Category Archives: Populism

Though the political battle over gun reform laws in the US, after the latest school shootings in my home state of Texas, may seem like a faraway problem, its not. Even if events are happening across the Atlantic, we should be concerned by the intransigence of Republicans, who will not yield on their sanctification of the right to keep and bear arms. We should also be worried about other policy positions developed closer to home, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans 12-point plan for successful Christian Conservative politics in Western democracies or the French far rights desire to limit the rights of migrants.

We should be concerned because, despite geopolitical separation, political leaders on the far right are co-ordinating strategic objectives and policy programmes. The recent American Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Budapest highlighted the level of co-operation. As this coordination becomes more powerful, then small countries such as Ireland, whose social values are moving in a different direction, will be increasingly troubled. They will find themselves navigating the politics of allies who are moving not just further and further away from liberal democracy, but also toward highly unequal societies where information is biased, opposition is limited or repressed, those in power act with impunity, and prejudice and patriarchy are validated.

Whats missing, though, from the far-rights otherwise coherent agenda, is any notion of how economic policy is going to support this kind of society. The gap in thinking offers an opportunity for liberal democracies such as Ireland, who can link economic policy to an alternative trajectory of societal change, distinctive from the exclusionary, even violent vision of the far right.

Far right governments have often treated the economy as a political tool, providing handouts to political allies and supporters, and punishing businesses that express political views they dont like, for instance, about climate change. They also engage in wishful thinking about the effects of deregulation and lower taxes on economic growth and income distribution. During his presidency, Donald Trump embraced tax cuts for the wealthy and stripping worker rights. Correspondingly, income inequality grew, with the top 5 per cent benefiting the most, while poor management of the pandemic undid gains in employment and economic growth after he took office.

[Spiralling rents and mortgage costs pushing more into poverty, study finds]

The current cost of living crisis, as well as the war in Ukraine, offer the chance for a rethink on precisely how to reduce inequality, diversify the economy, and account for the impact of economic growth on the environment and society. In Ireland, the combination of long-term structural problems such as underinvestment in public services and rising costs is certainly placing unbearable pressure on lower income households, but its affecting middle income households as well. The OECD recently reported on falling real wages in Ireland, along with higher taxes on that income.

Certainly, the Government should help households in the short term. But they should be more ambitious in confronting the inequalities that undermine social cohesion and provoke political discontent. For instance, policymakers could ask how new initiatives such as the 90 million start-up fund as well as investment in infrastructure could help reduce regional inequalities and the decline of rural communities.

According to 2020 data, the gap between the average disposable income per capita at a national level and in the Northern and Western region, as well as the gap between Dublin and the Border region, have tripled since 2010. These inequalities are manifested in local resistance against national policy, for instance, the protests against the ban on turf cutting. Communities have called the ban unfair, citing its significance to their livelihoods and sustainability as a community. Some have called for developing community-owned assets, such as energy production, so that residents benefit economically and communities themselves can be rejuvenated. They reject investment from multinationals or large companies whose priority is profitmaking.

These protests echo those in other countries, where communities suffering from years of underinvestment and economic decline feel neglected by national governments. Leaders such as Orban have taken advantage of this dissatisfaction. Indeed, he argues in his 12-point plan that there is no conservative political success without well-functioning communities. The fewer the communities and the lonelier the people, the more voters turn to the Liberals. Whereas the more communities there are, the more votes we get. It is as simple as that. Yet can communities really function if people cannot find good jobs or earn enough money to pay the bills?

Ireland has a chance now to strengthen the connection between investing in local economies and community development, a connection that goes beyond building rural work hubs. Adoption of models such as community wealth building entails altering local public institutional spending in areas of high deprivation, for example, using procurement contracts to generate growth in local businesses, especially those that pay a fair wage.

The Government should go further by expanding use of public funds to bring together researchers, entrepreneurs and community stakeholders to cultivate centres of innovation that benefit local businesses and residents in regions suffering long-term downward economic trends. The reality is that communities will only become more functional if instead of uncertainty and decline, their members can now visualise a more vibrant future, where they can trust economic policy to increase local opportunities and improve community life.

Shana Cohen is the director of Tasc, the think tank for action of social change

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Don't let the cost-of-living crisis feed far-right populism - The Irish Times

Amazon Primes fabulously gory superhero satire The Boys returns for its third season on Friday 3 June, facing the unenviable task of surpassing the ultra-violent excesses of its first two instalments, which brought us exploding invisible men, a laser-eyed baby and the brutal impaling of a 50-foot blue whale by speedboat in a shower of blood.

The show is based on a long-running series of comics from legendary Preacher creator Garth Ennis and takes place in an alternate reality in which a team of superheroes, known as The Seven, police society under the auspices of Vought International, a shadowy corporation that keeps a tight rein on their image with at least one eye on lucrative commercial partnerships.

While The Seven are adored by an unquestioning public, not everyone is convinced they are as squeaky-clean as they appear. Enter the maverick Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), who steers a ragtag crew of grudge-bearing vigilantes on a mission to expose the supes for who they really are.

The Seven are led by the omnipotent Homelander (Antony Starr), who initially appears as a straightforward riff on Superman or Captain America, a chiselled ubermensch with a square jaw and Colgate smile who wears the Stars-and-Stripes billowing from his shoulders beneath golden eagle epaulettes.

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But behind that clean-cut veneer, Homelander is really a deeply disturbed narcissist not to mention a homicidal, xenophobic rapist who sees no contradiction between his grinning, glad-handing persona (You guys, youre the real heroes) and the blank amorality of his conduct.

