OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A top voice in the progressive politisphere has said that he is “optimistic” about the presidency of Donald Trump.
Cenk Uygur, founder and host of “The Young Turks” podcast, has changed his opinion of MAGA (Make America Great Again) and said that he believes it is the political establishment, not Trump supporters, who are the ”enemy.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m more optimistic now than I was before the election, even though I was so against the guy who won. I know now. MAGA is not my mortal enemy (and neither is the extreme left). My mortal enemy is the establishment. And they have been defeated!” he said in a post on X.
“It’s not just that the establishment candidate lost, it’s that their media is mortally wounded. The source of their strength was not insipid politicians like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden. The source of their strength was their propaganda machine – the mainstream media,” the host said.
“Now, online media is strong enough that their oppressive monopoly on the American mind has been broken. Now, we’re in the jungle. They hate that! I love it! This uncontrolled marketplace of ideas is where I’m home. I’d rather be in the populist woods than an establishment prison,” he said.
And in March the host expressed his disdain for both the media and Trump when he criticized how the “bloodbath” comment was handled.
“I can’t stand Donald Trump and I think he’s a danger to American principles but he said ‘bloodbath’ in the context of an economic speech. Given his history of calling for violence, he should be more careful. But we need to be fair, he wasn’t advocating for violence this time,” he said.
But, after the assassination attempt against the president-elect in July, the progressive host appeared to grow more furious with the mainstream media and more admiring of Trump.
“I’ve seen so many people, whether it’s the mainstream media or on the Left, saying crazy things like it was staged,” he said to The Daily Signal in an interview at the Republican National Convention. “You’re really going to stage shooting you in the ear, and if they miss by a centimeter, they’re dead? Are you insane? Who would stage that? That’s just nuts.”
He also criticized some Democrats who said Trump “has to cool down the rhetoric.”
“Brother, he just got shot,” the host said. “When you get shot, you’re allowed to say anything you want. I would have said worse. I think they’re just in la-la land,” he said.
“I think that Trump acted brave, and that was an amazing moment there—not just in this campaign but, let’s be honest, in American history,” he said.
“When Trump raises his fist and says, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’—that is a brave moment I did not expect from Trump, and then when the crowd started chanting ‘USA! USA!’ I got proud,” he said in the interview. “I got proud of this country and I got proud of that moment—that he survived it, he was brave, and that was his audience saying ‘We love you, brother, and thank you for still fighting for us.’”
“This brother’s been shot, and here he is standing back up and saying to his crowd, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK, and we fight on,’” he said. “I think that was his best moment in his life. And so, if you can’t acknowledge that, you just don’t live in the reality-based world.”
“I’m not changing,” the host said, insisting that he was not becoming a MAGA supporter.
“People think, ‘Are you going toward MAGA or are you going toward Trump?’ I’m just acknowledging reality. That moment for Trump during the assassination attempt was super brave. Anyone who says otherwise is just crazy,” he said.
