Populism, Then and Now

A while back, I put up a blog post dealing with populism, and pointing out that the populist mantle has now been assumed by both the left and the right – although the term “populist” seems, most of the time, to be restricted to descriptions of the right, and not necessarily complimentary. You can find the blog post here: https://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2017/06/whose-populism-is-it-anyway.html

But what is populism? Rather than get into poly-sci theory, because most populists aren't theoreticians, let's just say that “populism” is what happens when a large portion of the citizenry starts feeling left out. Left out, neglected, ignored... mocked and derided... exploited... persecuted, even. This is clearly what energized Trump's “base” during the 2016 campaign, and what continues to energize his supporters. They basically felt that the people in charge – the ruling elite – had written them off, forgotten them, chosen to ignore them... and they were perfectly correct. But at the same time, there was an equally malcontent group on the left, including supporters of Bernie Sanders, who felt pretty much the same way. But how can this be? Part of the answer – as we see more clearly than ever with the results of the Democratic primaries – is that the mainstream, or “moderate”, Democrats had no more use for the true radicals – the “democratic socialists” – than did the conservatives. In politics, and especially with our one-party system that masquerades as a two-party system, the worst thing you can do is rock the boat. Things as they stand are the result of years – decades! – of fine-tuning... of a balancing act that puts the Wallendas to shame. Most of the opposition and controversy between the Republicans and Democrats is nothing more than a kabuki dance to gull the citizenry into thinking there is Something Really Important going on... something fraught with principles, morals, firmly-held beliefs. Whereas in practice, after putting on a farce on the floors of Congress our elected representatives retire to the nearest watering hole and slap each other on the back with cries of “Good show!” and “We fooled 'em again!” and so on.

But this is precisely what populists of either the left or the right are protesting. They are tired of business as usual... of every election resulting in the new boss being just like the old boss... and mainly of feeling chronically out of the loop, exploited, taken for granted, overtaxed and underrepresented. So when this feeling reaches critical mass – which it does roughly once in every generation – you wind up with a “populist” movement of some sort.

This phenomenon could be traced, in American history, all the way back to the Revolution, except that in that case it was more like the landowning elite enlisting the aid of the common people to make good their decision to split off from England. Anything that is birthed among the elite can hardly be termed populism in the strict sense. Many years later, we had the Progressive movement, which had some of the markers of populism, except that this time it was an invention of the intellectual, humanist elite – and its flaws were brought out in sharp relief when Woodrow Wilson – a progressive of the first order – got us into World War I and then became a dictator on the domestic front. (So much for intellectual college professors, especially those of the Ivy League persuasion.)

But the first blush of populism in our history, unless you include the Whiskey Rebellion, was the movement called Jacksonian Democracy. And then, just as now, “the people” rose up in protest that the country was being run by an elite (made up of wealthy landowners, bankers, merchants, transportation moguls, and the like) for their own benefit. And while the era of Jacksonian Democracy may not have lasted intact for very long, it set a tone, and the dynamics of populism were established to appear again and again (while being suppressed at other times) right up to the present day. One can talk about historical cycles, thesis-antithesis-synthesis, etc., and the history of populism fits the model.

The question about populism as a movement, or cultural meme, is not why it arises from one generation to the next – that's obvious -- but why it fades – why it seems to go away. One reason is that other events intervene – either accidentally or by intention – and war is a prime example. The Progressive Era came to a screeching halt when we got into World War I – ironic, since going "over there" and fighting in a war that should never have started in the first place was Wilson's idea, and he was a died-in-the-wool progressive, as I mentioned above. The New Deal, likewise, had to be put on hold when World War II broke out. (Some will say that the New Deal ended with World War II, but all you have to do is wander along the Mall in D.C. and gaze at all of the New Deal-era government buildings, which are still intact and which house the very same agencies that were established in the 1930s by FDR. And some of these agencies and programs were only established on an “emergency” basis in order to deal with the Depression. So why are they still gobbling up billions of dollars each year 80+ years later? Don't ask...) The Great Society – not a grass-roots movement by any means, but certainly designed to appeal to populist sentiments – hit an iceberg called Vietnam. And so on. This is one of the great ironies of America – the greatest, perhaps. Our ideational founding set the stage for ever more “progressive” domestic policies, but at the same time planted the seed of empire building. It's the old “guns vs. butter” question, and at any given time we have to choose, because we can't have both – not in abundance, even by increasing the national debt to stratospheric levels. War may be “the health of the state”, but it's the death of all economic sectors not directly involved in supporting the war effort. And on those rare occasions when a war ends and prosperity breaks out, we soon become restless and start looking for another one to either initiate or get involved in. We are – let's face it – a warlike people, and we have to accept the consequences (either that or engage in massive denial, which is the more common response). We marvel at the economic and social achievements of countries in Northern and Western Europe, and wonder – if they can do it, why can't we? Well... they don't stagger around with the heavy chains of perpetual war hanging from their shoulders, and they're no longer spending their wealth establishing, maintaining, or defending empires. They might even have learned a lesson from World War II; who knows? In any case they've managed to avoid pretty much any serious direct involvement in wars ever since (with the exception of France, if you want to talk about Algeria and Indochina), whereas we have been on a war footing the whole time, and have, since 9-11, explicitly adopted a perpetual war policy (one of the few things both the major parties can agree on). (Ironically, we spend money on military preparedness so the Europeans don't have to. Any questions on who actually won that war?)

