Tag: Populist Thought

Populism–What’s It Good For

The election of 2016 brought about the use of the term populism….it has been around for many many years but not used so much by the media when reporting on an election…..and the 2016 arrived and not knowing exactly what to do about the whole popularity of Trump and Sanders….viola the term “populism” found a new home……

Populists abhor restraints on the political executive. Since they claim to represent “the people” writ large, they regard limits on their exercise of power as necessarily undermining the popular will. Such constraints can only serve the “enemies of the people” – minorities and foreigners (for right-wing populists) or financial elites (in the case of left-wing populists).

This is a dangerous approach to politics, because it allows a majority to ride roughshod over the rights of minorities. Without separation of powers, an independent judiciary, or free media – which all populist autocrats, from Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump detest – democracy degenerates into the tyranny of whoever happens to be in power.

Periodic elections under populist rule become a smokescreen. In the absence of the rule of law and basic civil liberties, populist regimes can prolong their rule by manipulating the media and the judiciary at will.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/defense-of-economic-populism-by-dani-rodrik-2018-01

Populism is a dangerous thing….the whole “voice of the people” is good cover but a dangerous trend in a democratic country.

Is Populism A Thing Of The Past?

You would think that once we elected a small minded populist that we would have learned our lesson, right?

Not even close.

Across the globe populism and populist thought has become the rule of the day…..but is it here to stay?  You betcha.

The vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump has baffled the main stream and the establishment. Most market participants and observers didn’t believe ex ante that they were possible, and as a result were completely surprised when the unexpected happened. Ever since the term populism has become socio-politically relevant in modern-day public discourse. Google Trends illustrates that there was a veritable explosion in search queries for the term “populism” last year:

But, populism — regardless of its political flavor — merely represents a symptom. The generally surprising results were consequences of the economical erosion of the past years Although there are idiosyncrasies in every country that foster the rise of populist movements, the ailing foundation of the economy provides the fertile soil and is the major driver of people’s dissatisfaction and the associated voting decisions. To assert that populism is the reason for this process of political change is in our opinion far too simplistic. An analysis of stating that economic erosion is responsible for the rise in populism is supported by by a McKinsey study, which examines the trend in real household incomes in 25 industrialized nations.1 McKinsey arrived at the striking conclusion that real incomes of 65 to 70 percent of households in developed countries either stagnated or even declined between 2005 and 2014. The following chart illustrates the trend in household incomes in selected countries.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/15112017-why-populism-isnt-going-away-oped/

In this country the question on most every normal person mind is…..just why is this brand of populism working?

Watching the Republican tax plan race through Congress, one is reminded of a big apparent difference between Donald Trump’s program and other populist movements in the Western world. In America, Trump is leading something that is best described as plutocratic populism, a mixture of traditional populist causes with extreme libertarian ones.

Congress’ own think tanks — the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office — calculate that in 10 years, people making between $50,000 and $75,000 (around the median income in America) would effectively pay a whopping $4 billion more in taxes, while people making $1 million or more would pay $5.8 billion less under the Senate bill. And that doesn’t take into account the massive cuts in services, health care and other benefits that would likely result. Martin Wolf, the sober and fact-based chief economics commentator for the Financial Times, concludes, “This is a determined effort to shift resources from the bottom, middle and even upper middle of the U.S. income distribution toward the very top, combined with big increases in economic insecurity for the great majority.”

http://www.theintell.com/opinion/20171203/why-plutocratic-populism-is-working-for-republicans

Populism?  Or Nativism?

Last week the Cambridge Dictionary declared populism its 2017 word of the year. In many ways, that makes perfect sense. Since Brexit and Trump, virtually every political event has been couched in terms of populism, from the Dutch parliamentary elections to the French presidential elections earlier this year. New media catchwords such as “fake news” are linked to populism.

However, it has become the buzzword of the year mostly because it is very often poorly defined and wrongly used. Indeed, the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition perfectly illustrates this. It describes populism as “political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want”.