Antony Starr as Homelander in The Boys and former president Donald TrumpAmazon/ Getty Images

As Dr Johnson warned us: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Utterly untroubled by conscience or the hundred-weight of his own hypocrisy, Homelander ended season two unhappily and was last seen stood on top of a skyscraper and seething I can do whatever the f*** I want! while masturbating petulantly in the moonlight.

If that deluded pronouncement from an American tyrant with lavish blonde hair and too much power reminds you of someone, it might well be former president Donald J Trump, who notoriously declared on the campaign trail in January 2016: I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose any voters.

After shocking a complacent world by beating Hillary Clinton to the White House later that year, Trump proceeded to behave in office as though the presidency conferred on him the divine right of kings and frequently said as much, telling a Turning Point summit in July 2019, to take just one example: The Constitution says I can do whatever I want as president but I dont even talk about that.

Trumps disastrous tenure began with a bitterly opposed Muslim travel ban and an emboldened far-right rallying in Charlottesville, almost brought nuclear war with North Korea and Iran and ended with an unfinished border wall, unprecedented twin impeachments and a deadly attempted insurrection at the US Capitol inspired by a lie, the 45th president leaving Washington, DC, without so much as access to his own Twitter account to show for four years of division, mendacity and mass protest that left Americas credibility in tatters.

A Homelander presidency could hardly have been worse and the comparison between the two men does not end there.

In an infamous episode of season one of The Boys, the caped hero intervenes in an airline hijacking by Islamist terrorists, vapourising the attackers only to leave the passengers to plummet to their deaths once he realises that the pilot has already been executed and calculates that the hostages lives are not worth his time to save.

Rather than grieving their loss or confessing his cowardice, Homelander instead sees an opportunity, telling the news media the tragedy could have been averted if superheroes were accepted into the US military hierarchy and given prominence within its chain of command.

Trump has shown precisely the same callous disregard, insensitivity and naked self-interest on multiple occasions, most recently suggesting Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he still occupied the Oval Office.

Season two of The Boys meanwhile introduces the character of Stormfront (Aya Cash), an initially charming, livestream-literate addition to The Seven who threatens to steal Homelanders thunder before gradually revealing herself to be an immortal superbeing spawned in Nazi Germany.

The romantic relationship between the pair neatly mirrors the manner in which many of the more unsavoury elements of the American alt-right ecosystem latched onto Trumps coattails after he secured the Republican nomination in the hope of cementing proximity to power.

Discussing the changes made in adapting Stormfront for the MAGA era, showrunner Eric Kripke told Den of Geek in August 2020 that there is little ambiguity about the character in the comics pages.

THE BOYS Season 2 - STORMFRONT and HOMELANDERs Fascist Fight (Eric Kripke & Cast Interview)www.youtube.com

[But] thats not really how hatred works these days, he explained. A lot of people espouse some pretty hateful ideologies cloaked in pretty savvy, even sometimes attractive, social media packaging and they say they are coming off as disruptors or free-thinkers and are, a lot of the time, good-looking young men and women who attract a younger generation.

When you dig deeper into that, you realise they are peddling the same old bulls*** that people have been peddling for a thousand years.

On the amazing prescience of The Boys, Kripke said: This show happens to be and Im not sure I knew it was going to be when I started working on it the perfect metaphor for the exact moment were living in, where authoritarianism and celebrity combine, where fascism and entertainment combine.

Such subtleties were entirely lost on some of Trumps own fans, at least one of whom was confused enough about the shows politics to attend the Million MAGA March in DC in November 2020 in protest at his election defeat dressed as Homelander.

Kripke responded to a picture of this buffoon by asking: Um... are they actually watching the show?

Starr was even more withering, labelling the spectacle (in a nod to the title of Trumps ghost-written autobiography): The art of ignorant dumbf***erry.

Perhaps neither should have been so surprised that the MAGA mob were confused by something they had seen on TV.

These were, after all, the same people who believed the host of The Celebrity Apprentice might make a solid commander-in-chief.

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Why Homelander from The Boys is the perfect parody of Trumpian populism - indy100

The 2021 Donner Prize for best public-policy book by a Canadian will be awarded on May 31 in Toronto. Four of the five authors shortlisted for the $50,000 prize responded to The Globe and Mails questions on the rise of populism; they commented on the mistrust in government and institutions that divisive populist leaders tend to generate.

Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Chair of innovation studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, nominated for Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World

The current wave of populism is mainly fear mongering and burning down the house. But if you look at history, there have been other kinds of populism. Louisianas Huey Long, for example, was a left-wing populist member of the Democratic Party who attacked President Franklin D. Roosevelt for not being radical enough about building what we now call welfare institutions.

If not for Long, the New Deal would not be what we know of it today. It would have been mild, and it would not have been such a positive change for American society.

Because people are attracted to populism today, it behooves us to offer not just grand visions Canada will be a green leader, whatever that means but pragmatic visions on how our society will look better for everyone in 50 years and how we can build it.

Former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, nominated for Value(s): Building a Better World for All

Trust is the glue of our citizenship. Fostering it must reach beyond partisanship. Our institutions and leaders must serve all Canadians and earn their trust every day. So how can they? Trust demands competence to be relentless in implementation and to deliver reliably on expectations. Trust is built on transparency and accountability.

At a time when some foster division, fear and distrust in others, our institutions must look like the Canadians they represent and engage with all Canadians to understand their perspectives. And trust requires humility.

Being humble doesnt mean being passive. Humility means planning for things that can go wrong like financial crises, pandemics and wars. Humility means setting ambitious goals, knowing that we need to work together to achieve them. And humility means never being satisfied with all that weve achieved, but knowing that, by staying true to our values, by trusting each other, we can build an even better Canada for all.

Professor of international relations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, nominated for Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canadas National Security

One of the key underlying arguments of my book is that national security threats often benefit and thrive from fear, which is a product of and in turn contributes to mistrust in our government institutions. However, if the years since 9/11 have taught us anything, it is that national security cannot, and should not, be the frame through which we seek to solve problems of trust.

