Who Woulda Thunk It? Populism Is Popular!
How, in a self-described democracy, is it possible for the concept of populism to be denigrated? Isn't democracy the most radically populist concept in political history, and shouldn't populism - ie. advocating what the people want - be the dominant paradigm in a democracy? This is the question I ponder in my latest newspaper column.
Over the last few months, we've seen a pretty stunning amount of histrionic propaganda from the Punditburo about the supposed "dangers" of populism in American politics. We're told the biggest threat to America isn't rapacious greedheads on Wall Street, corrupt government kleptocrats deregulating everything they can get their hands on, or even Islamic terrorists intent on killing thousands. No, the biggest threats, says the Punditburo, are millions of justifiably angry American citizens actually forcing government to do what we want.
It's really Orwellian - you can barely find a news story referring to populism that doesn't put the word populism next to a word like "dangerous" or "angry." It is as if we're expected to believe we've suffered through too many years of government being too responsive to a public that wants tax fairness, health care reform, an end to the war in Iraq, better financial regulation.
Of course, it's the opposite.
If there has been any one problem tying all the other problems of the last 30 years together, it is that we've had a government that brazenly ignores the public in whose name it governs. This started in the 1980s, and became completely overt in the last few years to the point where when a sitting vice president was asked whether he "cares what the American people think" about a policy, he said "No."
Now, with the public more restive than ever, the political class understands that there is a very real threat to the established order and the status quo. And so the propaganda campaign is on - a propaganda campaign that I show is straight out of Richard Nixon's 1972 playbook.
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Pierre Poujade was by most accounts a "populist".
Important strands of the "believers" at least initially in Fascism were "populists".
There is much "populism" in the tea baggers and in Sister Sarah and Joe the Plumber.
The important thing to distinguish here is the content of the ideology.
Progressivism is what we really need.
Good old Bob La Follette or the Teddy Roosevelt who spoke at Osawotomie Kansas 31 August 1910
If the media, and I mean all media, were'nt so corrupt I wouldn't worry. But when a corrupt media get to decide what the American people supposedly want, it's not good. Just look how the media jumped into lock step with the Administration over the recent Tea Partys. With the exclusion of Fox all media decided ahead of time what it was all about and they all gave us the same story. Truely a coordinated effort by them and the White House. I know right know you are relishing in this new found power, but you will come to find it will become your worst nightmare.
Populism is deadly dangerous for the ruling class. They should be worried. Soon we will come for them.
Anyone who came of age just in time for the Grunge era of the early 90s can relate to populism. Growing up under the threat of HIV and constantly being 30 minutes from doom during your growing years is devastating to one's sense of patriotism. Of course, they blamed us and labeled us "X" and "generation nothing" and "the slacker generation". Surprise! The Slackers vote.
The "religious" right and the "moral" majority unwittingly created their own doom when they disenchanted us as children. Did they think we'd never grow up? I didn't. I thought the last thing I would see is a mushroom cloud before my 16th birthday.
Never again. The younger folks are with us as well. Politics is somewhat "cool" now. When I was a teen, I'd fall asleep if anybody said the word politics.
If history has taught us anything, its that America ceased to be "innocent" a long, long, long time ago. History adds up. The leadership has pushed the American people so far over the last countless decades, we no longer trust them and we have every right to feel that way. That's the key phrase "we have EVERY right". It scares the bejeezus out of influence peddlers (Blago and others) who have made a mockery of democracy and our 800 year old Magna Carta. Magna Carta and the Constitution are the only reason I still live here!
The torture was the last straw. I gasped when I saw the Abu-Graihb images the first time years ago. If I wanted to live under a government that violated human rights and didn't care about my opinion, I get in a magical Delorean and go back to 1985 Russia or 1963 Alabama.
Yes, its populous. Yes, the people are mad and fed up and they want to be what their founding fathers intended. They are tired of the lies. They are tired of being robbed of their right to the good kind of patriotism that brings tears to our eyes when the Star Spangled Banner plays. I am suspicious of leadership that wants to discourage my active citizenship.
"[America] I will listen to you especially when we disagree...."
Barack Obama, 11-4-08
According to Right wing oriented news sources and politicos Populism is dangerous if it is done by Liberals and they should be treated like terrorists, but when it is done by Right wingers it is considered Patriotism. This is the skewed way that the Right wing controlled media see it.
It's too bad, though, that the people can all too often be - on any given issue - dangerously ill-informed. It is this sad state of affairs, along with an incompetent and inept media, that gives 'populism' a bad rap.
Barack Obama ran as a populist candidate....bring the troops home, health care..limited but nevertheless health care, picked up the baton of environmental "reform", BIPARTISANSHIP in Congress and direct talks with even our enemies or those nations identified as such. Think, however, populism or making such a pitch in a political campaign may be challenged in the next big one because talk is cheap and fulfilling those promises have not not, at least YET, been brought to bear on the problems many of us would like to see solved. Granted it has only been 100 days but keeping the too big to fail corporations and banks in business, even if only as zombies, has taken precedence. Iraq doesn't seem to be able to achieve stability. The lack of bipartisanship will assure that universal health care will be a long and probably too difficult problem to be solved. Environmental concerns are still there but probably gets less attention now than at any time in the past. The tone seems to have been set by the Obama administration: banks, credit institutions, bond holders take precedent over any of the other issues. There will be no bankruptcy, too big to fail will continue, and we taxpayers are the only source of income these institutions will accept. Yep, I know; pretty gloomy. Perhaps this scenario will all change.....but populists will probably get a bad rap, even very popular ones.
Unfortunately for the argument posed in this essay, the US from its very conception has been a place where the elites have feared the unrestricted will of the mob, and as a result, the very structure of our government reflects this fear-- see the US Senate, where the 2 votes of the senators from Rhode Island are just as powerful as the 2 votes from the senators from California, although obviously, the populations in their respective states are vastly unequal-- therefore, a minority receives an undemocratic proportion of power to govern. Originally, only propertied white men had the right to vote. Originally, senators were elected by state legislatures or appointed by state governors. Even today, our media commentators by and large seem to fear the will of the public, and are constantly in the business of discounting public opinion as misinformed and irresponsible given supposed political and economic 'realities', of which the commentators are much more thoroughly aware, except in such cases as the public supports something the commentators do also.
Plus the Framers (while Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson were out of the country) came up with the ideas that the Senate aka House of Lords only had to run every 6 years while the people's House members had to run every two years. The system was rigged against democracy. But it looks like people are finally waking up to just how rigged it is.
Not exactly.
From "it's very conception" the country WAS more populist...under the Articles of Confederation. It was because of problems with too many state governments being controlled by the will of the mob that there was a push to a creating a new constitution in the late 1780s.
The new version of the government attempted to establish a more stable framework that wouldn't swing in the political breezes and would allow decisions to be made by people who could spend the time to become familiar with the issues.
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