The Power of Popular Culture Chapter 3 Populism and Popular Politics
For the past decade and more, Europe has witnessed the growing successes an unexpected kind of politics, that of the New Right. This is not the Old Right, not by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, there are some commonalities, but the differences are profound and basic to the entire movement. . The Left persists in identifying the New Right with the Old Right, however, a development that, while it may feed into the prejudices of Leftists, is regarded by more and more people, everyone who actually knows something about current politics, as a caricature. . Europe has seen the rise of New Right political parties in Sweden, in Spain (where there also is a new Radical Centrist party), in France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and still other nations. These parties are all, to varying degrees, populist but very modern. None of them replay the 1930s, not if they intend to be taken seriously. There are a few examples of neo-Nazism, like Golden Dawn in Greece, but that isn't the future. The most relevant model is Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party in Holland. Indeed, far from being anti-Semitic, Wilders is a frequent visitor to Israel, a country he admires greatly. And, unlike his establishment opponents, Wilders actually does serious research into issues like Islam and the effects of immigration. That is, the tables are turned completely. At one time the news media could claim, with some justification in fact, that Rightists were poorly informed, and maybe poorly educated. Where we are now is that journalists and their allies on the political Left are the ones who are poorly informed and it is the Rightists who draw upon a wealth of knowledge. There still is plenty of ignorance to go around, that is not in dispute. The point is that the snobbery of the Left towards all things not-Left is out of touch with reality. And Popular Culture has not caught up with the new reality. Now and then people on the Left are able to sense that something is wrong with their chosen paradigm. An example is a Jeff Guo article published in the Washington Post on November 8, 2016: "A new theory for why Trump voters are so angry — that actually makes sense." This thoughtful essay deserves serious attention that few people on the Left are likely to ever give it, and more attention than a few sentences here, but it is worth your time. The gist of Guo's analysis is his conclusion that "American politics have become increasingly tribal;" indeed, our tribe, whatever it is, not only gives us a sense of identity (as a high tech person with a high tech worldview, as a single mother whose frame of reference is dominated by the black community, etc) but also gives people an interpretation of reality. Of what is important in life. Added to this are the feelings of population groups who have been left behind by the rush into the global economy on the part of mega-corporations, on the part of the chattering classes, on the part of the monied elite, on the part of mass merchandisers, and so forth. This has meant loss of decent jobs and with it a feeling that "they weren’t getting respect." One way of putting it with respect to white people who have been blue collar workers for generations is that "they think we’re a bunch of redneck racists." And just who is to blame? Elites. People who live in major cities. Plus, we might add, many or maybe most academics, many public school teachers, many politicians, and many well-connected business people whose frame of reference isn't local, it is international. That is: "White voters feel the American Dream is drifting out of reach for them, and they are angry because they believe minorities and immigrants have butted in line." The result is growing resentment and the desire to tear down the system. In so many words, we get the view: " I am so pissed off. I am really the victim of injustice." What was especially galling was how these same people were more than willing to give Obama a chance; he was different, he promised change that would not leave the existing political system intact. And he advertised himself as above partisanship, as a de facto Independent even if he was a Democrat of convenience. But he was no such thing. It took many people four years or longer to realize how badly they had been deceived but by 2016 the changeover was under way everywhere. Obama had been a fraud; he not only was a Democrat, he was a "hard Left" Democrat who had a social agenda that was little different than that of Cultural Marxism. What made it worse was how Obama's presidency had emboldened some of the most aggressive and alien elements in the black population, like Muslims, to demand power and make claims on American culture that were foreign to anything traditional you can think of. The "post-racial" presidency of Barack Hussein had, in effect, demoted white people, elevated many black people with dubious records (think Holder or neo-Communist Valerie Jarrett), and turned its back on America's Christian heritage. Was it really a surprise that white America rejected Hillary in 2016 despite how unqualified Donald Trump was for high office? In poll after poll, white voters were asked questions about Trump's fauxs pas, about his inconsistent views, about his outrageous statements, and all the rest, and the response was that they did not like any of it. Yet they voted for him anyway. The thought of four more years of something like Obama, but in the form of a crabby old woman who now wanted to elevate gender feminism into state policy, was simply too much. "To hell with all