from Paul Krugman's NY TIMES column today:
>What are the political implications? When Al Gore wrote an Op-Ed
article condemning the elitist policies of the Bush administration,
pundits - and many Democratic politicians, including his former running
mate - jumped on him with both feet. Populism, everyone insisted,
doesn't work in American politics.
>Yet conservatives enthusiastically rely on populism - fake populism,
based on staged shmoozing with ordinary Americans and attacks on the
imagined cultural elitism of the liberal media. Why shouldn't liberals,
who actually have the facts on their side, try engaging in the real
thing? <
I doubt that PK is really endorsing Jim Hightower-type populism, but
it's notable that he's breaking with the IMF-type view that populism is
a dirty word.
Jim