To return to the populism thread – another major instance of genuine, up-from-the-grass-roots populism was the response to the Great Depression and the enthusiastic support for the New Deal by the “forgotten man”. Even then, there were plenty of “agents of change” stirring up the citizenry – said agents being, in many cases, real agents, i.e. of Stalin and the Soviets. But it was populism in that the people found a voice, and applied it in a political way, and the system responded – perhaps more readily then than at any time since. (It's important to remember that capitalism – however defined – was in severe disfavor at that time, and that it was widely felt that the future lay with some form of socialism. The leading contenders were Soviet-style socialism, AKA communism; German-style socialism, AKA Nazism; and American-style socialism, AKA the New Deal. Make no mistake – World War II was not about capitalism vs. anything else, it was about which form of socialism would emerge triumphant. And since both we and the Soviets were on the winning side, it had to take 45 more years before a victor emerged from the Cold war, namely us – but by that time socialism had become controversial, and not something to simply be accepted without question.)

Fast forward to the 1960s. The hippie/anti-war/anti-draft movement had a populist flavor, but it had a limited agenda and was also the province of a fairly narrow age group (albeit under the considerable influence of left-wing academicians both here and abroad, and undoubtedly aided by some “dark money” from the Soviet Union). Plus, the establishment at that time was pretty much united behind the war, from the conservatives (American empire, and war is good for business) to the liberals (since it was started by JFK, a liberal icon, and escalated by LBJ, hardly an icon but nonetheless a hero when it came to domestic policy). (If you want further proof, look at what happened to the anti-war Democratic candidates in 1968.) If the only people out on the streets protesting are “dirty, drug-crazed hippies” and a few wild-haired professors, it's not going to impress anyone. I think in the long run the cultural impact of the 60s was much greater than the political impact, especially when it comes to foreign policy. The culture war was won by the anti-establishment types, but the foreign policy chickens haven't yet come home to roost. (Some will contend that 9-11 was a major piece of push-back, but that's assuming the establishment narrative is true, and really, what are the chances?)

But at the same time – actually a bit earlier – we had the Goldwater campaign, which can be seen as the very first blush of conservative populism, i.e. conservatism not limited to polysyllabic eggheads like William F. Buckley Jr. Goldwater was, as we all know, crushed and ground into fine powder by the LBJ machine, the media, and all of the other usual suspects that are still on the front lines today. But he paved the way in a sense – at least making it semi-respectable to be a home-grown conservative without an array of think-tank appointments and framed advanced degrees hanging on the wall.

But – you might ask – why was this significant? Why then? Wasn't the country as a whole still fairly conservative in its thinking at that time? And it was, compared to now. But the culture war had already shifted into a higher gear... the lid of the cultural Pandora's Box had been lifted just a crack... and people were starting to be afraid that “their” country – the one they had grown up in and were used to – was under assault. And, lest we forget, the war in Vietnam was getting off the ground at that point, and the civil rights movement was in high gear, and so the cultural fault lines were starting to stand out in sharp relief. All of a sudden it was the young vs. the old, conservative vs. liberal, black vs. white, male vs. female, freedom (however defined) vs. liberty (however defined), and so on. So Goldwater represented a return to that which was old and reliable and secure – to a nostalgic, sepia-tinted time that may never have existed, but which had great power as an icon. It was the first reaction, in other words, of people who had always taken things for granted, but who now saw the revolution coming over the hill. So while the left at that time claimed to represent “the people”, the populist conservative movement also claimed to represent “the people”. And they were both right; the difference was in their constituencies. (And please note, in that case as in all cases each side claims to represent the real people as opposed to the other side, which is made up of – pick as many as you like – reactionaries, collaborators, socialists, communists, religious fanatics, drug and/or sex addicts, traitors, fools, the gullible, the easily-persuaded, anti-intellectuals, intellectuals, people who are pro-science, people who are anti-science, etc. etc.)

