Populism, In Name and Action

“what’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet — ”

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II

What is “Populism?”

What has to be grasped about Populism, most of all, is that Populism is not in any way a form of governance. It is both a philosophy–or ideology — and a way of dividing political power on a mass scale.

More bluntly, the world expresses an antagonism: But it is not just any division. The ideology of Populism is a version of Manicheanism: there is a force of Good, and a force of Evil. The Good is “the people.” and the Evil is the monopoly of power by a so-called Elite.

The former, the Good, are therefore properly Sovereign, a homogeneous but united mass. The latter is composed of soi-disant experts, who subject the People to their allegedly unique and by that same token unchallengeable pools of knowledge; and the experts who administer its rulings. Like Doctor Stockman, they become, as Ibsen unforgettably put it, “An Enemy of the People.”

So Doctor Fauci, who put his career and even life on the line in a partially successful attempt to lift the destructive burden of Covid-19;was posed against him RFK Jr., a charlatan who would consign children to disease or death without a whisper of concern.This is a particular example of how, in the absence of knowledge their most powerful voice is often be demagogic, calling spirits “from the vasty deep.”

II. Populism as an ideology has been, though this is not immediately obvious, usually associated with the Left, which is where its modern history began with rise of the Populist Party to represent the left-out voices of rural and agricultural America. Nowadays, though, it more and more speaks with the voices of Nationalism and Maleness; with the justification of violence against those who stand outside “The People.”

Thus Christopher Caldwell, a long-time conservative writer on the European scene, writes of the political philosopher Walter Streeck that “He resembles Karl Marx in his conviction that capitalism has certain internal contradictions that make it unsustainable — the more so in its present “neo-liberal” form…. His latest book asks whether the global economy as it is now set up is compatible with democracy. He has his doubts.”

How so?

Mr. Streeck (whose name rhymes with “cake”) argues that today’s contradictions of capitalism have been building for half a century. Between the end of World War II and the 1970s the working classes in Western countries won robust incomes and extensive protections. Profit margins suffered, but that was in the nature of what Mr. Streeck calls the “postwar settlement.”

“But starting in the 1970s, things began to change. Sometime after the Arab oil embargo of 1973, investors got nervous. The economy began to stall,” and Left-wing observers began to talk about “the declining rate of profit…” At each stage siince, key decisions have been made by technocrats, experts and other actors relatively insulated from democratic accountability. When the crash came in 2008, central bankers stepped in to take over the economy….”

“States finessed the matter by permitting the money supply to expand. Essentially, governments had begun borrowing from the next generation. Ronald Reagan’s supply-side regime eased the pain a bit, but only by running record government deficits. Bill Clinton was able to eliminate these, but only by deregulating private banking and borrowing,.. In other words, the dangerous debt exposure was shifted out of the Treasury and into the bank accounts of middle-class and working-class households. This led, eventually, to the financial crisis of 2008.

“As Mr. Streeck sees it, a series of (mostly American) attempts to calm the economy after the ’70s produced Neoliberalism,”which he argues, “was, above all, a political-economic project to end the inflation state and free capital from its imprisonment in the postwar settlement.” The transition to global capitalism “was tightly controlled by American government agencies, foundations and N.G.O.s, (that) were received with open arms by American corporations and the London real estate market.”

What is missing from this critique? Namely, any attempt to link it to the politics attendant on it, which seem to result in a typical resolution of post hoc, thus propter hoc. B follows A, thus A must have caused B. But there’s a yawning gap here.

III. First, where does the expression contemporary American disaffection actually begin? Not with the depressed working classes of the Rust Belt. Rather, with the founding of the Tea Party in 2010. And its evocation of its founding moment (not actually stamps dumped in Boston harbor) was anger at the Obama Administration’s decision to make financial aid available to needy people–a description which fit none of the actual Partygoers there. They powered the election of Donald Trump, initially an outlier in the Republican primaries, benefitting from the Electoral College defeat by Hillary Clinton who truly won the voice of “The People.” So much for that argument.

Second, populism featured the enthronement of violence as an expression of “the people.” Thus (from The Times) “ A recent Reuters investigation identified at least 300 cases of political violence since the 2021 assault on the Capitol, which it described as “the biggest and most sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s.” A 2023 poll showed that the number of Americans who agree with the statement “American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country” was ticking up alarmingly.