Oddly enough, this is almost identical to the interpretation used by many populists themselves. However, rather than populism, it describes responsive politics, as exists in idealistic models of democracy. The only part of that description that has some overlap with more common academic definitions of populism is the reference to “ordinary people”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/07/cambridge-dictionary-nativism-populism-word-year

This is working for the GOP….why?  Basically they are gutless wonders that will lick anyone’s boots that will give them a legislative win…..they care little for the country….their only concern is pushing crap through the legislative process….the American people can be damned for all they care…..and they have the perfect president to do their crap for he cares NOTHING for the American people.

Populism is not just an American thing…….

There is no doubt that nationalist populism will remain an important driver of Europe’s debates. As we showed in our 2017 Chatham House research paper on the future of Europe, elites across the EU identify populists as their number one challenge. Thus, as we leave 2017 it seems that many observers were too optimistic about the ‘Macron moment’ and the supposed defeat of nationalist populism that was reflected in losses for Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

Indeed, as Macron’s popularity plunged, Austria swung sharply to the right, electing the young conservative Sebastian Kurz, who has entered negotiations to form a coalition deal with the hard-right Freedom Party. Then, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) captured 12.6 per cent of the vote and 94 seats in the Bundestag in Germany’s federal elections, the strongest result for populism in the country’s post-war history and one that overturned the assumption that such parties could not find success in the country that gave birth to National Socialism.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/2018-europe-s-populist-challenges-will-continue

And the beat goes on…….

Populist Under Every Rock

I do so enjoy my little history lessons from time to time….Americans seem to think that history has nothing to do with anything…..politicians have worked hard to make the uninformed voter as ignorant as possible on history.

The election of 2016 was one where the media made lots of ratings with the rise of populist thought in our politics.  But this past election was actually nothing new…there is always a populist line of campaign just it does not get the attention it should and our history has a rich heritage of populist thought.

There 5 major ventures into populism in our election process……

The 2016 election constituted one of the great populist uprisings of American history. A large segment of the electorate rose up against American elites and many of their underlying governing nostrums—globalism, lax border control, free trade, American military adventurism, a wariness toward nationalism, the cozy relationship between Big Government and Big Finance. It’s an open question whether President Trump, who ran against those nostrums, will govern as he campaigned. There are sound reasons to believe he will abandon many of his campaign pronouncements and meld his populist rhetoric with more establishmentarian actions. If so, his political story could become one of the great sleight-of-hand perpetrations of the American experience.

It may be instructive, in any event, to look at the other great populist uprisings of our history by way of a comparative analysis. Herewith then is a list of the country’s five most powerful waves of populism.

Source: The Five Most Powerful Populist Uprisings in U.S. History | The American Conservative

There you have your electoral history lesson….we will thank me later.

Class dismissed!

Is The “Populist” Uprising Over?

Now that the 2016 election is over and we have a winner…..the big question now is with all the populist movement, both Left and Right, will they continue….or is this a dead subject….are they over with the election?

The summer ends with a growing lament among progressives. Tom Frank’s cutting voice sums it up:

“And so ends the great populist uprising of our time, fizzling out pathetically in the mud and the bigotry stirred up by a third-rate would-be caudillo named Donald J Trump. So closes an era of populist outrage that began back in 2008, when the Davos dream of a world run by benevolent bankers first started to crack. The unrest has taken many forms in these eight years – from idealistic to cynical, from Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party – but they all failed to change much of anything.  And now the last, ugliest, most fraudulent manifestation is failing so spectacularly that it may discredit populism itself for years to come.”

Like many on the left, Frank has few hopes for Hillary Clinton. She’ll be the ultimate Davos moderate, he predicts, collecting neo-conservatives and Republican elites, negotiating backroom deals to “get things done.” The elites, shaken by the Sanders insurgency and the Trump rise, are now back in the saddle.

Source: The Populist Uprising Isn’t Over—It’s Only Just Begun | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

We will see if these movements can continue after the voting is done….

I think that the movement has only just begun….but I have been mistaken before…..

But just what causes these times of popular revolt?

Easy answer….bungled wars, uneven growth and insecurity.

Does any of that sound familiar?

I believe the “populist” movement is here to stay….at least until the American people get some answers that makes sense to them.

Thoughts?

Is Populism is Here to Stay?

This election cycle has seen the rise of a more populist attitude of the American people….Sanders popularity and the nomination of Trump illustrate just hoe deep the ideology runs….