Instead, longer lasting solutions must be grounded in community empowerment and social capital, supported with government intervention. Research on disasters shows that empowered communities are more resilient, better placed to deal with trauma, have a better sense of community, more citizen participation, social embeddedness and attachment to place.

This means, perhaps counterintuitively, the responses of our national security institutions need to be grounded in empathy for the communities that are experiencing threats. Empathy being aware of, understanding and appreciating the ordeal of others as they experience the impact of threat-related activity highlights the need to robustly tackle these challenges, but to do so in a way that minimizes distrust.

Andr Picard

Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail

Health reporter and columnist for The Globe and Mail, nominated for Neglected No More: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canadas Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic

In health care, mistrust has real, harmful (and sometimes fatal) consequences, both individually and collectively. We saw this on a grand scale during the pandemic. Why did the U.S. have 2.5 times more COVID-19 deaths per capita than Canada (40,000 vs. one million)? Largely because many Americans doubted the value of vaccines, rejected public-health advice and embraced partisanship. They lost faith in government, and that spilled over to science, the media, corporations and more; anyone with expertise really.

Canadians were a little less cynical and a little more trusting, but their frustrations are spilling over too. People feel public institutions routinely fail them. In Canada, millions of people dont even have a family doctor, the most basic form of health care, and when they turn to the emergency room, they wait for countless hours. And during COVID-19, long-term care homes, which are supposed to protect societys most vulnerable, became slaughterhouses of neglect. If we want to restore trust, we need institutions (and their leaders) to be worthy of our trust.

The fifth shortlisted book for the 2021 Donner Prize is Indigenomics: Taking a Seat at the Economic Table by Carol Anne Hilton.

The interviews have been edited and condensed.

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Donner Prize finalists on the rise of populism, mistrust in institutions - The Globe and Mail

Analysis

14:19

by Eric Kaufmann

Credit: Getty

The British government has launched a high potential individual route to attract the brightest and best graduates from around the world to Britain. Those with a degree will have a good chance at a 2-year work visa and can bring their families in, a bridge to a longer-term work visa. Boris Johnson and many elite Brexiteers believe that Brexit was about sovereignty and control, not immigration numbers. This narrative served to deflect the charge of racism during the Leave campaign, but also highlighted that Vote Leave elites really are motivated by a high-immigration, libertarian Singapore-on-Thames vision.

The problem for Johnson is that the dream of a free-trading global Britain is not why most people voted for Brexit. Instead, immigration was by far the most important motivation for Leave voters. The 2019 British Election Study shows that 8 in 10 people who voted Conservative or Brexit Party wanted less immigration, and on a scale from 0 (reduce a lot) to 5 (stay the same) to 10 (increase a lot), the average 2019 Tory voter scores little more than 2 out of 10.

As Clare Foges points out in an important piece in the Times today, 60% of those polled in 2016 thought Brexit would deliver lower levels of immigration and, at the time, Johnson argued that there was no public consent for the scale of immigration we are seeing. Yet, six years later, new Home Office figures show that nearly a million people were offered visas last year: work visas are up 50% from 2019-20, study visas up 58%, visas granted for family reasons up 63%.

In a set of survey experiments in 2018, I found that the balance of UK respondents preferred lower numbers even if this meant a less skilled immigration intake. This was especially true when immigration was tied to more rapid ethnic change in Britain (i.e. a drop to 58% White British by 2060 instead of 65% with lower immigration). When these ethnocultural effects were pointed out in each option, support for skilled immigration dropped 25 percentage points. This gets at the source of immigration anxiety, which is primarily cultural, not economic, and is concentrated among those with a psychological makeup which views difference as disorder and change as loss.

The Johnson government is pursuing an Australia strategy predicated on the idea that if you have control, numbers dont matter. This has worked temporarily in Australia and Canada, but these societies are characterised by a weaker popular attachment to history and, certainly in Canada, growing polarisation on cultural lines. Populism around high levels of legal immigration has flared in New Zealand, focused on a narrative of high house prices and urban sprawl. Attempting such a strategy in Britain is a risky bet for a government which relies on culturally-conservative Red Wall voters for its survival.

It is true, as British Future and others point out, that immigration has fallen down voters priority list. But we have been living in highly unusual times. Managing a successful Brexit, followed by a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, followed by the first interstate war in Europe since 1945. These events, and their economic knock-on effects, will not dominate the headlines forever. When the 2007-8 economic crisis subsided, the economy fell down EU citizens priority lists while immigration rose. This was the lay of the land prior to Brexit and the wider European populist moment, and when we return there, a government which has presided over high immigration levels may well be exposed, like David Camerons, to a populist insurgency.

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Boris Johnson is opening the door to a populist insurgency - UnHerd

And Caledonian MacBrayne, which needs the ferries to service island communities, is not Ferguson Marines only unhappy customer. Richard Keisner, of CMI Offshore, recently accused the shipyard of extremely low productivity and quality control. A barge his company had ordered will now be completed elsewhere.

Yet despite the huge amounts of taxpayers money at stake in Ferguson Marine, Scotlands opposition politicians have done little more than raise a concerned eyebrow. They cant afford to get a reputation for poor work, opined Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson.

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No-one dares to ask the obvious question: should the Scottish Government be propping up a failing shipbuilder at all?

Margaret Thatchers ghost haunts any discussion of Scottish shipbuildings future. The story goes that Scotland was a great shipbuilding nation until Thatcher came along and heartlessly ruined everything. A whole generation of nationalist politicians, including Nicola Sturgeon, were drawn into politics by this foundational belief.

