Monthly Archives: January 2022

Populist Movement, in U.S. history, politically oriented coalition of agrarian reformers in the Midwest and South that advocated a wide range of economic and political legislation in the late 19th century.

Throughout the 1880s, local political action groups known as Farmers Alliances sprang up among Midwesterners and Southerners, who were discontented because of crop failures, falling prices, and poor marketing and credit facilities. Although it won some significant regional victories, the alliances generally proved politically ineffective on a national scale. Thus, in 1892 their leaders organized the Populist, or Peoples, Party, and the Farmers Alliances melted away. While trying to broaden their base to include labour and other groups, the Populists remained almost entirely agrarian-oriented. They demanded an increase in the circulating currency (to be achieved by the unlimited coinage of silver), a graduated income tax, government ownership of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, the direct election of U.S. senators, and other measures designed to strengthen political democracy and give farmers economic parity with business and industry.

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United States: The Populists of the United States

The collapse of the boom and the falling prices of agricultural products forced many farmers to seek relief through political action. In...

Hear William Jennings Bryan deliver his Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic National Convention

William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech, given at the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, July 8, 1896.

In 1892 the Populist presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, polled 22 electoral votes and more than one million popular votes. By fusing with Democrats in certain states, the party elected several members to Congress, three governors, and hundreds of minor officials and legislators, nearly all in the northern Midwest. In the South, however, most farmers refused to endanger white supremacy by voting against the Democratic Party. Additional victories were won in the 1894 midterm election, but in 1896 the Populists allowed themselves to be swept into the Democratic cause by their mutual preoccupation with the Free Silver Movement. The subsequent defeat of Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan signalled the collapse of one of the most challenging protest movements in the United States since abolitionism. Some of the Populist causes were later embraced by the Progressive Party.

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Populist Movement | Definition & Goals | Britannica

Support for populist parties and politicians, and agreement with populist sentiment, has diminished during the pandemic, according to a mega-dataset taking in attitudes of over half a million people across 109 countries since 2020.

A University of Cambridge team say there are clear signs of a turning tide for the populist wave, as the mishandling of coronavirus by populist leaders along with a desire for stability and a decline in polarizing attitudes resulting from the pandemic starts to move public opinion.

The authors of the new report, from CambridgesCentre for the Future of Democracy(CFD), describe the study as the first global overview of how the Covid-19 crisis has affected political beliefs.

They say that threats posed by the pandemic saw a technocratic shift in political authority worldwide, with increased trust in government, and in experts such as scientists and civil servants. Yet faith in the democratic process continued to falter.

The story of politics in recent years has been the emergence of anti-establishment politicians who thrive on the growing distrust of experts, said Dr. Roberto Foa, Co-Director of the CFD and the reports lead author.

From Erdogan and Bolsonaro to the strong men of Eastern Europe, the planet has experienced a wave of political populism. Covid-19 may have caused that wave to crest.

Electoral support for populist parties has collapsed around the world in a way we dont see for more mainstream politicians. There is strong evidence that the pandemic has severely blunted the rise of populism, said Foa.

The findings are published by Cambridges Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

The first months of the pandemic saw many political leaders get a boost in ratings a classic rally round the flag effect in troubled times, say researchers.

However, the approval ratings of populist leaders the world over began declining almost as soon as coronavirus hit, and have continued to sink ever since.

On average, populist leaders have seen a 10 percentage point drop between the spring of 2020 and the last quarter of 2021, while ratings for non-populists on average returned to around pre-pandemic levels.

Electoral support also plunged for their parties seen most clearly in Europe, where the proportion of people intending to vote for a populist party[1] has fallen by an average of 11 percentage points to 27%.

Overall, across Europe, early lockdowns saw voting intention for incumbent parties increase. Yet all the continents governing populists from Italys Five Star to Hungarys Fidezs bucked the trend with the largest declines in support.

Support for Europes opposition populist parties also fell over the pandemic by 5 pp on average to 11% while it rose for mainstream opposition.

Researchers suggest several factors for populisms fading appeal. One is simply the botch job made of the pandemic by populist governments: from Bolsonaros mask veto to Trumps bleach injection suggestion.

The reports polling shows the public considered populist leaders to be less trustworthy sources of virus-related information than centrist counterparts.