Third, and most destructive, is the spreading of an historically typical–and always available–contempt for “bureaucrats,” that is to say the people who actually do the work that winds up in all the kinds of support that we, and especially the environment, get from the resources of the richest nation in the world.

As Timothy Snyder put it, “Rejection of genuine expertise is both a precondition and a function of autocracy. Joseph Stalin’s regime outlawed genetics as ‘Pseudoscience,’ while he himself was declared an expert in all fields, from linguistics to biology.”

But we needn’t go back a Century to see what “expertise” does or does not imply. In the just-released film, Sepa Rated, by the documentarian Errol Morris, we learn that the Trumpian savagery of taking children from their parents at the Mexican border would have resulted in the permanent displacement (and trauma) and deaths of many of those children, had it not been for the secret heroism of civil servants who, despite a contrary command from the Trump hack who headed their department, kept track of the children so that they and their parents could one day be reunited.

So much for the easy contempt of a “populist” government without genuine expertise; without such an “elite.”

IV. On the contemporary scene at least, then, this is the language of Populism: it has enemies, and it is all right to deal with them accordingly. The People, on the other hand, are virtuous. Why? Because they are “the people.” Those who do not recognize the authority of “the people” are thus cast into the moral darkness, to be scorned and dominated.

Those who are not of “the people”–historically Jews most of all, as well as non-white people generally–are outcasts in their own country. On the other hand, where do these “experts,” these elites, come from that justifies this collection of unique powers? That depends on the legitimate–or illegitimate–form of governance in place.

But although neither Streeck nor Caldwell specifies it, the only form of governance that is currently challenged by populist forces is, in one form or another is democracy: the choice of a leader or leaders and policy makers after the free and fair elections overseen by the varied institutions that make up the Rule of Law.

Is Neo-liberalism–that is, a global economy in which banks as the setters of rules and the holders of mortgages brought about the collapse of 2008-incompatible with democracy so defined? Yes, to the extent that is true of capitalism itself, neither more nor less. But within that limit, “democracy” has managed to endure all sorts of” capitalism. “

Apparently no longer. For the neo-Marxist Streeck–as the uncompromising anti-migrant Caldwell interprets him: “Understand Mr. Streeck and you will understand a lot about the left-wing movements that share his worldview. But you will also understand Victor Orban, Brexit and Mr. Trump.”

So, there’s a nice parlay: Orban, Trump…and Bernie Sanders? AOC? No, a Fascist demagogue who befriends Nazis.And more straightforwardly announces that President Biden–the very antithesis of Neo-liberalism–will be arrested and tried for treason. Not to mention Kamala Harris and–I’ve lost track. Anyhow, no one objects. He’s an enemy, and “the people” have enemies.

There is no limit to what the “people” have done, from 2016 onward; and much worse, what they are preparing to do, and already doing, in the name of “2025.” Preparing, we must not forget, to read millions of fertile women out of the “”people” by depriving them of medical care,” while using the helpless minority of trans persons for target practice. All under the leadership of and other destroyers.” With no feedback at all, except from the Usual Suspects.

Looking now at the question of immigration, again we see the murderous outcome of ruling in the name of “the people.” Or in the name of Dobbs. There was cruelty of unparalleled propositions in our name during those (see the film mentioned above) but as various observers have pointed out, the cruelty is the point. Just so are the deaths of hundreds of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, while millions watch, and their killers brag–led by the Italian Fascist Melloni.

V. This is the penumbra of populism. Its shadow fazes them not at all: “The left must embrace populism, which is merely the name given to the struggle over an alternative to globalism. With globalism collapsing under its own contradictions, all serious politics is now populist in one way or another.”

I like that “one way or another.” Say the German way, where the Nazis rise again–no Neo– or Proto–or just good old plain Nazis? The kind who raised their flags on January 6th, and marched in Charlottesville. Or who, everywhere in Eastern or Central Europe are trying to destroy democracy. “Merely the name”.

Or above all, in the U.S., where the deepest embrace of all is between plutocrats and and the lover of autocrats everywhere, starting with himself. All serious politics starts with populism?

Yes, the murderous, unbending struggle. to destroy enemies: that is, all those “people” who don’t bend the knee. When I was a college student, I was Vice-President of Students for Democratic Action on the campus; the Chair of the of the Young Republicans was a good friend, and for years afterwards. Lots of opponents around, not all of us Democrats by any means, but not an enemy in sight.

Now, all this cruelty and mass virtue in the name of Marx: you’ve got to be kidding, been there, done that.