“Politics makes strange bedfellows,” runs the old saying. That adage derived from Shakespeare’s line in The Tempest, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

This summer of 2024, politics and misery, along with a good stiff shot of truth, have made for strange bedfellows that signal a seismic shift in the American political and cultural landscape.

In mid-July, Tulsi Gabbard, Army reservist, former congresswoman, and Trump supporter, appeared on the Laura Ingraham show and criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, for her inept performance and political beliefs. In 2019, when both women were running as candidates for president, Gabbard tore Harris apart in a debate, after which the California Democrat withdrew from the race.

The day after Gabbard made her appearance on the Ingraham show, our government placed her on a domestic terror TSA watchlist.  In a follow up conversation with the talk show host, Gabbard said,

Laura, this is a pure act of political retaliation. There’s no other way to put it. The very next day, after my conversation with you on the air, warning the American people about how dangerous a Kamala Harris presidency could be, I was placed on this domestic terror watchlist, which is called the ‘Quiet Skies’ list under the Department of Homeland Security … To now have my own government now turn around and put me on a domestic terror watch list, it hits to the core and is the ultimate sense of betrayal.

In 2016, Gabbard was supporting left-wing Independent Bernie Sanders, who was then running as a Democrat, for president. Is it any wonder that today she is a Trump supporter who is coaching the former president for his upcoming debate with Vice President Harris and that she may well land a post in a potential Trump administration?

On Aug. 23, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nephew of John F. Kennedy and son of Robert F. Kennedy, announced that he was suspending his run at the presidency as a third-party candidate and throwing his support to Donald Trump. In a stunning speech, he explained that while he disagreed with Trump on many issues, they had found common ground, particularly on the issues of “free speech, a war in Ukraine, and the war on our children,” causes dear to Kennedy’s heart.

Kennedy also excoriated the Democratic Party and its own bedfellow, the mainstream media, laying out in some detail the lies and misconceptions the government and the media routinely deliver to the American people, the corruption within the party, and the attempts to smother both his campaign and the free speech of all Americans.

Though many Democrats, including members of his own family, and some in the media belittled Kennedy and what they viewed as his betrayal of the party, his blunt, well-organized address may well be one for the history books. It is as fine a piece of persuasive speaking as any in our history.

Meanwhile, Big Tech moguls like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have endorsed Donald Trump, offering both words of support and a bundle of money to his campaign. In his article “Why tech billionaires are now flocking to Donald Trump,” Mitchell Hartmann reports that some entrepreneurs favor a more libertarian approach to business, which Trump also would favor, while others may be hedging their bets and looking to curry favor with both parties with their donations.   

Among voters in general we also see shifts away from the left. Among black voters, for instance, there are indications that many, especially young men, have realized that the Democrats have done more harm than good to their communities and are moving toward Trump. For some voters, a Kamala Harris presidency might seem a two-fer, a black president and the first female president, yet in spite of all the media hype, those advantages appear to have had little effect. Many voters are more focused on the devastating effects of inflation at the grocery store and gas pump than on race and gender.

Do these trends mean that Trump will win the presidency? Not at all. The well-oiled Democrat election machine will be working overtime to prevent that possibility, along with some possible shenanigans at the ballot box.

But champagne and fireworks are nonetheless in order. Add up all that is happening, and we’re seeing a surprising array of Americans coming together to defend free speech and liberty, and to fight back against the deep state and the out-of-control power grabs of the federal government. We can disagree on many issues, but now we’re down to the rock-bottom fundamentals now, and on those we can stand together.

Whatever happens in November, a resistance is forming which goes beyond Republican and Democrat. The soft-peddling merchants of tyranny trying to sell us their ersatz products of “democracy” have so far divided Americans, but that day is ending.

As Tulsi Gabbard writes in the last sentence of her new book, For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind, “Let us come together not as partisan adversaries but as Americans bound by our shared love of our country to ensure its survival.”

The fight’s not over, not by a long shot, but this is one we’re going to win.