Thread Of What Is Populism & (Why) Is It Bad?

populism, in american politics, often invokes william jennings bryan and his ability to drum up social protest and common sentiment. much of his legacy, if you judge him by people who claim to have been influenced by his stances, is enshrined in the expansion of the federal government to protect and uplift the lower and middle classes, seemingly putting it at odds with latter day populism

the main criticism of populism as a political stance is it's literally giving the crowds what they want without determining the underlying problem fueling their demands. in the 1920s and 1930s, agriculture was unstable enough that a lot of farmland was foreclosed on by banks and put up for auction. the populist movement of farmers felt that while the market was bad, the banks were the enemy, along with the courts upholding the foreclosures. a number of the auctions were flooded by farmers threatening violence unless the land was sold back to the original owner at a negligible cost (sometimes a penny).

the problem wasn't the immediate economic downfall in farming but the cyclical and sometimes volatile agriculture market. government price controls, government subsidized purchase programs allowing storage and sale in off years, and even programs with farmers paid to leave land fallow stabilized the market.

so, populist solutions aren't inherently bad but are often a band-aid on top of the obvious surface issue in that they attack perceived problems and aim for short-term returns. the privileging of the common voice tends to eschew expert opinion, meaning complex economic and social issues are difficult to address

the primacy of expert opinion has some crummy proponents tho, all the way back to Plato. and any check or balance on a naked majority vote in the name of democracy will always be difficult to justify democratically.

the tyranny of the mob and the will of the people aren't really separate entities when you come down to it

It may feel good to put the common man in charge, but there are complex issues in our contemporary society for which we would benefit having someone who knows what they're doing.

This is a vastly overrated sentiment imo -- some competency is necessary but far from sufficient, and the emphasis on "competency" (as we saw with HRC's resume-driven campaign) kind of obscures that politics is about interests and constituencies; President is not a profession the way being a doctor or a programmer or a VP of marketing is.

rushomancy otm, mostly

it's a semi-useful attitude when someone is trying to sell you snake oil ("is there really expert knowledge here, and does this person have it?") but in any legitimate field it's generally a garbage stance. unless everyone in that field is working toward a goal you disagree with, but even then, it's a question of how long you can hedge your support against expert knowledge before reality kicks in

to take an extreme example, if the majority voted to kill the minority, i think that the majority could be constrained from being permitted to act on that impulse without imperiling the principle of democratic rule.

imo the thing that some people are up in arms about is that president of the united states is a position that requires a great number of experts, whether it is in appointments to do specific jobs, or advisory roles where the area of interest requires inside knowledge

there are only so many people with extensive knowledge of, say, banking. and of those who aren't in the industry, they're either going to be academic sources or those who have worked in a legislative capacity previously. so screaming about people who have been bankers being asked to opine on banking... idk, do you pick someone who had a checking account once, instead?

on the other hand, the secretary of education pick seems to be someone who has heard of public education and doesn't like it, so I guess that's a strategy

xp

i think that's a question of percentages and how you define democracy. you could argue that a state in which some kind of unelected elite sets boundaries to what the populace can vote for is not "democratic" in the commonly understood general meaning of that word

that doesn't mean such a state would be preferable to one where some form of majority decision was able to enact any policy, just that it would probably involve some kind of power structure, open or hidden, which was fundamentally undemocratic

"wouldn't be preferable", sorry

i tend to go back to Judge Robert H. Jackson's majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette myself

there are only so many people with extensive knowledge of, say, banking.

absolutely, but their advice about banking is no more likely to be neutral information at the service of the electorate than a military expert's advice is likely to be neutral, etc etc

It's also worth remembering that there is nothing necessarily racist about populism:

http://ncpedia.org/fusion-republicans-and-populists

Debates about things like the role of banking and how it should be regulated are unsettled even among the top minds in economics and finance. Expertise is necessary but not sufficient. It's not like hiring a pilot, where the range of "good" decisions in flying a plane is pretty narrow.

NV are you just broadly sketching the differences between direct democracy and representative democracy?

the US model of government is a kind of self-defined republic with one fully-elected branch, one with the leaders elected, and a third that is appointed with the candidates proposed by one branch and approved by the other. there is no real way to put a single issue up for popular vote nationwide (like the brexit vote) in that any law that applies to all states must be passed by the national congress (and signed by the president). constitutional amendments are put up for approval but passed by all states individually.

yeah, banking is a convoluted and ugly thing and was the first pick that came to mind, but not really a good example

i'm thinking more hypothetically than "how it works in the real world" but i think you can argue that the devil in the details of representative systems is the space where a genuine unelected elite exerts its control over the system and ensures it stays within the bounds it desires

idk we can debate about what things are in theory instead of the real world but populism's main pitch is that it's inherently non-theory

maybe so but i would argue that the inchoate resentments it harnesses are often based on very blurred perceptions of real problems

like if you resent them elites for undemocratically dictating to you, you're not entirely wrong

there are some higher-level thoughts but at a low level it's "tell people what they want to hear and then give them what they want"

it's like asking a thousand people with broken-down cars on the side of the road what they want

some are going to say "give me a new car"
some are going to blame the roads for screwing up their car
some will want their car taken to the cheapest mechanic possible
some will have a specific mechanic they will ask their car be towed to

almost no one will say "I want a light rail line that goes from my work to my home" because they don't realize a thousand people are having the exact same problem, live in the same area, and work in the same area. the real problem is that there's not reliable transportation from point A to B, not the road per se

but yes, that's a best case scenario, and in all likelihood i'm saddled with a government who thinks a light rail line between two points is the solution to most problems, the rail company lobbyist is one candidate's former employee, capital for the rail lines is a line-item on the state budget whether they're even a good solution anymore, etc

It's a pejorative term. I can't think of any politician describing themselves as a populist

If you don't like a successful politician then they're a populist. If you do like them then they're listening to people's concerns and fighting for what's really important

in the same sense that "liberal" is a pejorative term i suppose

think beppe grillo once referred to himself as a populist, cuz italian politicians love to troll like no other

but it's a term that's also seen some kind of rehabilitation in some of the left-wing movements that are interested in a more flattened if not exactly direct democracy and links to grass roots activism etc, e.g. podemos, syriza, maybe even momentum i dunno