is even our woke police. Never ever criticize a blaek man when ML is on hall duty.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Post any links to CP lately you disgusting pervert?

[middlefinger]

IMO, the topic all three of them missed was incentivizing service workers (or importing people) to stagnate without upward mobility. The consequences of this is , eventually, real leftist redistribution and price controls.

For instance… if a family receives housing vouchers, SNAP, cash assistance, energy subsidies, water subsidies, tax credits or UBI, free healthcare and daycare, the need to go the extra labor mile or perhaps work full time or a harder non government desk job disappears. The statistics will show stagnation and leftists will continue to riot for additional free stuff or price controls- AOC is rallying for price controls as a platform for her 2028 run. Same is true for paying people not to work.

This welfare (in turn) raises not only the taxes, but also the costs of all of those subsidized goods. This is directly in line with the chart of rising prices- housing, energy, water, healthcare, daycare. So, in the end, those that make enough to pay taxes or choose to participate in the forty hour work week, want to own something, risk to start a business will be robbed blind by those that want to be given free stuff.

Maybe the U.S. tax code can include welfare transfers as “income”

[Dillinger]

I would also approve equal rights in the form of no income tax.

[OKSteele]

I'm so befuddled by the fact that this person is at all relevant to us. She literally is the antithesis of libertarianism, and she doesn't even make honest or reasoned arguments for it.

[AT]

For the record, this person should really have even the most diehard MAGA out there scratching their head and wondering whether us OG#NT's were on to something back in 2016.

Now, I'm not going to lie - Trump 2.0 has been... refreshing. And I'm similarly not going to deny that a Trump Republican Party is better in the short term than a Democrat Party (not to imply that the Democrats are better in the long-term either, because they are not).

But you're a fool if you're not asking - like I've asked since 2015 - whether Trump is effectively killing conservatism in favor of a version of 90s-ish Democrat platform that is palatable to the right because it's "better than" the batshit (langauge!) insane version of the Democrat platform today; and why it's endearing moderate liberals at the same time.

It's not an invalid question. It never has been.

[Roberta]

So it's the pendulum swinging back to the center?

[AT]

More like this.

[JeremyR]

There is very little about MAGA that is not leftist.

About the only thing that isn't is they aren't pro-Trans.

Even strict borders is something pushed by labor activists in the past, like Cesar Chavez. Democrats only embraced open borders because a) they became the party of big business and b) they thought immigrants would vote Democrat.

Economics? Leftist. Foreign policy? Almost indistinguishable from Howard Zinn or Chomsky, except being pro-Israel, and even then there is a huge segment of MAGA that hates Jews.

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

Making your country first over other countries is not a left or right thing contrary to the propaganda narrative of the corporate media. Every country on the planet should be first concerned about their countries interests first and then afterwards if they have the luxury, they can be charitable. Of course there are times and circumstances where countries need to look at the bigger picture and factor in relationships with other countries.

Green card holders are not citizens and should not receive the same latitude that a citizen should have. The country should be a melding of the combined ancestral history and customs of actual citizens, not a melding of the sensibilities of green card guests.

While I'm sympathetic toward the innocent residents of Gaza and abhor the actions of the government of Israel and Hamas, it is not the place of a green card guest to stir up trouble for any cause including the war in Gaza.

At the same time, the USA should not be involved in supplying weapons to any conflict where there has not been a formal declaration of war passed by the congress and signed into law. The USA should however be willing to involved in negotiating or helping to facilitate dialog towards ending the conflict.

Make the interests of the USA the top priority, not the interests of Israel.

[middlefinger]

I’m against open borders into a welfare state full stop. DOGE shining the light on these transfers are the first step of (what I believe) is the Trump platform. Unless we curb the welfare state, every single item that is subsidized, will continue to hyperinflate- think Argentina preMeilei.

I’m against using government spending, grants and hiring expansion to pump federal and state GDP. Sure, I’d take a paycheck to perform a non existent “job”. That “job” is not producing anything. I can pretend to work and taxpayers (until they flee the state) can pay me. Millennials can continue scream on X about the price of housing, healthcare, daycare, energy and food. This could be the second step, IMO, of the Trump platform.

Housing, why not Levittown small single family or prefab housing? Energy - why not nuclear ?

Real productivity real GDP.