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Pope Francis Decries Populism and Says There’s a ‘Cancer’ Ailing Democracy
(www.thedailybeast.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Populism is a reactionary movement. It doesn't just spring up out of nowhere - it comes to be specifically if and when there's a relatively common perception among the people that the government no longer serves their interests.
The solution then is simple and straightforward, at least in principle - all it takes is for the government to institute the necessary reforms to win back the trust and support of the people.
The problem comes because all too many politicians don't have the necessary empathy, integrity and/or determination to actually do that.
So they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Yup. I don't even get what "populism" is when mentioned in media. Isn't that-- democracy?
I'm a leftist but even I understand when people come into the embrace of the far-right, because the mainstream parties neglected the people's everyday concerns.
Populism is demagogy, it's repeating people's complaints back to them, to amplify them and place yourself as an apparent leader, but without actually bringing any solution - and when it does, it's immediately far right "beat everyone out". Democracy is actually creating policy and voting on it, which by definition implies people disagreeing in that vote. Populism is rounding up everyone with the same mind, excluding everyone else (not voting on anything) and trying to crush opposition with numbers and no policy. It's the antithesis to democracy.
Edit - it might depend on the region of the world, I don't think I've seen a lot of left wingers be called populists. Originally it just means the opposition between the people and the elite, so that would match what you say, and apparently some left parties are trying to return to that definition for some reason, but it seems the Pope is taking the other version that has become much more common.
Neoliberal types definitely called Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren "populist". Trying to equate it with rightwing demagoguery seems like it's a deliberate poisoning of the term by people who are aligned with the very status quo power structure that populism attacks. In a choice between the status quo establishment and racist rightwing populism, of course the status quo is better, but the rightwing populism is a problem exactly because the establishment is so distrusted for their lack of responsiveness to people's needs.
People are also using "populism" here to be a solely negative political movement associated with the right wing, but it's just a matter of people thinking the people running society aren't doing a good job for the majority. Not sure if that's intentional or not, but it's a value-neutral political expression. Anywhere you say "populism" you should generally be able to substitute "anti-establishmentism" and it'll be roughly correct, but doing so in a lot of these comments doesn't make sense. The establishment isn't inherently good, though I can see why the head of the largest religious establishment in the world might consider challenges to it bad.
That doesn't work if there's not honest media.
Populism does not rely on facts, it does not offer solutions and works with people who prefer drama over reality.
Don't think you can get any solution from these unreasonable statements some people make. It does not make more sense than a political joke.
The point isn't whether it works or not - the point is why it comes to be in the first place - why and how people reach a point at which they embrace it.
And that's when they come to see that their government is failing them - most often, when it's serving its own interests and the interests of a wealthy few rather than the interests of the people at large.
And here's a tip - you can't combat it by deriding the people who embrace it. If anything, that just makes them double down on it, since, to them, that's just further evidence that you're an elitist piece of shit who doesn't care about them or their needs, so they're going to turn to these other people over here who (say they) do.
Again, there's one and only one way to counter populism - governmental reform. The problem is that people see that the government isn't doing enough to serve their needs. The solution is for the government to do more to serve their needs.
Too often the ones who blame the working class for not understanding that (some) populist solutions don't work, have been conditioned to support economic and/or political views that further the interests of the wealthy few, while themselves being a part of the working class, while not realizing it. For example the working person who advocates for centrist policies which keep distributing money from them to the top, because "the left's" idea to tax the rich "doesn't work."
While this is true, I'm not sure if it's possible or likely to come about through the electoral process in places where democracy has been captured by the upper class. That's probably not the case in France, yet, but it very much is in the US. I think in such cases the process can only start at the labor level where labor takes a bigger chunk of the profits through labor action. Thus reducing the money flowing into democratic and regulatory capture. Thus making more money available to elect or "buy" politicians that represent that payer - labor. In other words - the majority.
And I agree on both counts.
Plenty things in economies are a matter of opinion, not facts. They're then subject to political choices. For example whether to tax the top more or to increase the retirement age. Too often however matters of opinion similar to this are presented as facts by one side in order to invalidate the other possibilities as non-factual.
Seems to me the rise in populism in western countries are the majority being treated the same as minorities.