of that," they said in so many words. Which is a lesson the Democrats still have not learned. . They can't. For, you see, inasmuch as many or most Democrats do not have a normal religion, the Democratic Party serves this function. Hence every political issue is a "religious" issue, a matter of belief, facts don't really matter unless they support that belief, and everything must be judged in accordance to whether it aligns with party doctrine. Indeed, as Guo concluded, what we find are 'liberals' who say: "There is no justification for these [lowbrow] points of view, and why should I ever show respect for these points of view by spending time and listening to them?" We are at the place now where American majorities -outside of California and New York- no longer spend time or listen to the political Left. This is not only to talk about elites as usually understood. It is also to talk about the news media. An article by Will Rahn published at CBS News on November 10, 2016, deserves review. The essay, "The unbearable smugness of the press," also is a valuable contribution to understanding American politics in the context of American culture. This suggests an episode from South Park, about how upscale 'liberals' were all buying hybrid cars as a means to combat pollution. The "cause" of going hybrid was all consuming, people were outdoing one another, moreover, in championing every Left-wing value that came to their attention. Gone were clouds of smog. However, there was a new danger. Hanging over the town of South Park was a new and ugly cloud of "smug": Which is the self-righteousness exuded by snooty if not snotty 'liberals' who take the view that they are better than everyone else, that no other values than their own have any value. The only worse examples of vast clouds of smug are those that smother San Francisco and Hollywood, the latter all coming from the movie industry and its odiously self-righteous screen actors and actresses. We can add journalists to the list of powerful sources of smug. Will Rahn's article starts by noting the conviction by nearly everyone in the news media that Hillary would win. Not only a conviction but blatant pro-Hillary partisanship. Probably 90% of journalists supported Mrs. Clinton. "Which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, _we also missed the story_ (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-donald-trump-candidate-of-change/) ." To quote verbatim from the article: "This is all symptomatic of modern journalism's great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won there'd be a winking "we did it" feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic." "So much for that." "The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited." Indeed, the press behaved as if they were on a religious crusade, with haughty missionaries supported by the British Raj in India in the 19th century as a sort of model of the nature of things. To exaggerate only by a little, "believe us or we will shoot you" simply became "believe us or we will humiliate you" in its American incarnation for 2016. The problem, Rahn continued, "starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that its our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshipping their false god and accept our gospel?" An unhealthy attitude was pervasive. "Out on the road, we forget to ask the right questions. We can't even imagine the right question. We go to assignments too certain that what we find will serve to justify our biases. The public's estimation of the press declines even further....." At least as hyperbole, journalists see themselves as a "priestly caste." "We believe we not only have access to indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice." It gets worse from there. "You'd think that Trump's victory -the one we all discounted too far in advance- would lead to a newfound humility in the political press. But of course that's not how it works. To us, speaking broadly, our diagnosis was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger than we realized." "This is all a "whitelash," you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so there must be more racists and sexists than we realized." The election result "was not a logic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate named Clinton; no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and progress. Let the new tantrums commence." "That's the fantasy, the idea that if we mock them enough, call them racist enough, they'll eventually shut up and get in line." Its a realm "where people who dissent from the proper [Left wing] framing of story are attacked by mobs of smugly incredulous pundits. Journalists exist primarily in a world where people can get shouted down and disappear, which informs our attitudes toward all disagreement." Indeed, the only motives that dissenters from "liberal" orthodoxy can possibly have are malevolent, or even immoral in character. When all is said, the fact that news people "so frequently get things hilariously wrong never invites the soul-searching you'd think it would. Instead, it all just somehow leads us to more smugness, more meanness, more [unjustified] certainty from the reporters and pundits. Faced with defeat, we retreat further into our bubble, assumptions left unchecked. No, its the voters who are wrong." And it gets still worse. Reference now is to an article by David Harsanyi published in the November 10, 2014 edition of The Federalist. The title is- Democrats: History is on Our Side History: Good Luck with That The Liberal Inevitability Hypothesis has a few holes The research is brilliant. Here is how the essay