Yet Scottish shipbuilding had struggled since the 1960s. Despite Scotlands shipbuilding heritage, other countries could build modern ships for lower prices. Orders for Scottish ships fell. Fewer orders meant reduced economies of scale, further damaging efficiency and competitiveness.

With shipyards already running at a loss, there was no money to invest in new technologies or otherwise improve efficiency. Scottish shipbuilding has been caught in this downward spiral for at least half a century.

Thatchers biggest mistake was relying on the creative destruction of the free market. There was no creativity, just destruction.

Could things have been different with a proper plan to support the transition from traditional industries to future ones? We will never know. There was no plan, and 40 years later we are still dealing with the social and political consequences.

That is why no-one wants to be the first to admit that Ferguson Marine is probably beyond saving, especially not the Tories.

But it is time for a cold, hard assessment of the facts. The best-case scenario is that the Scottish Government pays Ferguson Marine 240 million for two ferries and Ferguson Marine miraculously transforms itself into a viable business. The Scottish Government will have paid 160 million to save just over 300 jobs. By a crude calculation, that works out at over 500,000 per job.

Even if this works, the opportunity cost must not be underestimated. That money could have gone a long way invested in other pressing priorities like (re)training, education, research and development, seed capital for innovative businesses, and infrastructure. All of these are badly needed if Scotland is to have a future as a dynamic and internationally competitive economy.

And the harsh reality is that Ferguson Marines future prospects look poor. Are we prepared to let it become a sink without a plug for taxpayers money? It is time for an honest, robust debate about that.

We associate economic populism with far-flung countries in Latin America, but Scotland risks falling into the same trap.

Economic populism has three main hallmarks. First, money is spent on immediate political and social priorities, while investment in long-term economic priorities (education, training and infrastructure) that increase overall prosperity is neglected.

Second, there is a lack of accountability, along with the dismantling of economic and political restraints on government. Third, international trade is seen as a threat rather than an opportunity.

All three are clearly visible in the Ferguson Marine case, and that should be a cause for alarm.

There must be a full public inquiry into the Scottish Governments handling of the case. It is shocking for documents to conveniently go missing from the Scottish Governments files. Accountability matters.

On the bigger questions of Scotlands economic strategy, opposition parties must dare to draw on another heritage: Scotlands leading role in the economic Enlightenment.

Scotland is a small, high-income country in one of the worlds richest regions. Large, middle-income countries like Turkey, with much lower wages and economies of scale, will continue to outcompete Scotland in shipbuilding. Instead of throwing good money after bad, Scotland can better play to its modern strengths.

Historically, Scotland had an excellent education system, but results have fallen behind the OECD average. Fixing this should be the Scottish Governments top priority. Pushing up educational standards will not be easy: it will require sustained commitment and investment over decades. However, this is key to tackling Scotlands pervasive inequality and preparing the Scottish economy for the future.

Scotland still has world-class universities. In theory, these should be pillars of prosperity for a small, high-income country with wealthy neighbours. For any country in this position, the most promising economic strategy is to create innovative, niche products and export them. By this logic, Scotland should be looking for gaps in the market to fill, rather than attempting to compete in traditional heavy industries dominated by middle-income countries.

If the Scottish Government has 160 million to spend creating jobs, this is where the focus should be.

An open-eyed assessment of Scotlands infrastructure, and whether it supports its economic goals, is also needed. Scotland has fallen shamefully behind in digital connectivity, especially in rural areas. Crude demands of the private sector for example, that international companies supplying offshore windmills deliver community benefits may also fail for a lack of suitable infrastructure.

Scotland does not currently have a harbour deep enough to accommodate modern floating windmills, which is why they are assembled in Rotterdam and towed into place.

These are complex challenges to which economic populism has no answers. As Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and a native son of Kirkcaldy, said: The facts must be real, otherwise they will not assist us in our future conduct, by pointing out the means to avoid or produce an event.

These words should serve as a lodestar for those hoping to guide Scotland to a prosperous future.

Dr Alison Smith is an author and political analyst at Political Developments

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Scotland should remember the words of Adam Smith and beware the dead hand of economic populism Dr Alison Smith - The Scotsman

In two neighboring industrial states, we are about to get a test of the proposition that economic populism is the key to a Democratic resurgence. We are also going to find out just how much havoc Donald Trump is wreaking on his own party.

In Ohio, a genuine pocketbook populist, Tim Ryan, is in a campaign for an open Senate seat against the ultimate faux populist, J.D. Vance, who went from hillbilly to hedge fund executive. Vance won his primary thanks largely to Trumps endorsement.

This is a Republican-trending state where one of the Senates most effective economic populists, Democrat Sherrod Brown, keeps getting elected and re-elected while other Democrats dont win statewide. Maybe Brown and Ryan are onto something.

In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is favored to win the Democratic primary today for another open Senate seat against the more centrist Conor Lamb (assuming that Fettermans recovery from a stroke is on track). The Republican side is too close to call and features a tight three-way race between candidates who epitomize the widening schisms in the GOP.

More from Robert Kuttner

Until a few weeks ago, a traditional Wall Street Republican, David McCormick, was the front-runner. He worked at McKinsey and got rich as CEO of a software company called FreeMarkets. He then joined the George W. Bush administration as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. He left to work for a hedge fund, Bridgewater, becoming its CEO in 2017. You couldnt invent a better antithesis of a populist.

After flirting with a McCormick endorsement, Trump endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz. In case youve been living on Jupiter, Oz is a TV doctor (with actual medical credentials) who has been accused over the years of promoting one fake cure after another.

Oz is Trumps kind of guy. He and Trump have been on each others TV shows. Trump prizes Ozs celebrity.

Oz doesnt actually live in Pennsylvania; he registered at his in-laws Pennsylvania address in 2020. (The Oz campaign says the doctor grew up in Greater Philadelphia, aka New Jersey.)

