Adapted from a March 2020 blog entry by the author, uploaded to https://blog.eucanet.org/.
The Democratic thrill of populism is easy to understand. There is something visceral, something deeply satisfying about changing the world one protest at a time. And it is plausible that many intransigent problems of 21st century liberalism might be temporarily addressed through a populist show of force. The rise of sub-national separatism in Europe, declining turnout numbers in industrialized democracies, foreign interference in elections, backlashes against the global flow of migrants, and a quickly diverging wealth gap all call for some kind of answer. Rallying the people and clarifying a nation’s goals might not entirely resolve these issues, but it would indicate an attempt at action.
But, inevitably, populist change is unstable. It creates space for future discord and weakens the institutional architecture upon which democracy inherently depends.
Our systems of government need improvement. This improvement demands reflection and brutal honesty. Thomas Jefferson summarized this idea best, arguing that “institutions must advance […] and keep pace with the times.” To not do so represented political naivety: “we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy” (Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816).
No issue captures this better than climate change. The Swedish teenager turned Times Person of the year, Greta Thunberg, has embodied the new righteous upswell of passionate young people tired of the same old excuses and ineffective reform. Climate Change activism has taken on a new urgency, at least on the ground. And while some might dismiss Thunberg and the kinds of people that support her, I think Jefferson would have praised the efforts of young people like her, efforts aimed at promoting discussion and forcing change through a stagnant system. Looking past Thunberg, all movements that criticize and agitate against climate change, income inequality, police brutality and economic mismanagement deserve serious consideration. Urging accountability upon the powerful and expressing frustration through protest is responsible democracy.
But true populism is dangerous precisely because it cares little for democracy or realistic appraisals. True populism, despite its visceral thrills, is a danger that can be identified in two significant ways: the dangerous simplification of national problems and the reliance on categorization to establish political capital.
There has never been a populist movement that did not divide society into the righteous and the corrupt and recast delicate dilemmas as quests to vanquish the corrupt. The politics that follow never ‘correct’ the system in place but rather seek narrowly defined reprieves for those newly in charge. Populists do not deal in systemic change, although they speak often of it. Instead they orient themselves entirely against the concerns of the present and those groups believed complicit in them. To agitate and uproot requires the closure of dialogue, and the recasting of tribe.
We see these patterns in the recent line-up of populist politicians: Bolsonaro, Duterte, Salvini, Farage, and Trump. All of them adhere to the same political handbook, and all represent the end-product of political ecosystems that nurtured and legitimized populism. Populism is a threat to democracy because those who have been elected or held power through populist means have weakened democracy wherever they rise.
When we bemoan the decline of democracy in the West, the more sinister problem is not that citizens no longer express themselves at the ballot box, or that the military has secured control of civic institutions. It is rather that consensus-building itself has become corrupted. It is a widespread determination not to play the political game, to side-step institutions and discredit the inherent legitimacy of any contrary opinions. We see this in reports by democratic watchdogs, such as The Freedom House, which recently exclaimed: “Most troublingly, even long-standing democracies have been shaken by populist political forces that reject basic principles like the separation of powers and target minorities for discriminatory treatment” (Freedom House, 2019).
Why now? Populism has, after all, existed on or below the surface of society and will continue to do so. It has found new relevance as a contemporary force because the defining political problems of our age lend themselves to dualistic identity politics – migration, racial equality, #Metoo, bigtech, economic inequality, to name a few. The space for agreement has shrunk, and the terms in which we address those who disagree with us have intensified. This is a parallel development to populism’s resurgence, but the two go hand in hand. The reality of dualistic politics has created fertile soil for populist politics to flourish.
Social media has been the fertilizer to this flourishing. Opinions are shared and multiplied with great frequency; and the algorithms of the platforms through which this marketplace exists puts us in boxes with those who share similar views. Agitated by the need to prove fidelity to the cause, all manner of opinions become intensified. This has made disagreement more contentious and intractable. Truth and empiricism, foundations of past decades, have become fluid concepts. David Greenberg, writing about the Bush administration’s ‘post-truth’ mentality, labeled the development “epistemological relativism;” I think this is a fitting description.
Populism by necessity is an exercise of identity politics; clashing and conflicting identities founded on sets of ideas. To pursue populist change is to devolve democracy into a contest of identities. In the modern age of social media and hyperpolarization, this is a contest from which states could not easily emerge.
Our current models and systems emerged since the end of WWII through careful work, historical patience, and unglamorous effort. Democracy reached its zenith in the last eighty years without a single populist leader or party leading the way. The gains of our day were not secured in any other manner, and the countries most associated with successful democracy today all achieved their status through compact and compromise.
I suspect a reliance on populism for the day’s problems carries within it the seeds of its eventual unraveling. Implicit in a dependence on populism is the notion that government legitimacy is questionable and mistrust universal. Populists leave themselves vulnerable to politicians and counter-movements that utilize similar tactics; once outsiders become insiders, they lose the singular appeal they once had. Trump’s recent loss shows this.
The act of moving as a populist follower is a momentary exertion of angst and an expression of hope; briefly, the world is made plain, and possibilities seem endless. But it cannot last. Eugene Debs articulated this best when he spoke out against messianic leaders meant to save the workers of the world: “I would not lead you out if I could; for if you would be led out, you could be led back again” (Ray, The bending cross; a biography of Eugene Victor Debs, 244).To Debs, change had to be seized by those who most needed it, and it needed to grow from the determination within, not the rhetoric without.
My argument is not that populism plays no role in the historical progress of government and society, nor that certain problems of the day might not be best addressed with populist elements. Instead, I believe that the growing politics of populism will eat away at the foundations of democracy by inviting and legitimizing new categories of disagreements and harmful ideological methods.
Populism can only tear down, it cannot craft. We cannot tailor society’s new coat and build new institutions with expressions of fury, opaque goals, and hierarchies of the virtuous.