starts: "If many liberals seem unconcerned about their party’s future after a midterm trouncing, it’s only because many have bought into the comforting notion that history is theirs. Even in defeat, liberals are predestined for victory. The intellectual case for progressivism is unassailable. The potency of their moral case makes them unstoppable. Demography is destiny. Old people die. White people disappear..." What was true in 2014 became even more true as the result of the 2016 election debacle. The worst candidate for the presidency -ever- defeated the darling of the Democratic Party establishment with a convincing electoral college trouncing. The demographic tide that was supposed to return the Senate to the Democrats and wipe out most of the GOP margin in the House simply did not materialize. How could this have happened? You can't say it better than David Harsanyi: "The most obvious reason people with high certitude about the future typically end up looking foolish is the volatility of history." "As some of you may have noticed, from time to time unforeseen "events" crop up and adjust people's perceptions about the world. Sometimes a charismatic leader emerges and convinces a whole bunch of Americans to think differently about politics. Quite often, charismatic leaders end up disappointing voters and everything changes again. And other times a political party's preferred policies result in disasters." In addition there may be wars, or important peace treaties, economic booms or financial messes, or God knows what, and its a whole new ball game. As you don't need to guess, voters react to such things. Their reactions are not known beforehand, and, depending on what political leaders actually do, the reactions may be very different at the next election, or even well before that. The trajectory is never set in stone no matter how promising the trends may seem. Trend forecasting is useful, it tells you the direction of the political winds. And if a futurist is really smart, like Kevin Phillips in 1969, the result may be a book that, while it may not tell you who wins each election, tells you who will win most elections. But so far, attempts by Democrats to equal the success of The Emerging Republican Majority have all fizzled. It seems that the Democratic 'experts' are reading the numbers wrong. Not to mention their massive failure to understand the "one off "nature of the Obama phenomenon. The only thing I can compare it to is the popularity of a Ponzi scheme. Or of the Ghost Dance religion among American Indians in the late 19th century. Either way, large numbers of people get swept up in the excitement, in a fever, and for the duration they lose all power of rationality. At the end they have staked everything on numbers that are unsustainable or on the charisma of someone with far less talent than advertised and are left holding the bag. In 2016 it was Hillary who was left holding the bag. Her and millions of disillusioned but very angry Democrats. And now the party that refuses to learn anything at all from history is at is again. The party's sachems are convinced that all those Hispanics will grow and grow and vote Left. All those millennials who put Obama over the top, twice, will mature and vote for whomever most resembles Obama, in all presidential elections until hell freezes over. Women will vote Democratic in increasing numbers. Black people will continue to vote 93% Democratic. And on, and on. All of which is false. About Hispanics, since they have very high birth rates, you might think that the Democratic narrative is as solid as such things get. However, the fastest growing religion in this population is Evangelical Pentecostalism. And while there will be very large numbers of people with names like Sanchez or Zamora in America's future, news flash: 50% of Hispanics "look white" and consider themselves white. Like my physician in Arizona some years ago, Dr. Cortez. I could have asked him without a trace of irony: "Where in Norway are you from?" As for the distaff gender, although Hillary won college educated women she lost all other female voters. The black vote for Democrats shrunk to 87%. And Jews, still a clear majority Democratic, haven't cast a larger percentage for Republicans since Reagan. Despite the near universal opinion among this population that Trump is a putz. Or is the word schmuck? My Yiddish is kind of weak. And I have not even mentioned Asians, now about 5% of the electorate. True, they still mostly vote Democratic but (A) Buddhists hate abortion and (B) there is one racial minority the Republicans have made real efforts to win over, with two of India background becoming governors; Nikki Haley is now part of the Trump administration. Ex-governor Jindal of Louisiana, term-limited, is waiting in the wings for his next chance at higher office. But here's the real kicker: "What is also often ignored is that one of the most critical groups needed to win elections are old folks – a group Democrats are increasingly losing. As a number of people have pointed out, the largest growing demographic group in the United States is the elderly. And not only are they stubbornly replenishing but they keep sticking around longer." The article went on to cite a report in the Daily Beast to the effect that: "In the 2012 election, those 65 years or older were 17 percent of the total vote. To put this in perspective, the Hispanic vote will probably be 15 percent of the electorate by 2030." Or more like 8% if "white" Latinos self-identify as white. What does this do to the calculus that assures us that "those cranky detestable conservatives will soon die and young people