In June 2020, approval of government handling of the crisis was 11 percentage points lower on average in countries with populist leaders than in those with more centrist governance. By the end of 2020, this gap had widened to 16 points.

Researchers also found that political tribalism fertile ground for populists has declined in most countries. The percentage of party supporters expressing a strong dislike of those who vote for opposing politicians fell in most nations (although not the US) during the crisis.

The pandemic fostered a sense of shared purpose that may have reduced the political polarisation weve seen over the last decade, said CFD researcher and report co-author Dr. Xavier Romero-Vidal. This could help explain why populist leaders are struggling to mobilize support.

Some of the ideas propagated by populists are losing ground. Levels of agreement with statements such as corrupt elites divide our nation or the will of the people should be obeyed fell in almost every nation surveyed.

For example, agreement with four such statements[2] fell on average by 9 percentage points in Italy to 66%, 10 points in France to 61%, and 8 points in the UK to 64%, between 2019 and 2021.

Commitment to these ideas has also waned. Even among supporters, in almost every nation a smaller number now strongly agree than did in 2019. In developed democracies, this shift is predominantly among those aged over 55.

Moreover, areas with the sharpest drops in populist attitudes are some of the poorer left behind regions from Eastern Poland to Southern Italy and Northern Hungary that have been a focus for populist rhetoric and support.

This may be down to some rebalancing of wealth as people escaped cities overrun with the virus, said Foa. In addition, Covid-19 border closures stopped migration and globalized trade more effectively than any populist government.

However, some illiberal policies gained traction while populations were in the teeth of the pandemic. Majorities in all major nations surveyed in 2020 were content with banning handshakes, and much of the public including majorities in Japan and Germany supported restricting online discussions of the virus.[3]

The consequence of populist decline has not been renewed faith in liberal democracy, say researchers. Perhaps tainted by the record of populists in office, support for democracy has also waned.

Instead, citizens increasingly favor technocratic sources of authority, such as having non-political experts make decisions.

By the start of summer 2020, belief that experts should be allowed to make decisions according to what they think best for the country had risen 14 points to 62% in Europe and 8 points to 57% in the US.[4]

While trust in government has steadily climbed since the pandemic hit, increasing by 3.4 percentage points on average right across the worlds democratic nations,[5] faith in democracy as a political system barely changed.

Satisfaction with democracy has recovered only slightly since the post-war nadir of 2019, and is still well below the long-term average, said Foa.

Some of the biggest declines in democratic support during the pandemic were seen in Germany, Spain, and Japan nations with large elderly populations particularly vulnerable to the virus.

In the US, the percentage of people who consider democracy a bad way to run the country more than doubled from 10.5% in late 2019 to 25.8% in late 2021.

Added Foa: The pandemic has brought good and bad news for liberal democracy. On the upside, we see a decline in populism and a restoration of trust in government. On the downside, some illiberal attitudes have are increasing, and satisfaction with democracy remains very low.

Notes

Reference: The Great Reset: Democratic Attitudes, Populism, and the Pandemic 18 January 2022.

The latest work builds on the Centres research tracking attitudes to democracy over several decades. In total, including baseline data, the report draws on survey responses from almost eight million people in 169 countries.

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The Great Reset: Support for Populist Politics Collapsed ...

ANNABERG-BUCHHOLZ, Germany Sven Mller is proudly unvaccinated. He thinks Covid vaccines are neither effective nor safe but a way to make money for pharmaceutical companies and corrupt politicians who are taking away his freedom.

Under state rules to stem coronavirus infections, he is no longer allowed to go to restaurants, to the bowling alley, to the cinema or to the hairdresser. From next week, he will be barred from entering most shops, too. But that has only strengthened his resolve.

They cant break me, said Mr. Mller, 40, a bar owner in the town of Annaberg-Buchholz, in the Ore Mountain region in the eastern state of Saxony where the vaccination rate is 44 percent the lowest in Germany.

Mr. Mller personifies a problem that is as sharp in some parts of Europe as it is in the United States. If Germany had red and blue states, Saxony would be crimson. In places like this, pockets of unvaccinated people are driving the latest round of contagion, filling strained hospital wards, putting economic recoveries at risk and sending governments scrambling to head off a fourth wave of the pandemic.