Clinton is the nominee that is more establishment than she would like to admit…..but Trump has tapped into the resentment of the American Right….if he is not successful in defeating Clinton…the question is ….will this populism remain?

The neoliberal consensus that has dominated the globe for the past 40 years is collapsing. As the old dies, two forms of populism are rising in its wake. What are progressives and those of us on the left to do?

Last week was a bad one for Donald Trump. While the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign feeds on media scandals, the last few days have been over the top: fights with the family of a slain Muslim American soldier and top Republican leadership, potential leaks of top-secret information, even removing babies and silent protesters holding up copies of the U.S. Constitution from his rallies.

Pair that with plummeting poll numbers and a series of high-profile defections – including that of Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins late Monday – and some liberal commentators have predicted the full-scale implosion of Trump’s campaign. Others have been speculating that Trump may drop out of the race, and some Republicans have called on him to do just that.

Source: Whatever Happens to Trump in November, Populism is Here to Stay

Do you, my reader, think that this rise in populism is here to stay or even if it is a good thing for the country?  Or is it just a phenom for this election?

The self-emasculation of mainstream politics

Here in the Us we have ab election quickly approaching and while the candidates slug it out the rise of populism is barely noticed…..nationalistic fervor is on the rise…..not only in America but in Europe as well…..

The question could be asked with the rise of a form of populism is it doing damage to “mainstream” politics?

Candidates like trump and Sanders are energizing voters like they have not been so in the past…..I pressed an excellent article on this phenom….it is mostly about the EU but it can be applied to the USA as well…..

This triumph of populism is not solely a European problem. In the United States presidential elections often tempt fringe candidates to try their luck, but when the moment of truth comes, responsible people get the top job. For Europeans, similarly, it used to go without saying that though the EU might be confronted by severe threats, overcoming them always led to an even stronger union.

Source: The self-emasculation of mainstream politics | European Council on Foreign Relations

Democratic Primary Makes Clear: A Populist Revolution is Coming

This election, 2016, the newest term that the media is using ad nauseum is …..populist.

Trump has tapped in the is movement on the Right, according to the MSM and Bernie is doing so from the Left….

Again according to the media the country has found a new respect because of their anger with the way the government does business….

So is there a new “populist revolution” on the horizon?

And the answer is……..

The influential economist Thomas Piketty is the most recent trans-Atlantic observer to note that the “incredible success of the ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders” is indicative of a deeper, populist movement that’s brewing across the United States.

Source: Democratic Primary Makes Clear: A Populist Revolution is Coming | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

New Hampshire: Populist Uprising – LA Progressive

There is another interesting story about the rise of populism…..this is becoming a gold mine for the media and their overpaid analysts…….I know I posted one  today….but I saw this one and figured it would fit into the conversation nicely…..

You know… the rise of American Populist thought………the candidates that embrace it…….

Source: New Hampshire: Populist Uprising – LA Progressive

And you thoughts are?

New Hampshire: The Triumph of Populism

Iowa…..done!  New Hampshire…..done!  South Carolina awaits!

The media has been all over the 2016 election…..you see they have a new way to spin the angst of the American voter…..they are constantly talking about the new populism trend in American attitudes…..

This is the best thing that could happen so far in the election process….it gives the media something to focus on that they can spin, hype and exaggerate out of all proportion……

But is this populism really something to be proud of or something to be concerned over…..

The results of the New Hampshire primary are in, and the big winner is the new populism: that mysterious pro-“outsider” phenomenon that has the political class in a panic, and which no one has adequately defined – including its current practitioners. Donald Trump’s vote total of nearly 35 percent is impressive enough, but his two-to-one […]

Source: New Hampshire: The Triumph of Populism – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

Whatcha think?

Can a New Populist Movement Fight Off American Oligarchy? | Common Dreams

There are many that see the uptick in populist thinking as something good……and others that seem to be afraid of it…….regardless of which side you are on….we all have to admit that things are not gong well in our beloved country…..but can populism save us from ourselves?

This is an important subject….please give us your feelings on this……..

 

Can a New Populist Movement Fight Off American Oligarchy? | Common Dreams.