who share our enlightened liberal values will soon take their place" ? Actually, it destroys it. At least until about 2035. There are, to note the obvious, four presidential elections between now and then, 2020, 2024, 2028, and 2032. "The idea that Millennials, who in large numbers are uninformed and uninterested in politics are fated to embrace fixed lifelong ideological positions that comport with today's Democratic Party's seems to be a bit of wishful thinking. (Even today, most of them are unwilling to do the hard work of democracy -filling out a mail-in ballot.)" Are the Democrats capable of new ideas? Not from what I have seen on CNN, PBS, or the major networks. MSNBC isn't worth watching so I cannot comment about that organization. At any rate, as the article added, "Democrats campaigned like a party devoid of ideas in 2014, relying heavily on the exhausted “War on Women” and class warfare rhetoric." Basically 2016 was a replay with approximately the same outcome. The deficiencies of Hillary Rodham as a candidate, her "unlikeability," only go so far in explaining Trump's victory. More relevant is the political tide he took advantage of, "going with the flow," riding a wave. This is to talk about emerging 21st century populism. In American history there have been several populist upsurges, starting with the "classic" case, that of the 1880s, which led to the rise of the People's Party in 1892, which won a number of western states (Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, etc), followed by fusion with the Democratic Party and the 1896 candidacy of William Jennings Bryan. That populism morphed, via a circuitous path, into the "Progressive" movement best known in the form given it by Teddy Roosevelt -which is basically unrelated to today's political Left which borrowed and bastardized the term. Next came Southern populism of the 1920s, which was predominantly a "redneck" movement -using the word in a non-pejorative sense, simply by way of largely self-identification and folklore.This was the movement led by Tom Watson, Bryan's 1896 running mate / vice presidential candidate. Watson, a Georgia writer and newspaperman, took over the Southern branch of the People's Party, what remained after the Northern branch signed on with the Democrats. At first a leader who favored black rights, by the 1920s, en route to fusion with Dixie Democrats, Watson became an outspoken racist. This became normative Southern populism from then on, until the 1960s. Whether or not to characterize Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat bolt from the Democratic Party in 1948 as a "populist" movement is open to debate, but it had elements of populism even if not one of its distinguishing characteristics, substantial appeal outside of its core area. The Dixiecrats were strictly a Southern phenomenon with almost no appeal anywhere else. An actual form of populism -centered in the South but by no means confined there- emerged under leadership of George Wallace in 1968, running as a third party candidate for the presidency. Wallace gained the electoral votes of five Dixie states, including his native Alabama, with large scale support in another dozen states scattered across the map. In the 1990s a populist uprising developed at about the time that Dole was gaining strength as a possible Republican candidate for the White House. Perhaps something might have come of this but the most committed voters with populist feelings gravitated to insurgent Pat Buchanan, whom the GOP elbowed out of contention, but Dole, wholly out of his element as a presumptive populist, was unable to take any kind of leadership role in the movement and it withered on the vine. Then came the Tea Party of 2009, which in 2010 had proven itself to be a major force in American politics, allied to the Republican Party. This was a national incarnation of populism, with very little of the racism of the past, focused on economics and on social issues that were mostly unrelated to skin color. The massive GOP Congressional victories that year, and in 2014, were populist success stories. In 2016, despite the dislike of many people with populist inclinations for billionaire Donald Trump, many nonetheless voted for him as someone who at least heard their voice. Their unwritten slogan might be summarized as: "Just Maybe..." Which is where we are today. There is one other factor of real consequence. The rise of contemporary populism coincides with the rise of nationalism in Europe -with some notable outliers, especially India under Narendra Modi. Indeed, Trump's victory can be seen as directly related to the British "Brexit vote" to leave the European Union -as well as to the ascendency of people like Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who endorsed Trump, and Marine Le Pen, of the National Front (FN) in France. There are other movements now afoot in Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, etc., and, of course, the Netherlands. The era of Left-leaning "establishment politics" is either fading or is under siege. Indeed, there may even be a Left-wing version of populism in the United States, if this isn't somewhat misleading since there are differences. Yet people did see commonalities between OWS -Occupy Wall Street- during its fairly short moment in the Sun primarily in 2011, and the Tea Party. At any rate, the efflorescence of OWS set the stage for the rise of Bernie Sanders as a strong alternative to Hillary in 2016. Which, had Bernie been successful, would have led to a most interesting election, as one comedy skit characterized it, a contest between a Socialist and a Sociopath. We only got the