Even as studies show that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent infection and to avoid hospitalization or death if infected persuading those who are deeply skeptical of vaccines has proved all but impossible. Instead, Western European governments are resorting increasingly to thinly veiled coercion with a mixture of mandates, inducements and punishments.

In Italy, the northern province of Bolzano bordering Austria and Switzerland, where 70 percent of the population is German-speaking has the countrys lowest vaccination rate. Experts have linked a sharp increase in infections there to frequent exchanges with Austria, but also to a cultural inclination among the population toward homeopathy and natural cures.

There is some correlation with far-right parties, but the main reason is this trust in nature, said Patrick Franzoni, a doctor who spearheads the inoculation campaign in the province. Especially in the Alps, he said, the German-speaking population trusts fresh air, organic produce and herbal teas more than traditional drugs.

In fact, Germany, Austria and the German-speaking region of Switzerland have the largest shares of unvaccinated populations in all of Western Europe. About one in four people over 12 are unvaccinated, compared with about one in 10 in France and Italy and almost none in Portugal.

Sociologists say that in addition to an influential culture of alternative medicine, the vaccine resistance is fueled by a strong tradition of decentralized government that tends to feed distrust of rules imposed from the capital and by a far-right ecosystem that knows how to exploit both.

Opposition to vaccines, said Pia Lamberty of CeMAS, a Berlin-based research organization focused on disinformation and conspiracy theories, is in some ways the long tail of the populist nationalist movements that shook up European politics for a decade.

Radical anti-vaxxers are not a huge group, but its big enough to cause a problem in the pandemic, Ms. Lamberty said. It shows the success of the far-right cheerleading on this issue and the failure of mainstream politicians to take it seriously enough.

As a result, in parts of Europe, whether youre vaccinated or not has become almost a political identifier like in the United States, she added.

In Austria, where the government has gone furthest in restricting the unvaccinated, a newly founded anti-vaccine party recently won three seats in a State Parliament in the north, long a stronghold of the far right. In France and Italy, anti-vaccine hot spots remain where national populists hold sway.

In Saxony, anti-vaccine sentiment and support for the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD the strongest political force here overlap significantly.

Jan. 24, 2022, 7:32 a.m. ET

The AfD has flatlined on a national level, but in the former Communist East, anti-vaccine sentiment has proved a natural fit for many constituents who often already have a deep suspicion of government, globalization, big corporations and mainstream media.

The vaccine polarizes, said Rolf Schmidt, the mayor of Annaberg-Buchholz. I hear it from morning till night: Everyone has their absolute truth and their own social media channel to reinforce that truth. The other side is all lies.

So charged is the issue that Mr. Schmidt will not say if he is vaccinated himself. My big problem right now is to keep the social peace in this town, he said.

In Annaberg-Buchholz, a onetime medieval metal-mining town near the Czech border, the split is visceral and visible.

Every Monday, hard-line anti-vaxxers hold a small but noisy rally in the town center. This week, there were some 50 protesters, shouting slogans like the vaccine kills and raging against the government in Berlin, which they say is a dictatorship like Communism, only worse.

Many restaurants have rebellious messages in their windows blaming political decisions for tough new rules that exclude the unvaccinated from entry.

One of them is Mr. Mllers bar, Salon, where he serves over 90 types of gin to patrons who are mostly unvaccinated like him, he says. A sign in the door cites the German Constitution and reads: No matter whether (un)vaccinated, (un)tested, you are welcome as a HUMAN BEING!

The sign turned him into a minor celebrity: People stop to take pictures, a cafe owner up the street copied his text.

Karin and Hans Schneider, two retired passers-by who both grew up in Annaberg-Buchholz and who are vaccinated, said the only way to get skeptics to get the shot was to make it almost impossible not to. Its stupidity, Ms. Schneider said. You cant argue with them; you have to get tough.

In Germany, the incoming government wants to impose stricter rules against unvaccinated people, including mandating that they obtain a negative coronavirus test before using public transit.

But Austria has done the most, restricting the movement of anyone over 12 and unvaccinated to traveling for work, school, buying groceries and medical care and giving the police power to check vaccination papers on the street.

This is an unprecedented breach of our constitutional freedoms, said Michael Brunner, the head of MFG, the new anti-vaccine party.