So populism suffered a stunning blow in 1964, but it didn't go away. It returned in full force in 1980 with Reagan's election, and yes, he won at least in part due to Carter's towering incompetence, but it was also because the grass roots from the Goldwater debacle arose, bloodied but unbowed, to give it another try. And they felt duly rewarded for their efforts – so much so that they were willing to support George H. W. Bush in 1988, even though he was a charter member of the ruling elite with nary a populist bone in his body. Then we had Clinton's “vacation from history” when populism took a vacation as well because the 8-year soap opera that was the Clinton administration was much more interesting... and then we had the Bush II administration which was based entirely on a single event, namely 9-11... but then populism returned on the other side with Obama. And it was the blatant triumphalism of Obama and his supporters that paved the way for Trump – action, reaction. But at the same time, there were people for whom Obama's brand of liberalism wasn't good enough, and they became Bernie supporters. Even when Bernie caved to Hillary in 2016, they remained loyal, and when he caved again to Biden, well... we'll see how that plays out at the Democratic convention. (My question is, will Antifa be there, and if so, whose side will they be on?) Right now the Bernie-ites are licking their wounds, but they may yet turn the 2020 convention into the 1968 convention redux, which would at least be mildly amusing before we slouch into the brain-dead Biden era.

When it comes to populist movements – of which there have been plenty, as we see – it's always tempting to assign scores, or ratings, as to which ones were more radical, i.e. anti-mainstream and anti-establishment, which ones lasted the longest, and which ones had greater impact. It strikes me that we're still “enjoying” (if that is the word) the fruits of Progressivism 100 years later – including, I might add, the fruits of empire, and make no mistake, these are intimately linked. The New Deal expanded government far beyond the wildest dreams of the Progressives, and established, once and for all, the Deep State, which is still very much with us and getting bigger every day. In fact, it has been argued that the Deep State has, for all intents and purposes, supplanted the presidency, and I believe this is true in many respects. But it also depends on their relationship at the time. Obama, in addition to being The Anointed One and being crowned king, was also the head of the Deep State, and is even now considered its head emeritus. Trump, on the other hand, has been at war with the Deep State ever since he announced his candidacy. But in a sense this supports the argument. If, in Obama's case, the presidency and the Deep State were one and the same, then you clearly don't need both. And if, in Trump's case, the presidency and the Deep State don't overlap to the slightest degree, then it makes more sense to get rid of one and keep the other. A house divided against itself cannot stand, etc.

After that brief – ahem! – introduction, we come up to the present day, when an interesting phenomenon is taking place. We have the pandemic, and the government's reaction to it, which is to basically shut down the entire economy until further notice. And then we have the reaction to that. Now, the latter reaction is a spontaneous, grass-roots movement if anything ever was. There is no charismatic leader, no money behind it (How could there be? Everyone's out of work.), and coverage by the mainstream media is entirely negative, and the social media are censoring all attempts to organize protests and start petitions. You might say it has all the earmarks of an underground movement except that it's just the opposite – it's above ground and out in the streets. What they're objecting to is that those in charge want them to stay underground (or behind closed doors). But at the same time there's a very strong, and vocal, social movement in favor of the restrictions, and I don't think they're all working for the government; they're grass-roots as well, and – I'm sure – convinced that what they're doing (admonishing, enforcing, tattling) is what's good for the community. It is, if you will, a civil war which is being fought on Facebook and Twitter. (Better that than with guns and cannons, I guess.)

There are, of course – as with everything else these days – political correlates. The obedient ones tend to be liberal and authoritarian, and cheering for Fauci and Birx, and whatever they consider to be “science”. The rebels tend to be conservative and on the side of Trump. So the fact that Trump and his brain trust appear on the same stage for hours every evening has to be causing a bit of cognitive dissonance whiplash.

The one thing that the two sides in the current controversy have in common is fear – and fear stoked by, no surprise, the government and the media. One side is scared to death of dying, and the other is scared to death of the spectre of unemployment and poverty. Some in government (at all levels) are trying to pull off a balancing act (the Wallendas again) and come up with a formula that will satisfy both sides, but I think this is an exercise in futility. If they go all in for health and safety, they're going to be blamed when the Second Great Depression hits, and if they go all in for the economy, they're going to be blamed every time someone sees a hearse rolling down the street. So they can't win, and I wouldn't want to be in their shoes for all the tea in China. But hey, they campaigned for this job, they wanted it in the worst way, and sure enough they got it in the worst way.

If you want to talk about Trump himself, history will remember him primarily as the guy who was in office when everything changed. There will be plenty of blame and credit to go around, but at least the entire impeachment drive will fade into oblivion by comparison, and rather than finish out his time as a lame duck Trump will be able to think of himself as a brand-new kind of war president, and that may convince him that it was all worthwhile. I mean, who knows, he may even get his face on a stamp some day; now that would be something!