sociopath. An excellent summation of these developments can be found in the November 19, 2016, edition of The Economist, by various writers, under the title: "League of nationalists." What is common to all of the Western forms of populist politics is revulsion against massive immigration -Muslim immigration specifically, not so much with respect to America, however, where the major issue is Mexican and other Hispanic population inundation. Still, even in the United States there is reaction against Muslims. This has to be qualified to the extent that an unknown percentage of Muslims in America are Sufis, possibly in the 10% range, most of whom, by far, are as peaceful as anyone might desire. Also, of any Western democracy, Muslims in the US are most apt to secularize and blend into the general population. This is far less than for sectarian Christians -or Buddhists or Hindus, who usually fit in with few problems- since Muslims are very resistant to any kind of "melting pot" outcome, but compared to Muslims elsewhere they are models of integration. Regardless, large numbers of rapes committed by Somali Muslims in Maine, outlandish street prayers commandeering city blocks for the purpose in areas of Manhattan, Muslim taxi drivers who refuse to allow "seeing eye" dogs into their cabs even though that is the only way for blind people to function, and all kinds of other objectionable behaviors, the practice of female genital mutilation by some Muslim groups, honor killings in several places, plus terror attacks by immigrants or offspring of immigrants, have made many Americans very unhappy with these barbarians. Which is what they are. In Europe the situation is dire. Which is not even to discuss entire neighborhoods in many major cities where de facto Shariah systems prevail and white people dare not enter for fear of physical assault. As for the problem of rape committed by Muslims, as bad as it can get in a few places in the United States, it in unspeakably worse in Europe. Not that The Economist discussed all of this, mostly it alluded to such problems, but even the allusions were powerful. As the article said of events in France, the growing attitude now is: It should be "up to non-Christians whose religions impose dietary restrictions to make do with the food on offer, not up to schools to accommodate them." Swedes have a common complaint heard all over Europe: "Sweden’s generous welfare system might not survive a big influx of poor, fertile Muslim asylum-seekers." And Britain’s vote in June to leave the EU was also the result of a nationalist turn. Campaign posters for “Brexit” depicted hordes of Middle Eastern migrants clamouring to come in." And everywhere, America as well as Europe, you hear: Our "schools are overfilled with foreigners.” The French are the most negatively disposed, and the hardest hit by terror attacks and massive rioting by Muslims, and the view there is hardening: "French voters are strikingly opposed to globalisation and international trade, and few think immigrants have had a positive effect on their country." And no-one likes the fact that, out of necessity, " I have to defend myself against the threat of others.” That is, against lawless Muslims. After all, western laws are invalid, the only "law" that is binding is Shariah, which to most Americans and others, those who are informed anyway, is legitimized sado-masochistic savagery. This also helps explain the appeal of Vladimir Putin to Russians -and some number of non-Russians as well. Putin is open about his opposition to anti-Christianization and, while hardly a defender of freedom of religion as we understand it, he supports the Russian Orthodox Church and at least some other Christian groups, including Catholics and Baptists. Putin is also openly opposed to homosexuality and regards the tolerance shown to such specimens as inexcusable decadence. About which probably most eastern Europeans could not agree with him more. Putin also knows that 'peace with Islam' is a suicidal concept. The values of believing Muslims are approximately the exact opposite of anything you can find in Europe, including Russia, or the United States, not to mention Australia, Brazil, Japan, and many other countries. Some (nominal) Muslims think so too. Speaking of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, the article notes that, as far as troubles in his country go, and there are many including the collapse of the tourist industry because of fears by potential visitors of getting killed while sight-seeing, thus "his regime blames Islamists for everything." All of this now goes into the new populism. And it "owes a lot to cultural factors, too. Many Westerners, particularly older ones, liked their countries as they were and never asked for the immigration that turned Europe more Muslim and America less white and Protestant. They object to their discomfort being dismissed as racism." Nationalists, aka, populists, also "dislike the balkanisation of their countries into identity groups, particularly when those groups are defined as virtuous only to the extent that they disagree with the nation’s previously dominant history. White Americans are starting to act as if they were themselves a minority pressure group." What do populists think when they contemplate today's 'liberals'? They know that whatever else is true the contemporary Left is nothing like the Left of an earlier era. Leftists may regard themselves as an enlightened intellectual aristocracy, or, anyway, as a "well informed" proletariat, but that is not how populists see them. Instead, they believe that they must confront an elite class of snobs who are ridiculously