But Oz is being threatened from the pseudo-populist right by an even coarser right-wing celebrity, Fox News commentator Kathy Barnette. The Oz camp has frantically been running ads about Crazy Kathy, and Trump has warned that she could not win the general election.

So both Ohio and Pennsylvania display Trumps continuing gift for wreaking havoc on his own party as one fake conservative populist vies with another.

Its worth pausing to ask, what is populism?

Though the word is often sloppily used to describe both a left and a right version, populism definitely comes in two distinct forms. The only thing that connects them is disaffection and disgust on the part of common people with ruling elites and a call for radical reform. But the analysis and set of remedies are entirely different.

Right-wing populism is on the spectrum with fascism. It tends to be nationalist, nativist, drawn to autocrats, and scapegoats racial and ethnic minorities. Examples would be Viktor Orban, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Donald Trump.

Though the word is often sloppily used to describe both a left and a right version, populism definitely comes in two distinct forms.

Left populism draws on economic grievances, but looks to radical economic reforms and expanded democracy. FDR was the quintessential progressive. He rallied the people against the moneyed interests, and with good reason.

Bernie Sanders is a left populist. He could have been the Democratic nominee in 2016, and a far better counter to Trump than Hillary Clinton, who was the antithesis of a populist.

Heres the insidious part. You can count on centrist commentators, nervous about angry masses on the march, to warn against the perils of populism generally, and to tar the progressive variant with the sins of its right-wing namesake.

Our friend John Judis makes this useful distinction. Left-wing populism rallies the bottom and middle against the top. Right-wing populists champion the people against an elite that they accuse of coddling a third group, such as immigrants, Islamists, or African Americans.

As the past several decades show, if we dont have effective progressive populism, right-wing populism fills the vacuum. And right-wing populists, like Trump or Mussolini, are very deft at marrying the symbols of popular grievances to the reality of serving corporate interests.

This explains two paradoxes: why corporate execs who found Trumps coarseness and sheer grifting distasteful were nonetheless willing to be part of his governing coalition; and why working-class Americans, who sort of knew that Trump was really a corporate shill, were willing to put that knowledge aside because he was so satisfyingly blunt at articulating their grievances against Blacks or feminists or enviros or PC liberals in general.

With half the Democratic Party in bed with Wall Street, there was no progressive economic populism to offset the right-wing cultural populism. Much the same thing happened in Europe, where right-wing populist nationalists gained ground as the EU became ever more neoliberal and living standards for ordinary people stagnated. As hated outsiders, immigrants played a key role in this inversion.

Now, thanks to Trump himself, the Republican Party is deconstructing the contradictory elements of the Trump package. It worked just well enough to win the 2016 election when all of the parts were combined with the persona of a charismatically outrageous entertainer. But what happens when one element of the Trump appeal is personified by Mehmet Oz, a second by David McCormick, and a third by Kathy Barnette?

Only one of these can win the Pennsylvania GOP primary. Will angry supporters of the also-rans vote for that nominee? Will Trump urge them to? Same story with Ohio, and the other states where Trump is widening the fissures in his party with his narcissistic meddling in primaries.

Conversely, left populism has been eclipsed since FDRs era. And the blue-collar white working class is a lot smaller now than in the heyday of FDR and Truman, though there are far more downwardly mobile Americans today than in the glory era of the New Deal coalition. Will voters once gulled by Trump give the Fettermans and the Ryans a hearing?

On these questions, the future of democracy turns.

See the article here:

Fake Populism vs. Real Populism - The American Prospect

Arts and entertainment

May 12, 2022

Through public events and exhibitions, connect with the UW community every week!

Christina Fiig: Gender Policies in a Context of (Quasi) Permanent Crisis

May 17, 12:00 PM | Online

Join the Center for West European Studies and the Jean Monnet EU Center to continue the Talking Gender in the EU Lecture Series, with Christina Fiig on EU Gender Policies in a Context of (Quasi) Permanent Crisis,

Christina Fiigis an Associate Professor at the School of Culture and Society, Section for Global Studies (European Studies), Aarhus University, Denmark,has authored the paper Gender Equality Policies and European Union Policies(Oxford University Press 2020) and co-authored the chapter The Populist Challenge to GenderEquality with Birte Sim (Routledge 2021).

Since 2008, the EU has been struggling with the interrelatedness of the Euro, refugee and Brexit crisis (Caporaso, 2018), with the rise of populism (Erman & Verdun, 2018), and most recently with the Covid-19 pandemic. There are good reasons to assume that these multiple crises may be here to stay (Dinan, Nugent, & Paterson, 2017), as they are the result of many factors that are at once local, domestic, European, and global (Erman & Verdun, 2018). In this lecture, Dr. Fiig will establish a context of (quasi) permanent crisis as a framework for understanding the contemporary developments in EU gender policies and the rise of rightwing populist parties and voices in the European Parliament.

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MFA Dance Concert

May 18 May 22 | Meany Hall

Treat yourself to a live in-person performance with original choreography created by our world-class MFA in dance candidates and performed by our undergraduate students! The Department of Dance graduate students, all of whom have had no less than eight years of professional dance experience, work with selected undergraduate students to compose six conceptually and aesthetically diverse works. This years MFA candidates include artists who have worked with some of the worlds most distinguished dance groups, touring nationally and internationally, including but not limited to BANDALOOP, Dance Art Group (DAG), The Lmon Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Trust, Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater, and 10 Hairy Legs.

$10 | Buy tickets & more info

Online Symposium Dismantling the Body

May 18-19 | Online

The Graduate Students of Art History (GSAH) are pleased to invite you to the two-day virtual symposium Dismantling the Body: Possibilities and Limitations in Art Making on May 1819, 2022.

