The Contemporary Emergence of Populism

The Contemporary Emergence of Populism Tom G. Palmer Tom.Palmer@AtlasNetwork.org 17.07.2019

The principles of liberal democracy are being undermined or attacked by authoritarian populist movements • Attacks on the idea of individual rights, which are to be sacrificed to national unity • Attacks on the idea of order based on following rules, which are to be replaced by a politics of pure will and power • And with those attacks, assaults on freedom of speech, on the legitimacy of political opposition, and on social and political pluralism

But before looking into what is happening…. Can we even define populism? Is there a formula that could describe very diverse developments and political movements and governments in France, in Mexico, in Hungary, in Poland, in Brazil, in the US, in Germany, in the Philippines, in Italy……

Can we define populism? • “A single formula to cover all populisms everywhere will not be very helpful. The more embracing the formula, the less descriptive. The more richly descriptive the formula, the more it will exclude.” Sir Isaiah Berlin

Can we define populism? • “Whether falsely or truly, it stands for the majority of man, the majority of men who have somehow been damaged. • By whom have they been damaged? They have been damaged by an elite, either economic, political or racial, some kind of secret or open enemy – capitalism, Jews and the rest of it. Whoever the enemy is, foreign or native, ethnic or social, does not much matter.” Sir Isaiah Berlin

Populism Is Not Just a Revolt Against Elites • “In addition to being antielitist, populists are always antipluralist. Populists claim that they, and they alone, represent the people.” • Jan-Werner Müller • The People is not made up of “everybody,” for it excludes “The Enemies of The People,” who may be specified in various ways.

Populist Ideologues Seek to Create “The People” by Identifying “The Enemy” • ”in the case of populism a frontier of exclusion divides society into two camps. The ‘people’, in that case, is something less than the totality of the members of the community: it is a partial component which nevertheless aspires to be conceived as the only legitimate totality.” • Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason • The choice of The Enemy determines “the sort of people we want to build.” • Chantal Mouffe, In the Name of the People

Populist Politicians Claim that Only They Represent The Real People • “This will be a victory for real people!” • Nigel Farage (on Brexit)

The Other People, who Populists Tell Us are Not The People, “Don’t Mean Anything” • “The only important thing is the unification of the people, because the other people don’t mean anything.” • Donald J. Trump 07.May.2016

The Leader focuses the will of The People: He IS the people • “We are the people! Who are you?” • RecepTayyipErdoğan, president of Turkey

The Leader Is the People and the People Are the Leader • "Chávez is no longer me! Chávez is a people! Chávez -- we are millions. You are also Chávez! Venezuelan woman, you are also Chavez! Young Venezuelan, you are Chávez! Venezuelan child, you are Chávez! Venezuelan soldier, you are Chávez! Fisherman, farmer, peasant, merchant! Because Chávez is not me. Chávez is a people!” • Hugo Chávez

Populism Is Based on a Particular Formulation of the Idea of the Unity of “The People” • The People have one will and the leader gives voice to the will of the people • “The People” are, in fact, complex, variegated, and have many interests • Only in cases of national survival in war might one say with justification that there is One People with One Will, One Purpose, and One Voice • Liberal Democracy is what makes it possible for diverse people to live together in peace

Populism Destroys Truth: Truth and Falsehood are Replaced by “Alternative Facts” • “You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving – Sean Spicer, our press secretary – gave alternative facts.” • January 22, 2017 Kellyanne Conway, Counsellor to President Trump

For Populists, Independent Media Are The Enemy of the People • “The Lying Media…” • Donald J. Trump....many, many, many times

“Fake News” Is a Serious Matter…..but “Fake News” has been conflated with Independent Media and even with Criticism or Honest and Unflattering Coverage • Fake News • Free Press • Which may include sources with biases,, but that is not the same as “fake news”; • “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.” • Thomas Jefferson, Letter from Paris to Edward Carrington (1787) ≠ ABCNews.com.coIS NOT ABCNews.com