out of touch with the American citizenry. As the article in The Economist said, for Leftists there are two kinds of identity that are "good." These are: (1) Be a conscientious global citizen, be concerned with climate change and issues like worker conditions in Bangladesh, and (2) belong to an identity group that is unrelated to America in any historic sense at all. That is, identify yourself as Muslim first, or as a Mexican who waves Mexican flags at demonstrations, or as a homosexual, or as a feminist. Never take pride in being American. Indeed, criticize and condemn America every chance you get. You may have never read any Cultural Marxist texts but others have; learn to speak their political language and rant to your heart's content about "oppressors" -or "diversity" as superior to every form of tradition or community. And denigrate religion to everyone who will listen. This is what it amounts to. Is it any wonder that the unofficial slogan of populists in the United States is the same as it is in Britain or elsewhere in Europe? To cite the essay: "We want our country back." And hence Theresa May, the new Prime Minster of the United Kingdom who has said: “If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere." Is it also any wonder that conservative and other voters don't care about Donald Trump's blatant chauvinism? He is saying, in rough or even crude language, exactly what they want to hear. The Economist article, striving to steer the narrative to the Left, repeatedly, did add that the "university-educated population, in Britain as in America, less than 10% in the years following WWII, has now risen to about 40% in both countries, with similar statistics for Germany and other European nations, and, hence, we can expect a different future. That is, the younger generations are far less anxious about social change than their elders. For instance, "although just 37% of French people believe that “globalisation is a force for good”, 77% of 18- to 24-year-olds do. The new nationalists are riding high on promises to close borders and restore societies to a past homogeneity. But if the next generation holds out, the future may once more be cosmopolitan." Or not. As we have seen, this point of view has all the hallmarks of the Leftist fantasy scenario. After all, the young may wake up one day and say, loud and clear: "You know, all this multi-cultural Political Correctness stuff we have been fed every year since we can remember, is a pile of crap." But, needless to say, the Left isn't the only problem. Other young people of a different persuasion might say, "you know, all this ego-centric libertarian nonsense we have been fed is pure horse poop. Life is far more than self-gratification and gimmie, gimmie, gimmie." Still others might put it like this: "You know, all this propaganda we have been fed about how the market is infallible and money is the measure of all things, is completely ridiculous and is nothing but rubbish." Maybe, if the right amount of you-know-what hits the fan, that will be what it takes to transform the Millennial generation into a population of people who think for themselves, who refuse not to think for themselves, rendering the ideologues of Left and Right obsolete. What makes this kind of turnabout seem more likely than not is another fact that the article calls to our attention. Electronic communications are in the process of changing how we think; they already have changed how we process information. Dramatically. Person-to-person contact is virtually instantaneous and it covers the Earth. News from Moscow, Russia, can become news in Moscow, Idaho, in seconds. And the other way around. And a million people can send text messages on the subject to each other within another few seconds. On the subject of how we think, reference should be to a new book by Mary Aiken, The Cyber Effect. She specializes in the study of how computers and other communications media effect how our brains function. Aiken is actually "Dr. Aiken;" she was recently awarded the world's first Ph.D in the field of forensic cyber psychology. We now have international or even global populism and a large part of the reason why it is similar in America and Europe, plus other places, is the fact that it isn't only information that is being shared, but ideas. And hence another fact, that you cannot pigeonhole today's Right -or Left- in terms that were expressions of political orthodoxy as recently as the 1980s. Another article that discusses the 'new populism' can be found in the February 2, 2017, issue of the New York Times. The "Peculiar Populism of Donald Trump" by Thomas Edsall argues that while the culture wars seem to have been won by the Left, not so fast. There is more to think about than what is most obvious. And, to add to Edsall's observations, we need to remember that certainties of the era before Nixon were overthrown, many were, and how did that come about? Who is to say that it won't happen again? In fact, history includes a roster of social reversals that, if changes, once 'certified,' are forever-set-in-concrete is a rule, cannot happen. Yet they do. * Woodrow Wilson almost single handedly killed racial progress that, until that time, had seemed to be headed toward something like egalitarianism. By the time Wilson left office, a new Jim Crow was on the ascendancy nationwide. * Capitalism was dead in China under the Communist regime until some point in the 1970s, or later. Free enterprise, which had become a criminal activity, in a matter of a few years, had become state sponsored policy. * The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1920, outlawing sale of all alcoholic beverages with only a few exceptions for special reasons. It was backed by passage of the Volstead Act, which provided the means for enforcing the Amendment. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933. What can be argued persuasively, you may agree, is that objective facts can outweigh consensus opinion as soon as facts that contravene opinion become widely known. Hence the stake that the establishment -you can almost say any establishment- has in censorship, informal or formal, enforced with laws or with public attitudes. The task of a "reformer" may simply be to make suppressed facts known. For this to be effective what is also be required is public understanding of how citizens allow themselves to be duped. One thing to be certain of is the fact that there are few -very few- spontaneous movements that are naive in inspiration and "innocent." This has been especially true since 1992 even if, that year, Ross Perot tried to harness something of the populist spirit to his Reform Party candidacy. At any rate, most public movements are at least partly manufactured by elite classes for their own purposes -made possible by the woeful incompetence of the Right on social issues. Here is another place where Edsall's new interpretation of American populism has its uses. The problem with the victory of the Left in the culture wars is that we had post-modern / deconstructionist values shoved down our throats. Yet outside of college towns, California, and the upscale East Coast, nobody liked the idea. Indeed, with the shift in emphasis away from working class grievances -which is to speak of a large plurality of the electorate- and away from family values, and families constitute another plurality, the Left had abandoned its base and generated a great deal of disgust at its antics. All of which crystallized around the issue on immigration. Edsall pointed to a 2016 poll that tells the story: "Hillary Clinton won voters who said the economy was the most important issue by 11 points, 52-41, while Trump carried those who said immigration was the most important issue facing the country by nearly two to one, 64-33." Going further, Edsall added that "less-educated white Americans feel that they have become “strangers in their own land.” And the very people whom the Democratic Party has gleefully added to its coalition have produced resentment everywhere else. That is, the addition led to massive subtraction in 2016. Where minorities pile up, as the do on the West Coast and in New York, Hillary won overwhelmingly; where minorities are seen as a disruptive element, or as competing for jobs, as in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Democratic voters abandoned ship. Hence we are at the place where one population of reliable Democratic voters is at loggerheads with "upstart" populations. Edsall identifies these groups as "African-Americans, immigrants, refugees and women," to which we can add homosexuals, university Liberal Arts students, and Anarchists. Edsall also cited an un-named blogger whom he finds to be a useful source of analysis, who said: "It's simple: The working class — and even a significant part of the non-cosmopolitan middle class that might vote for the Left — has always had a degree of cultural, ethnic and nationalist feelings, while the modern Left has bizarrely ejected all these things out of leftist politics and engaged in the deranged fantasy that these things don’t matter at all." The blogger added that "the Left -as it currently exists with its toxic obsession with internationalism, multiculturalism and identity politics for everybody except the majority of people who might form its base — will simply die if it doesn’t understand this." So far, in 2017, there is no sign that it does. You can call Trump, as Edsall does, an “authoritarian xenophobic” but such language is no help at all. It is merely to indulge in the rage against the machine for which Leftists are so well known. As the rest of the population looks on in disbelief that so many spoiled brats -of every age- exist in their midst. There is more. Edsall also cited Walter Russell Meade to the effect that rank and file Democrats, who are now in transition out of the party, have growing contempt for the American establishment whom these voters now see as "no longer reliably patriotic, with “patriotism” defined as an instinctive loyalty to the well-being and values of Jacksonian America." Before the 2016 election some 40% of Americans self-identified as "Independents." Because we live in a 2-party system you can't tell this from voting results. Indies vote overwhelmingly either for Democrats or Republicans. But the exodus from the Democratic Party in the Midwest and other states should be taken as indicative of a move toward non-partisan affiliation, as the "rise of the Indies," as it were. It certainly was not mass conversion to the GOP. And what is Donald Trump? An Independent dressed in a Republican suit. In summation, to quote Edsall one last time: "The proximate cause of the populist vote is anxiety that pervasive cultural changes and an influx of foreigners are eroding the cultural norms one knew since childhood. The main common theme of populist authoritarian[?] parties on both sides of the Atlantic is a reaction against immigration and cultural change. Economic factors such as income and unemployment rates are surprisingly weak predictors of the populist vote." You don't believe me about these issues? Believe the New York Times. Well, I don't usually say such nice things about the gray lady. But this is a well deserved exception. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