Throughout arts history, the human body has been a site of tensions, subject to regulations, overcoming or submitting to physical challenges, but also offering far-reaching opportunities for self-expression. This symposium will bring together scholars and artists to explore the interactions between body and place, the production of bodily knowledge, the regulation of the body, and its agency.

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Monica De La Torres, Feminista Frequencies, Book Talk & Celebration

May 18, 3:30 PM | Communications 202

Please join us for this book launch, celebration, and discussion with author Monica De La Torre, GWSS Alum (PhD 2016) and Assistant Professor in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. The road to the 2022 publication of her book Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley (UW Press) began with Dr. De La Torres doctoral research in the UW Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies. In this event, she will give a presentation on the research behind the book, delving into community-based radio as feminist praxis, public scholarship, and the process of turning a dissertation into a book, and then opening into a discussion with the audience. A reception will follow the event from 5-6pm.

Resistance through Resilience:CCDE 7thAnnual Conference

May 18-19 | Online

Consisting of a two-part listening session and a panel discussion, theCCDE/UWRLResistance through Resilience conferencewill showcasedialogues fromprogram participants alongsideelements ofthe Resistance through Resilience curriculum.

Free | Register & more info

DXARTS Spring Concert:Life Studies

May 18, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

The Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) is pleased to present a program of classic virtuoso works of aural cinema and acousmatic music from DXARTS artist researchers.

Free | Register & more info

Passage

May 19 21 | Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse

Obie Award-winner Christopher Chens provocative fantasia,Passage, gently lifts us from our own reality and sets us down in a new place: Country X. Country X has been occupied by Country Y. Country X is allowed its own laws and leaders, but Country Y controls both and has been unfairly abusing its power to mistreat native-born citizens. Chen deftly deploys theatres primal evocative powers to raise questions that make the audience profoundly uncomfortable, but simultaneously creates a welcoming space to which everyone is invited. (Time Out New York). New Drama faculty member Adrienne Mackey, Artistic Director of Philadelphias Swim Pony, makes her UW Drama directorial debut.

$5 20 | Buy tickets & more info

Roe v Wade: Impact, Solution, and Empowerment

May 21, 10:00 AM| Online

This event is aStudent-ledinitiative, open to all community members who are passionate about reproductive justice. This event is an opportunity for activists, organizations, and the greater community to come together and discuss what is at stake for Roe v Wade, and its place within the Reproductive justice movement.This event is sponsored by the UW Alene Moris Womens Center, as well as the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the University of Washington.

We are excited to introduce our guest Keynote speaker, Dbora Oliveira-Couch, from Surge Reproductive Justice.

Please join this event, to attend workshops from organizations and speakers from a variety of organizations:

More information about the workshops and speakers will be updated shortly.

Free | Register & more info

Read the original:

ArtSci Roundup: MFA Dance Concert, Passage, and More - University of Washington

WASHINGTON - APRIL 26: U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reacts as he leaves a news conference on ... [+] high gasoline prices at a gas station on Capitol Hill April 26, 2006 in Washington, DC. The Senate Democratic members called for action against gas price gouging. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Democrats continue to decry high gasoline prices and accuse oil companies of price gouging, but lawmakers should consider whether their policies restricting domestic energy production are to blame for soaring consumer prices.

Democrats may want to look in the mirror before pointing the finger at the people who create jobs and produce the energy this country runs on. The Democrats' own policies are causing the energy scarcity that's driving up prices.

Oil and gas prices have risen because of falling supply. Less than a decade ago, there were 1,600 active drilling rigs in the country producing or searching for oil; now, there's a quarter of that number.

There were twice as many drilling rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico before the pandemic hit in spring 2020. That was also the last time oil was at or above $100 a barrel.

Why? Because the energy sector faces severe supply chain shortages, including skilled workers who left the industry during the pandemic, and shortages of critical materials such as frac sand and wellbores that have become scarce and expensive.

Those factors have combined to restrain American oil production, which now sits around 11.6 million barrels per day compared to a peak in 2019 of 13 million per day.

Democrats know high energy costs and inflation are a problem in the midterm elections and are desperate to show that they are addressing the issue.

They are sticking to their populist playbook of blaming corporate America for profiteering. They have bashed oil companies incorrectly for price gouging since consumer prices at the pump started rising after President Joe Biden took office over a year ago.

Congressional Democrats are proposing numerous bills against Big Oil for the crime of profiteering. Now, they plan to introduce legislation next week that would expand the Federal Trade Commission's authority to investigate price gouging and give the President the power to declare an energy emergency and limit price increases.

This is how things are done in Venezuela and other socialist countries, not America. Thankfully, none of these measures are likely to become law because Democrats lack the 60 votes required to avoid a filibuster in the Senate.

The FTC already has all the authority necessary to act against manipulation in wholesale and retail oil markets. Dozens of federal investigations into price gouging the most recent was done in November at Biden's request have failed to turn up evidence that producers are keeping prices artificially high. Repeated FTC investigations have found that changes in gasoline prices are based on market factors rising demand meeting limited supply not illegal behavior.

Price gouging legislation is a blatant attempt by Democrats to shift blame for an issue they know consumers are rightfully worried about. And the situation won't get any better as the summer driving season begins in a couple of weeks, adding to the demand pressure. Americans are looking for solutions, not posturing by frightened politicians.

False accusations of price gouging are not only wrong, but they are also dangerous. Attacking the very industry while we need it to increase investment in exploration even the Biden administration has called on the oil industry to increase supply only makes sense to the far-left progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

The price of crude and refined products like gasoline and diesel is set in a global commodity marketplace. Prices are soaring because of a global supply crunch, workforce constraints, the war in Ukraine, and an economic rebound as the United States and much of the world emerge from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, driving up demand.