Austrias so-called lockdown of the unvaccinated was a talking point in Saxony, where many felt that the new restrictions coming next week were the same thing by another name.

Saxony was the first German state to exclude unvaccinated people from much of public life by requiring proof in most social venues of being either vaccinated or having recovered from a Covid infection. Starting Monday, all nonessential shops will be off limits to them, too.

Many, like Mr. Mller, feel betrayed by the government. They promised that there would be no vaccine mandates, he said. But this is a vaccine mandate through the backdoor.

A 10-minute drive from Annaberg-Buchholz, Constanze Albrecht was injecting a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine into the arm of a 67-year-old man. Dr. Albrecht has been on the road with one of 30 mobile vaccination teams that crisscross Saxony to entice people to get a shot.

So far, there is no clear indication that the new restrictions have led to more demand for inoculations. Most shots Dr. Albrecht administered that day were boosters for people who had gotten vaccinated months ago.

Many of those coming for their first shot make clear they feel coerced, Dr. Albrecht said. One man said he was doing it only so he could keep taking his son to his sport club. A woman muttered that she didnt have a choice.

Mr. Schmidt, the mayor, warned that by singling out the unvaccinated, the government was sowing division. This narrative, Those bad unvaccinated people, theyre responsible for the increase in cases, he said. Its not helpful.

Mr. Schmidt would rather bring people together. He is lobbying to allow the towns celebrated Christmas market to go ahead without restrictions on the unvaccinated instead, a testing mandate for all.

In Annaberg-Buchholz, half of the booths are already up, on schedule to open on Nov. 26. But Mr. Schmidt worries that it will yet be banned by the state government.

That would be the last straw, he said. For our region, this is more than a Christmas fair, its who we are as a town and as a region. Its a feeling, its an identity. Big cities dont understand it.

Reporting was contributed by Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin, Jason Horowitz from Rome, Constant Mheut from Paris, Anton Troianovski from Moscow and Niki Kitsantonis from Athens.

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Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated: Europes Covid Culture War ...

This judicial populist view of government imagines a strict separation between law and politics. It elevates the president, who is selected in a nationwide election, to embody the peoples will and rule over the political sphere with little interference. The Supreme Court, with its power to say what the law is, rules over the legal one.

Note what this vision leaves out: legislatures and agencies, our primary institutions for considering divergent interests and views, mediating disputes and reaching compromises key to democratic governance. Agencies are required to provide opportunities for public participation, respond to significant comments, and justify their decisions, which a court can overturn for being legally impermissible or simply arbitrary. These are much stronger strictures than those that constrain our courts or even our legislatures.

Eliminating Chevron would fit hand in glove with judicial populism. A judicial populist opinion might cast bureaucrats as arrogant and impervious to the voice of the people. Of course, regulations often govern the relations of different social groups and can even protect the interests of some people (like consumers or employees) from the domination of others (like the financial industry or employers).

Instead of acknowledging that regulatory statutes are purposely broad to allow different interpretations to emerge through discussions over time, a judicial populist approach would hold that there is one true meaning to the law a meaning courts get to announce once and for all.

That is why judicial populist rhetoric pervades textualism and originalism, theories of legal interpretation that insist that they alone can divine a laws one true meaning and argue against considering its wider social contexts or effects.

Those who are explicit about the choices they make are then easily derided as activists. For instance, in a 2017 case, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether it would be legitimate for the court to limit partisan gerrymandering. After all, that would mean that the court itself will have to decide in every case whether the Democrats win or the Republicans win. He implied that the less activist option was not to intervene. Yet if the status quo violates the rule of law and obstructs equal political participation, then not intervening is itself an important policy choice.

Similarly, in oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization (concerning a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy), Justice Kavanaugh repeatedly suggested that overturning precedents recognizing the right to terminate a pregnancy would be the courts most neutral option because the Constitution is neutral on abortion. But changing a half-century status quo is hardly neutral; in fact, there is no neutral option here.

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Opinion | Populism Has Reached the Supreme Court, Too ...

Amit Jain is the chief strategist of Ashika Group and co-founder of Ashika Wealth Advisory

Amit Jain, chief strategist of Ashika Group and co-founder of Ashika Wealth Advisory, feels earnings have been broadly in line with expectations so far. However, "inflationary pressure is clearly visible in earnings. This cost pressure may spike further in coming quarters and keep broader P/E (price/earnings) multiples in check."

