The Problem with Right Wing Populism

[Milchshake]

This essay does a good job of capturing the ideological core of Right Wing Populism, to the extent that phrase isn’t an oxymoron, is simply an extension of the ideological core of Reaganism. What Trump and others add to the mix is an open embrace and celebration of autocracy, which is a significant step beyond what movement conservatism was forty or even twenty years ago.

At worst, Trump would do nothing. He’d sit around eating cheeseburgers and making calls to Fox News, while the serious people got on with serious things.

All of this was to grossly underestimate Trump. He may have done plenty of the cheeseburgers and Fox News stuff. But he also kept his eye on the great strategic prize: the creation in the US of a vast and impassioned base for anti-democratic politics. . .

It is not just that Trump really was not interested in governing. It is that he was deeply interested in misgovernment.

He left important leadership positions in government departments unfilled on a permanent basis, or filled them with scandalously unqualified cronies. He appointed people to head agencies to which they had been publicly hostile.

Beneath the psychodrama of Trump’s hourly outbursts, there was a duller but often more meaningful agenda: taking a blowtorch to regulation, especially, but by no means exclusively, in relation to the environment.

This right-wing anarchism extended, of course, to global governance: the trashing of international agreements, withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, sucking up to the leaders of mafia states, and open contempt for female leaders like Angela Merkel and Theresa May.

With this discrediting of democratic governance, it is not just that we cannot disentangle the personal motives from the political ones. It is that the replacement of political institutions by personal rule was precisely the point.


But the hatred of government, presented as the embrace of “freedom” — that’s just movement conservatism in its purest form.

There’s a certain sort of American who thinks of “freedom” in the way a poorly socialized dull-normal 15-year-old boy does: Freedom means I have the freedom to choose not to wear a mask during a global pandemic, but it most certainly does not mean that a private business can choose to refuse me entrance if I won’t wear a mask. Because that would interfere with my freedom, which is what Right Wing populism is all about.

They will sell out any M4A or UBI in a second for the attention of their authoritarian daddies.

Trump’s wild swings of position were all about this delight in the command performance of utter obedience.

To take just the most outlandish example, Kim Jong-un could be transformed from the Little Rocket Man on whom Trump would unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” to “Chairman Kim” with whom, in his own words, he “fell in love”.

His followers, like old Stalinists desperately tacking to the shifting winds of the Moscow line, agreed that Trump’s opposites were equally brilliant.

The price of this form of power is the undermining of any form of democratic deliberation. Democracy is not just about voting – it is a system for the rational articulation of ideas about the public good. Trump set out to lay waste to that whole system, from the bottom up, poisoning the groundwaters of respect for evidence, argument and rationality that keeps it alive.

[Gestopft]

Right-wing 'populism' appears to be:
-Power above all
-Even more whining about 'Liberals winning the culture war' than usual
-Blaming immigrants instead of...you know...capitalism...for decades of stagnating wages

[Daelak]

Right-wing 'populism' appears to be:
-Power above all
-Even more whining about 'Liberals winning the culture war' than usual
-Blaming immigrants instead of...you know...capitalism...for decades of stagnating wages

Which to me has always been the unshakeable tenets of conservatism since prior to the founding of this country. It was borne from loyalists to the British Crown. They deceived, deluded, misinformed, suppressed, lynched, and committed genocide and war to preserve their fiefdoms. The US has suffered since its inception by people who don't value democracy.

[DKjaigen]

Which to me has always been the unshakeable tenets of conservatism since prior to the founding of this country. It was borne from loyalists to the British Crown. They deceived, deluded, misinformed, suppressed, lynched, and committed genocide and war to preserve their fiefdoms. The US has suffered since its inception by people who don't value democracy.

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

[Felya]

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

Trump is gone? Does that mean my girlfriend not getting an unemployment check for this week, because Trump went golfing, didn’t happen?

The fact that they voted and still support Trump, as he has fine print in his spam, that explicitly tells you that up to 80% is going to pay Trump’s debt and not election fraud he asserts... means it’s not actually populism or anything ideological... It’s a cult of personality...

Edit: If Trump is gone, why are so many conservatives talking about January 6th?

Edit 2: How do you compromise with a Trump supporter? Show them receipts that you gave Trump money? That you own a large variety of red hats made in China? How do you compromise with a Trump supporter, without getting Trump’s balls in your mouth?

Edit 3: Democrats and Trump are currently compromising, by demanding GOP sign off on a 2k stimulus to all Americans. Why are republicans blocking it? How do democrats compromise here?

I figured it out... Democrats can compromise with republicans... we need to make every American a corporation, to trick republicans into giving American workers support during a pandemic.

[Machismo]

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

How do you find common ground with national socialists who think the exercising of free speech should be thwarted by murder, and that it is utterly inexcusable to oppose racism?

Exactly where is the common ground between you and I?

[Felya]

How do you find common ground with national socialists who think the exercising of free speech should be thwarted by murder, and that it is utterly inexcusable to oppose racism?

Exactly where is the common ground between you and I?