Prices at the pump are at or near record highs in many parts of the country due to the growing imbalance between supply and demand.

The EU's moves to ban imports of Russian petroleum have added to the upward pressure on prices. Russia is a major supplier of crude and refined products particularly diesel to Europe. By cutting off Russian supplies, Europe must find replacements elsewhere in the market, which has knock-on effects across global fuel markets. American consumers will feel the pain, too.

Global oil markets are suffering from insufficient investment in new supplies. That is the case in the "upstream" the exploration and development of crude oil supplies and in the "downstream" among refiners that process crude oil into products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that consumers use every day.

Today's supply crunch is as much about a lack of refining capacity as low crude supplies. The world lost roughly 4 million barrels a day of refining capacity during the pandemics demand collapse, including about 1.4 million barrels a day in the United States. In a global oil market of 100 million barrels a day, that is a considerable figure.

With global climate policies and related ESG investor pressures, theres concern that worldwide oil demand will peak in the next decade. Refiners shut excess capacity during the pandemic and, in most cases, don't plan to bring it back now due to political pressures related to the low-carbon energy transition. Refiners are asking themselves why they should invest limited resources in a venture that politicians and markets are betting against?

The Ukraine war makes matters worse because Russia is a major exporter of refined products, and sanctions are taking a significant toll on these sales. Russian refiners can't find buyers for their diesel, so they are reducing production and taking supply off the global markets. Covid-19 lockdowns in China, another major exporter of refined products, have a similar effect.

So, domestic high energy prices are part of a global trend, not a conspiracy by retail gasoline station owners most of which are not owned by major oil companies but by smaller, independent players.

The market fundamentals arent going to be changed by price-gouging legislation. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is also not going to ride in and save the day. The Saudi-led cartel has made that clear by consistently resisting President Bidens pleas to add more supply to the market.

The only thing that will alleviate the situation is higher investment in global crude and fuel supplies. Biden knows this, which is why he recently did an about-face on the issue and called for more domestic drilling. But the President and his party's energy and climate policies are still working against the development of new fossil fuel supplies, and theyve done nothing to resolve the lack of refining capacity.

The White House is sending a mixed message on energy, blaming Big Oil for a problem it helped create. Consumers may be footing the bill for Bidens policies now, but Democrats will pay at the polls in November.

Read the rest here:

Congress Picks Populism Over Increased Supply With Price Gouging Legislation - Forbes

[MUSIC]

Its The Argument. Im Jane Coaston.

It seems like right now any conversation about the 2022 midterms is actually kind of about 2024. And any conversation about 2024 is inevitably about Donald Trump even if its not about Donald Trump the person, but Donald Trump the idea. Because even if Donald Trump doesnt run again, his ideas, his ethos, his whole vibe will be. Itll just be coming from a different Republican. In this primary season, were seeing a lot of that. So this week Im joined by two conservative writers who are thinking a lot about what the winning G.O.P. candidates can tell us about the waxing or waning influence of Donald Trump, or the idea of Donald Trump on the party.

Hello. Nice to meet you both.

Hey, good to meet you.

Yeah.

I cant believe weve never talked, I dont think.

Yeah, I actually am kind of surprised that this has never happened until now.

Yeah.

Good, well, thats what youre for, right?

Uh-huh. Yep. Im bringing people together.

Thats right.

We try. Heres David French.

Im a Senior Editor at The Dispatch, a Contributing Writer at The Atlantic, and Memphis Grizzlies fan.

And Chris Caldwell.

Im a Contributing Editor at The Claremont Review of Books, and a Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times Opinion Section.

This all started Chris, you wrote an article for New York Times Opinion about J.D. Vance, the best-selling author who just won the Ohio Republican primary election for Senate, analyzing what you think contributed to his popularity in Ohios primary, including and beyond Trumps endorsement, and I think we can use that as an interesting case study and jumping off point for discussion. I was particularly interested, because Im from Ohio. I grew up in Ohio. Its always been a very conservative place in a lot of ways.

But I wanted to walk through your piece with David, because I know he disagrees with some of the major points. First, you say the people who voted for J.D. Vance havent changed. Whats changed is that Trump gave them an outlet for their grievances.

But I disagree with that, because in 2016, Vance was not a Trump supporter. He described him as reprehensible, as cultural heroin. Flash forward to his campaign, he said that he underwent a political evolution of sorts, that Trump was right, elites are corrupt, and then he got Trumps endorsement in the race. So I think if you read Hillbilly Elegy, and you read some of what Vance wrote, it wasnt that there were no problems, it was that Trump was the wrong solution. Why, and what do you think changed, Chris?

Well, as I say, I am not sure that Vance changed as much as you are. I think through traveling with him, I formed the impression that we might have taken some of the wrong things out of Hillbilly Elegy. That is, we might have misidentified the center of the book. That book was written in 2013, 14, 15. It came out into the Trump campaign, and I think people grasped that as a way to explain Trump.

But I think the emotional center of that book is his relationship with his family. And I think that the sociological explanation of the politics of that region I think its secondary. Now, if you look at the political attitudes the book does describe, a lot of them are really youd call them arch conservative.

When I say I think that Trump changed Ohio more than other states, its because of the nature of the Ohio economy and the Ohio culture that grew out of that economy. It is, again, a varied economy. But if you have a manufacturing style economy, it has really suffered more than other economies in the last, lets say, generation. And the fact is, you have never had, with a few peeps here and there, but youve never had a presidential nominee of one of the parties who made a full-throated assault on the arrangements that destroyed that economy. And Trump did that, and its something unique among presidential candidates.