The Kremlin is waging what they call an “information war” against free societies

The new Kremlin’s information warfare against free and democratic societies does not proclaim the truth of one side, or even the superiority of Putin’s hegemony, but the rottenness of everything else. • “The Kremlin switches messages at will to its advantages, climbing inside everything: European right-wing nationalists are seduced with an anti-EU message; the Far Left is co-opted with tales of fighting US hegemony; US religious conservatives are convinced by the Kremlin’s fight against homosexuality. And the result is an array of voices, working away at global audiences from different angles, producing a cumulative echo chamber of Kremlin support all broadcast on RT. • Peter Pomerantsev

What triggers authoritarian populism? • Authoritarian Triggers • External Threat (ISIS, etc.) • Threat to status • Immigration • In US and Europe, falling status of white males without college degrees, relative to women, members of other ethnic/racial groups, and foreigners Threats to collective status and identity are powerful triggers for “authoritarian groupiness.” The Authoritarian Dynamic, by Karen Stenner, is a powerful study of authoritarianism vs. libertarianism

Populist Themes: Discussion and Debate Are Diversions When What Is Needed is Action! • “No policy-specific debates are needed now, the alternatives in front of us are obvious . . . . [W]e need to understand that for rebuilding the economy it is not theories that are needed but rather thirty robust lads who start working to implement what we all know needs to be done.” • Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary

Populist Themes: Illiberal Democracy • “[We are] breaking with the dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them… to construct a new state built on illiberal and national foundations within the European Union.” • Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary

Populist Themes: Trade is a Zero-Sum Transaction and if one side wins, the other loses "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing.”

Populists are in power or approaching power across the world

In Europe, Populist Parties on both the “Right” and the “Left” Have Been Surging FAR RIGHT PARTIES FAR LEFT PARTIES

You can find more information at https://populismindex.com

Ideas of collective identity that many thought buried in 1945 are being resurrected across the world

Identitarian/Alt-Right ideas – new names for racist authoritarianism – are are being infused into European conflicts by very intelligent ideologues, often with Kremlin funding

Populists Have Revived the “Friend/Enemy” (US/Them)Distinction • “the specific political distinction…can be reduced to that between friend and enemy” • “The enemy is not merely any competitor or just any partner of a conflict in general. He is also not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity.”

A Collaborator with Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, has long been an idol of both far right and far left; his ideas have become more clear in recent years with the publication of his long-suppressed books from the 1930s. • “[W]e have…the advantage that the question of who we ourselves are is timely, as distinguished from the time of liberalism, the I-time. Now is the We-time.” • Martin Heidegger, Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language (1934)

Those ideas have become prominent on both extremes Far Left Far Right They have become allies in a campaign against the liberal center

The Friend/Enemy Distinction (“inherent antagonism”) permeates populism of the left & the right • “is not the relationship to an external Other as the enemy a way of disavowing the internal struggle which traverses the social body? In contrast to Schmitt, a leftist position should insist on the unconditional primacy of the inherent antagonism as constitutive of the political.” • SlavojŽižek

“Safe Spaces!” and ”Identity Politics” Have Become Far Right Mantras, too • “The natural tendency of human nature is tribal. When black people or Asians or Hispanics express a desire to live with people like themselves, express a preference for their own culture, their own heritage, there’s considered nothing wrong about that. It’s only when whites say, well, yes, I prefer the culture of Europe and I prefer to be around white people — for some reason, and only for whites, this is considered the profoundest sort of immorality.” • Jared Taylor, leading “Alt-Right, Race Realist, Human Biodiversity” writer/thinker/strategist, on NPR

Populism denigrates democratic deliberation as “empty talk” and demands dictatorial “action.” “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. …. The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.” Trump Inaugural Address, written by Alt-Right promoters Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller

It is when demands are made for strong men to “take action” in the name of “the people” thatliberty is in greatest danger. • “It is the general demand for quick and determined central government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic processes which make action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough to ‘get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal.” • F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944)

Authoritarian populism thrives on hatred • Rejecting the enemy mentality • “Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation's development and social change, to counter the regime's hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.” 刘晓波, Liu Xiabo (1955-2017)

An antidote to populist enmity is the tradition of liberal democracy, which embraces equal freedom for all • “Educate your children, educate yourselves, in the love for the freedom of others, for only in this way will your own freedom not be a gratuitous gift from fate. You will be aware of its worth and will have the courage to defend it.” • JoaquimNabuco, Brazilian Abolitionist, Diplomat, Historian (1849-1910)

The Contemporary Emergence of Populism