Apart from earnings, another key event is Union Budget 2022 which will be presented on February 1. "Any reduction or abolition of capital gain tax can immediately boost FPI (foreign portfolio investment) sentiment on the budget day itself. Also, if the government takes decisive action on tax laws relating to residency rules, then it may further boost foreign investment in India," says Jain. Edited excerpts:

Will the budget focus more on populist measures ahead of state elections?

Yes, there are high possibilities that this budget will be more populist and growth-oriented rather than keeping a strict control on fiscal deficit or any other macro factors. In this year we have elections in seven states, hence there are higher chances that the government may try to woo the lower end of the pyramid with a lot of social sector schemes.

Also read - Budget 2022 | Three expectations for food processing and agribusiness

Will the government focus more on sectors that generate more employment or sectors affected the most by the pandemic?

In my personal view, the government may be taking a balanced approach. If the government rolls out lucrative PLI (production-linked incentive) schemes for MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and raises MSP (minimum support prices) for agriculture, then both objectives can be served as it covers 90 percent plus of the population.

Also, we may see increased spending on infrastructure and healthcare schemes, which may have a ripple effect for the economy.

What could be the surprising element in the budget if any?

Also read - Budget 2022: India set for modest fiscal consolidation amid slow economic recovery

Taxation of global tech firms for their India business revenue and some other stringent privacy laws may evoke some knee-jerk reaction from global investors. Also, we may see a major directional announcement to transform the Indian economy from fossil-based to gas and power-based by 2030. This will be in line with a broader objective to meet ESG (environmental, social, and governance) guidelines which are followed globally nowadays.

What could be the factors driving the market rally on budget day or persuading FPIs to pump in money?

Any reduction or abolition of capital gain tax can immediately boost FPI sentiment on the budget day itself. Also, if the government takes decisive action on tax laws relating to residency rules, then it may further boost foreign investment in India.

Also read - Budget 2022: Shipping ministry seeks 60% higher allocations for ship recycling capacity expansion

After the budget, what are the other important events or factors to watch out for in the rest of 2022?

The most important global event shall be the US Fed action on their bond buying programme and their actions on proposed interest rate hike. Given the scenario, we may have three to four rate hikes in 2022, if inflation doesn't come down to a comfort level of two percent. If this inflation pressure persists for long, then we may see some price and time correction in global markets.

In addition, we need to keep an eye on Russia-Ukraine tensions and strengthening of China's alliance with Russia, which may destabilise the world power equation.

Do you expect the market to give double-digit returns in 2022 and close the year above 21,000 on the Nifty50? Also this year, do you think the market will still be worried due to expected three rate hikes by Fed, inflation and Covid?

We are cautiously bullish on the Indian market for the financial year 2022-23. We believe Nifty may touch 21,000 before March 2023, as there are a lot of sectors which are undervalued within Nifty and broader market indices. However, this year is going to be a stock pickers market, rather than a broad-based market rally.

Yes, the market is concerned about such a steep rate hike proposed by the Fed but, in my view, the stock market will pass through this rough weather in the medium to long term as there is enough liquidity in global markets.

How do you read earnings announced so far?

So far earnings have been broadly in line with expectations. However, inflationary pressure is clearly visible in earnings. This cost pressure on earnings may spike further in coming quarters and keep broader market P/E (price/earnings) multiples in check.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not those of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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Daily Voice | Budget 2022 likely to be more populist rather than being mindful of fiscal gap, says Amit... - Moneycontrol.com

The objectives of the study on How Modis hybrid regime model [is] reshaping political narratives, ecosystems and national symbols are ambitious. The projects of the ruling party are certainly ambitious. It wishes to spatially and ideologically remake the country by reconstructing Lutyens Delhi, by building a temple where once a grand mosque stood, by introducing a political language that cares two hoots for propriety, and by superciliously dismissing the contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru to democracy.

Has it succeeded? Perhaps yes. Barely 10 years ago scholars were writing on multiculturalism, secularism, and minority rights. Today we are back to where modern political theory began the right to life and liberty in times of mob lynching and police atrocities. How did the political mood turn around so quickly? P. Raman in this detailed exposition of one mans rise to absolute power answers the question very well.

