The hell do Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have to do with this? Agema, have you come mpletely forgotten what "side of the aisle" Caesar came from? This is not left vs right, this is up vs down Trump 2.0 will come from whichever "side" they damn well please but they are WÀAAAAAAY more likely to come from the Dems because they embrace the rockstar types much more often or did everyone forget what the first four years of Obama were like? The populist types usually come from the Dems while the "stuffed suits" come from the Republicans.
The Democrats won the election and the party establishment, the dull stuffed suits, still run the show. Trump indicated that it is the Republicans who are mad as hell and willing to do something about it. I think at least for now, they are the party with more revolutionary fervour - but they lack a revolutionary leader, because their ideology is fucked.
There are generally two types in the Democratic party, the Biden types and the AOC types. Caeser was an AOC type, the hip with the kids, young "cool sect" types. Hell if I know why you made the comment the other day of how the US would make good change if it had more people like her given that fact.
I think this is to misunderstand the Populares. The basic format of the Roman state - SPQR - was that power derived from the aristocratic Senate and the People. Traditionally, Roman leaders exercised power through the Senate and consuls. Those politicians who did so became known as the Optimates, and the Populares were those (few) politicians who instead relied more on popularity with the masses and the tribunes. However, aside from the Gracchi, very few Populares were really reform-orientated, unless you include reforms to give themselves enormous power.
This doesn't really equate well to the modern USA, because the institutions of state are so different and because of the party system.
My point about AOC is that if we look at the sort of feelings that the Republican populists exploit - the elites, cronyism and lobbying, political alientation - AOC is just about the only answer. She will not win the support of the right because she believes in breaking this through government (plus she's a feminist, etc.), and big government is an anathema to much of the right. This is in my view the sheer, pointless absurdity of Republican radicalism mobilised by Trump. It fears and hates the state, but wants to constrain elites who can only be constrained by the state. The answer, I think, is a heroic individual who can mobilise the power of the state whilst somehow not seeming like the state. So, a populist dictator.
And thus Trump. Trump himself sums this paradox up: an elite, billionaire monster of cronyism, corruption, self-interest who is supposedly going to break the power of the elites. Four years of almost total inaction to actually break up the power of the elites, and still supported. His naked desire for total power invested in himself: arbitrary, authoritarian, absolute (the very notion of a self-pardon) - all the worst threats of an overpowerful state. Trump who is believed to love the people, told a host of his dearest supporters he would walk with them to the capital: as they marched off instead pops into his luxury car back to his luxury grace and favour mansion to watch it unfold on TV and throws them under a bus when he finally realises how much they've embarrassed him.