As I said... sending Trump money... Maybe get Biden to not remove the DOJ, from putting America on trial, over Trump’s rape? Force China to give Trump a better deal to build hotels? Make Russia part of the G7 and credit Trump, so he gets more money to build Trump City in Moscow? Maybe federally insure Trump’s loans in Germany, so he gets a better deal to build hotels in EU and GB?

Don’t forget to scream ‘America first’ as you do all this...

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You forget the whole theocracy thing where they want their religion to be the basis for laws.

That’s part of the first... power of faith is a lot easier to wield, than academic.

[Felya]

Many dictatorships haven’t been theocratic in nature. As such it’s not inherently included in the first.

Without theocracy, you don’t have power over “all”.

[Mihalik]

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

There's no common ground with people who literally want you to die because of your religion, political ideals, skin color, sexual orientation or refusal to abide by their ideas of what is gender norm.

There's no common ground with people who don't just want you dead but will go out of their way to make that happen.

That's the problem with conservatives. That was always the problem with conservatives. Whether it was the middle ages, the colonial era, the Enlightenment era, the US Civil War, Segregation etc.

[Felya]

There's no common ground with people who don't just want you dead but will go out of their way to make that happen.

How do we compromise with people that just 2 months ago, were telling us that Trump’s win will destroy us and it will be 4 more years of making liberals cry? Now it’s compromising time, as Trump is claiming our votes shouldn’t count, as he will steal the election on the 6th?

Edit: Compromising is cool and all... but, would they mind stopping drinking our tears, before we start? It’s a bad look otherwise... makes it seem in bad faith...

[Kaleredar]

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

The only thing accurate in your post is that common ground needs to be found, and it’s in the form of the republicans needing to take a gigantic step to the left and start from there.

Until the GOP finds something politically relevant to stand for, they have no place in politics, and should be sidelined and surpassed until they either do or go the way of the whigs. As the GOP stands now, I couldn’t care less which happens to them.

[DingDongKing]

The problem with right wing populism is simple: it doesn’t care about a vast majority of the population. Ergo, it’s really not even populism, but just a hate movement. It’s a coalition formed by everyone who hates something that doesn’t come under their banner of normal.

[Daelak]

You dont value democracy at all. Democracy is 2 or more ideological factions living under a single goverment expecting to thrive under it.
Saying shit like this makes the other side wonder if you have their best interrest in mind. Trump is gone its time you find some common ground.

That's not what democracy is, and conservatives like you should know the only reason why we have current levels of enfranchisement in the voting process is due to the struggles, deaths, sweat, blood, and tears made by militant progressives over the centuries. Conservatives have stood against every movement desiring the enfranchisement and equal protections afforded to them by our government.

The constitution itself has been maimed since its ratification due to the threats and deceptions made by conservatives in order for them to have an outsized influence in government (electoral college, senate, statehood). Your ideology uses these tools left by its forebears to ensure they are privileged; unequal in protection and representation. A great example of this is the aftermath of the civil war and the induction of western states pushed by conservatives to continue their pre-civil war levels of representation in the legislative branch.

[DKjaigen]

There's no common ground with people who literally want you to die because of your religion, political ideals, skin color, sexual orientation or refusal to abide by their ideas of what is gender norm.

There's no common ground with people who don't just want you dead but will go out of their way to make that happen.

That's the problem with conservatives. That was always the problem with conservatives. Whether it was the middle ages, the colonial era, the Enlightenment era, the US Civil War, Segregation etc.

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

[draynay]

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

Do what I say or die, not very compromising!

[Edge-]

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

Traitors tried that once because they got upset that their "right" to own people was under threat. It wasn't very successful.

I'm not sure why you or anyone else would think a bunch of yokels and internet trolls armed with poorly fitting tacticool gear and AR-15's have much of a chance against a professional military that can just drone strike a backwoods "training camp" before they have the chance to realize what's going on and shit their pants.

Conservatives sure do spend a lot of time talking about how they want to kill their fellow Americans for the crime of *checks notes* having a different political ideology.

[Machismo]

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

It's odd how national socialists and fascists are always calling for civil war.

[Daelak]

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

And just like in the American revolution and the civil war, radical militant progressives will answer the call and put you back down your holes for a generation. You still aren't understanding US history.

[beanman12345]

The problem with right wing populism is simple: it doesn’t care about a vast majority of the population. Ergo, it’s really not even populism, but just a hate movement. It’s an coalition formed by everyone who hates something that doesn’t come under their banner of normal.

Exactly, there is nothing populism about it. It's a facade, because while it makes it appear to be populism, but it's only against the segment of power that doesn't embolden their hatred, and people full of hatred certainly aren't anything that could be considered ordinary people. Hopefully it dies with Trump, and ripples throughout Europe and the rest of the democratic world, because fuck Le Pen and her ilk too and Balsanaro down in Brazil get's voted his ass out too.

[Endus]

Then i suggest you start preparing for a new civil war. And i think your chances are for winning a war are slim.

"If we don't get what we want, we'll murder people until we get what we want".

Cause, y'know, the side threatening mass slaughter in their name are totally the good guys.