Standing up to the RSS

The story begins on February 19, 2013, when Mohan Bhagwat assured the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) hierarchys full support to Modi as the prime ministerial candidate. Very soon Modi defied the fundamental presupposition of the organisation; that the individual, no matter how powerful he may be, is subordinate to the collective. He informed senior leaders that he would always be there whenever they called. There was no need to set up a coordination committee to regulate the relationship between a future government and the RSS. In any case his Mission-272, that of securing a majority in Parliament, was intended to reduce dependence on secular allies. He would institutionalise Hindutva so dear to the heart of RSS leaders. They need not worry.

Some leaders were nevertheless wary of him. His commitment to liberalisation and to the corporatisation of the economy went against Swadeshi so ardently defended by the organisation. But he was backed enthusiastically by RSS supremo Bhagwat. He was also openly supported by top corporate leaders of initially Gujarat, and then from the rest of the country. The scene was set for the rise of a classical kind of authoritarian political boss... Like the elected dictators the world over, he communicated directly to voters and party ranks. Modis political strategy was a deadly mix of hard Hindutva and unadulterated neoliberal framework.

Old vs. the new

Economic liberalisation was conjoined to political illiberalism. The former was secured by corporates. They placed their enormous funds, their media houses, PR agents, digital engineers and survey agencies at the feet of an incoming Modi regime. Political illiberalism was secured by Hindutva that relentlessly subordinates individual citizens to the nation conceived of in purely majoritarian terms, argues Raman.

Around the twin planks of his ideology gathered WhatsApp administrators, lynch mobs coordinators, those who rallied audiences, cash dispensers and alcohol distributors, says Raman. Modi rallies have rewritten the grammar of how elections are fought. His image was projected on gigantic screens, and cheer leaders outshouted other BJP leaders. He was presented as Indias new messiah, the conquering hero who would vanquish the old elite.

No visibility and voice

The BJP came to power in 2014 and we witnessed the quick degeneration of parliamentary democracy into autocratic populism. Under the Modi regime, elected ministers have been reduced to nothing. They have little visibility and even less voice. The PM chastises them as if they are schoolboys. They are not invited to meetings he holds with their bureaucrats. Civil servants are responsible directly to him. All decisions of ministries have to be cleared by the Prime Ministers Office. RSS leaders monitored the government for the first two years. With the appointment of Amit Shah as the party president, the rules changed. The RSS was pushed to the margins.

Centralised rule seldom makes for good governance though. Badly conceptualised policies of demonetisation and GST led to chaos and intensified poverty. Schemes announced with much fanfare lapsed, and the enthusiasm of the leadership waned.

As power came to be centralised in the office of the prime minister, organisations meant to share power or check it, from the RBI to the CBI were hijacked. Yet the Modi juggernaut continued to roll. The BJP secured even more seats in the 2019 general election. This encouraged the government to unfurl the full agenda of Hindutva from Kashmir to Ayodhya and beyond.

Demise of institutions

In the last chapter, Raman surveys the literature on authoritarian populism and concludes that the concept is appropriate for India. The country has seen the personalisation of power and the demise of institutions ranging from Parliament to civil society. Enthusiastically acclaimed by a media that forgets that it is a part of civil society which keeps watch on the exercise of power, and not a PR arm of the government, Modi has succeeded in making people forget the tragedies his misconceived policies have heaped on India. We are left to ponder an unpalatable question. Have Indians become apolitical, more attracted to strong leaders rather than democratic ones?

Tryst with Strong Leader Populism; P. Raman, Aakar Publications, 695.

The reviewer is Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Equity Studies.

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Tryst with Strong Leader Populism review: The rise to absolute power - The Hindu

Defenders of Boris Johnson are telling mutinous Tory MPs not to focus solely on the dolce vita lifestyle enjoyed in No 10 when the rest of the population was locked up at home. Instead, they ask those who want rid of the Prime Minister to view his achievements more generally, citing his taking Britain out of the EU, winning the general election in 2019, and overseeing the vaccine programme.

