Populism: “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” — Oxford Languages.
Political scientists and armchair analysts (guilty) have long wondered why so many voters repeatedly vote against their self-interest. Chalk it up to emotion over reason. And note that politics is not the only arena in which people make bad choices because of harmful influences. Many regretted decisions arise from anger and alcohol. In politics, it is fear that often trumps reason. Autocrats understand this well, which is why the path to dictatorship is so often paved with populism.
And it never ends well.
Populism is easy. The cynical politician tells people who the boogeyman is. Promise they are against the bogeyman. And that, once in power, they will kill (metaphorically, wink wink) the bogeyman. The aspiring autocrat will attract all the people who now believe the bogeymen has targeted them personally. As a garnish, the budding tyrant will add, “I alone can fix it.”
Trump was one of these opportunists. He checked all the populist boxes. He would stand up against felonious illegals, socialists, Muslims, feminists, civil rights for minorities, socialists, LGBTQ groomers, 2A deniers, and atheists. His solutions were grandiose and simplistic — a border wall, executing drug dealers, preserving Christmas, firing government employees, creating jobs, tariffs, and replacing “socialized” medicine.
What plans did he have to achieve these amorphous goals? Mexico was going to pay for the wall, which everyone knew was ridiculous — and the administration built a total of 47 miles of new primary barriers. No one enacted legislation making drug trafficking a capital offense. There were no pro-Christmas laws. The federal government has as many employees as before. And the increase in employment was wiped out by a laissez-faire attitude to a pandemic, as GDP growth also evaporated.
Trump's worst domestic failure before COVID was his inability to replace Obamacare. It has now been almost 13 years since the ACA passed — and neither Trump nor the GOP has ever had a plan for the oft-promised: “better, cheaper, more universal healthcare.”
To whip up the base, he demonized Muslims, BLM, scientists, Mexican rapists, Democrats, experts, the media, immigrants in general, Bible thieves and gun grabbers, the Deep State, election riggers, and socialists. And his baying pack lapped it up.
Trump may no longer be in power — and his whine-rants have become predictable, unoriginal, and boring — but the GOP is running with the baton. Eunuch McCarthy and his rabid mongrels have proffered few plans or policies. While they have committed to endless investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden, the DoJ, the FBI, the J6 Committee, et al.
So far, their only legislation has been to restrict abortion further, cancel the IRS’s additional future funding (a move the CBO calculates will add $114 billion to the deficit), and establish a select subcommittee "on the Weaponization of the Federal Government." None of this — except the Committee — will go anywhere as the Democrats control the Senate and presidency. And the GOP has shown zero interest in building interparty cooperation. It is nothing more than “messaging” legislation.
In fairness, the GOP’s resolution creating a "Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” enjoys significant bipartisan support. However, that is more a reflection that a broken clock is right twice a day rather than a sign of common sense and comity breaking out on the right.
Populism is a powerful tool because it is simplistic and it knows its audience. There will not be any challenging questions like “How?” Take immigration. It is a complex issue. But the Republican solution involves magic wands and a wall. In the populist imagination, this border barrier will also solve America’s fatal drug pandemic.
They do not explain how building a 1,250-mile wall (the original Trump proposal) along the southern border would prevent fentanyl etc. from being smuggled across the US’s remaining 10,526 miles of land and coastal border. Especially as they have no policy to reduce addiction in America.
But populism relies on the support of fearful voters too scared and ill-equipped to ask questions. The GOP has warned that the Democrats are coming for America’s guns since Obama’s election in 2008 — and yet there are far more guns in private hands now than there were then. The red states are the new Wild West. And the Supreme Court has enabled permissive gun legislation in every state while restricting blue states from protecting their citizens from Rambo wannabes.
Despite the supposed assault on religious liberty by the godless horde, the government of the country and the various states (including the liberal ones) remains firmly in the hands of God-worshippers. The decline in religiosity in America is not a product of an atheist plot. It is due to the institutional bigotry of fundamentalist churches promoting enforced social control. Many Americans still reject bullying — even when someone’s God is all for it.
So blind are the willing victims of populism to their own abasement that they describe their political opponents as “sheeple”. This is ironic as “Pastor” is the Latin for “shepherd”. But the populist politician need not worry that any of their targets will appreciate the irony, as that crowd has abnegated their responsibility to think.
Am I too harsh? I wish I were. But everyone with MAGAs among their friends and family realizes that those lost souls have renounced reason and enslaved themselves to other people’s thinking. It is so sad. As the Negro College Fund says in a different context, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”