Ignore the validity of these claims for the moment and, taking Johnson loyalists at their word, consider his position against the backdrop of British history. It is not premature to do so because, even if he clings on as Prime Minister, his freedom of action will be limited which means that his political heritage is already in place. Important questions requiring an answer include how far he is a one-trick pony who rose to power thanks to his populist nationalism, which was ideally suited to political currents during the era of Brexit? Equally important, how far will his premiership be seen as an aberration rather than as a permanent transformation of British politics?

Boozing and partying by politicians and civil servants who were simultaneously ordering everybody else to live in conditions of semi-siege is grossly hypocritical. But their behaviour was in keeping with the self-indulgence shown by populist nationalist leaders elsewhere in the world. It is always striking how, for all Johnsons British boosterism, his actions mirror those of populists in the rest of the world.

There are specific reasons why Johnsons leadership should be tottering a year after his supporters were boasting that he might be in power for a decade. His successes took place while Dominic Cummings was directing his actions and, once he lost his chief adviser, he wobbled from misjudgement to misjudgement. Downing Street increasingly resembled the court of a minor monarch in the 18th century, with consorts and courtiers vying for the kings ear.

Populist nationalist movements are not new, but in their modern version, they have proved to be the worlds most powerful political force over the past decade.

But they have tended to produce permanent instability and frequent crises from the US to Hungary and from Britain to Brazil. This is because populist leaders lead unwieldy coalitions made up of contradictory interests. A good word for these movements is pluto-populist with plutocrats and the well-off in uneasy alliance with marginalised victims of globalisation. Donald Trump was absurdly nicknamed the blue-collar billionaire by his supporters when he became Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

Johnsons brand of populism is more muted with its levelling up slogan which is still awaiting a much-delayed White Paper spelling out what it means two years after the general election. Business investment is below what it was prior to the referendum and mean real average weekly pay is still lower than in 2007. No wonder red wall Tory MPs are rebellious.

The Johnsonian brand of British nationalism is similarly in trouble. Future historians chronicling his career may point to his role in the 2016 Brexit referendum as the moment when he played a truly decisive role, because without his intervention the vote might have gone the other way. His other achievements are all more dubious: any Tory leader would have won the last general election against a divided Labour Party and credit for the vaccine belongs primarily to the scientists and the NHS, which would have got the support of any British government in power.

Britain has declined as an international power under Johnson, something which was inevitable once Brexit weakened its links to its allies and main trading partners in Europe. Friction with France and Ireland, Britains two closest geographical neighbours, has become the norm. The position of England within the British Isles as a whole is less secure than at any time over the last 300 years, with the SNP dominant in Scotland and Sinn Fin likely to become the largest political party in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland in the next few years.

Yet it would be nave to attribute all of Britains ills to Johnson and his government because, like all governments, their control over events is less than they pretend. Much that has gone wrong with the NHS during the epidemic, for example, is because the health service was weakened by underfunding under David Cameron and George Osborne. But the root of the problem stretches back over 70 years since Britain has always tried to have a top-class health service on the cheap, leaving it with far fewer doctors and hospital beds per head of population than in France and Germany.

One damaging feature of the Johnson years is symbolised by the No 10 parties. They may appear to be trivial but they exemplify a feckless frivolity, a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan lack of seriousness, that flavours everything the Government tries to do.

What worries me is the casual political vandalism, Jonathan Powell, the chief negotiator of the peace accords in Northern Ireland, is quoted as saying. They really dont seem to care. I mean the damage they are doing to the very fragile political settlements in Northern Ireland by posturing. A similar disengagement from reality was on show when the Foreign Office failed even to read the emails containing pleas for help from Afghans with British connections during the fall of Kabul.

It is not too early to try to identify the main consequences of the Johnson era, even if he does stay in office, because in future he will be damaged and vulnerable and bent on survival. This might be no bad thing because his ability to do wrong will be curtailed as he loses his ability to take control of events.

But a wounded populist is a dangerous thing, as Donald Trump has shown as he spews out calls to arms to rally his core supporters. Johnson is reacting in a somewhat similar fashion, threatening the BBC, one of the few remaining British institutions with real prestige in the world, with defunding and sending the Royal Navy to stop refugees crossing the Channel.

There is an egotism and an irresponsibility about Johnson at bay that is breathtaking and it will probably get worse. He may not have started the decline of Britain, but he has certainly speeded it up.

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Boris Johnsons populism may be muted, but it is still accelerating Britains decline - iNews