Ive been alive since 1987, and I remember George W. Bushs election in Ohio, and Ohio helped propel him to two presidential elections. And much of the state-level language that George W. Bush and Karl Rove were relying upon was talking about poor white voters, and talking to poor white voters, about a compassionate conservatism.

Right.

So, David, is Vance offering something truly new to low income white voters than say George W. Bush did, or is it a different packaging, and how is that difference actually showing up?

Yeah, I think Bush and Vance were moving towards working class white voters, but appealing to different aspects of the culture of working class white voters. But theres two things going on at once one is, Bush, through the language of compassionate conservatism, is appealing to, not just in Ohio, but broader in the United States of America, appealing to the better angels of our nature. So there are people who are being left behind that we need to help.

So you had Medicare expansion under Bush, for example, you had tariffs under Bush, for example. A lot of sort of the economic conservative purists really got upset about so many of the things that Bush did, and for a while it worked. Now, of course, we know what happened as America soured on the Iraq War. We know what happened in the aftermath of Katrina and the financial crash.

But I think whats different about the appeal now, in the Vances appeal, the Trump appeal, is it is much less reminiscent of a George W. Bush, and much more reminiscent of a George Wallace. And when I see Vance, and when I see this newest incarnation of Vance, Im not seeing so much compassionate conservatism as I am seeing a reemergence though of the kind of populism that dominated much of the South for a very long time in the South. And its a populism of resentment. Its a populism of tribal loyalty. It neglects appeals to better angels of our nature in favor of appeals to rage and anger hatred even.

And I think whats ultimately playing here isnt so much the globalization argument as it is much more the cultural argument. Much less rooted to, oh, here is this specific policy that Donald Trump or J.D. Vance is going to propose that is going to bring back manufacturing to this region, or their specific policy that they advance that the Democrats dont advance that is going to make my life better. I think it goes much, much deeper than that. It makes me question how unique Ohio is.

Yeah, Im curious about that, Chris, because from a what to do perspective, what is the difference between what J.D. Vance would offer and what a compassionate conservative who knows that cutting Medicare is politically a very bad idea do? This isnt J.D. Vance versus Paul Ryan. This is J.D. Vance versus the Republicans who have been Republicans in Ohio since I was a kid.

Right. Yeah, I think David lays it out as a choosing fellow feeling versus choosing group hostility, and I dont think that thats the way it happened. I think that whats happened is a shift in the economy thats brought a shift in the class system.

And I think that, lets say at the dawn of the New Deal, you had a Democratic Party that was, although idiosyncratic, pretty identifiable as the working mans party, and the Republican Party that was more or less a proprietors party. The New Deal changed that, and it created a kind of alternative way of rising through the society. There was sort of a Democratic Party constituency of both working people and, lets say, educational institutions that gave an alternative way to rise.

And so when you get to the 1980s, neither of the parties had a strong class identity. They had a class mythology in them. I think that the Democrats still thought of themselves as the party of the downtrodden working man, but the downtrodden working man might have a second house on one of the Great Lakes with a boat, you know.

Right.

Whats happened lately is a few things. Weve had deindustrialization, but weve also had the rise of a new economy, a lot of it around universities, and the Democrats are the party of universities. And so very gradually to the point where you havent really even noticed, we have emerged back in a world where the parties have class identities.

And so I think that what youre seeing is loud class arguments from certain Republican candidates. Vance is one of them, and thats one of the reasons I began the article by quoting Vance really shouting very passionately about wanting to break up the tech companies. And its not that the people who vote for him dont use the internet or anything like that, but they dont feel they have any say in the way the new, lets say, high tech economy and social order is set up.

David, youre looking askance.

Im thinking were over-analyzing this a lot. I think J.D. Vance is a very online, New Right politician. He has a Twitter constituency

Right.

so he has Ive got your grievances new right Twitter that sort of builds some zealous support that he has in that world, which is really, truthfully, electorally irrelevant. Its mainly useful because he has some of the same hobby horses that Tucker Carlson has, for example, so that helps get him on Tucker Carlson.

But the reality was, there was this race for the Trump endorsement and he captured the Trump endorsement, and then hes running in a multi-candidate primary where that Trump endorsements going to make a big difference. And you know, he goes for the Trump endorsement in a couple of ways. One of the ways he goes is by fighting like Trump, by appealing to that lowest common denominator kind of rhetoric fight, fight, fight, never back down, fight, fight, fight.

This isnt, I dont think, an exercise in difficult sociological analysis. He was in a multi-candidate primary, he appealed to lowest common denominator populism. One of the things he said is, Our people hate the Right people. Our people hate the Right people. And he captured 30 plus percent of the electorates still bigger than folks thought. Now hes going to run in a general election in a two-candidate race, where its really rough for Democrats, and that negative polarization is the single dominant factor of American politics.

I also think its worth recognizing here that because it was a multi-person primary, its not like J.D. Vance won an overwhelming number of votes. There were a lot of people running for that nomination, and he beat Josh Mandel, the most try hard person, perhaps, in the history of American politics. And I do want to pivot to the general election, because Chris, you wrote that Vance told you that he thinks he got Trumps endorsement because he embraced Trump as a political program to be carried out, not just as kind of like a vibe to follow. What is the program? What is he going to do?

Yeah, I should make very clear, though, that was a beautiful quote that Vance gave, but I didnt get it. Actually, its from a Dayton television reporter named Chelsea Sick. So I think that the context in which she asked him that question was the one you say that a lot of candidates were going for the Trump endorsement.

Right.

The one who didnt seek it, Matt Dolan of Cleveland, a State Senator, got about 25 percent of the vote. But this indicates that whoever got that

Endorsement.

endorsement was in a very strong position.

To do what?

Well, it leaves him in a strong position in the election. Now, whats he going to do? I dont know. When he talked about Trumpism being an agenda, he named trade, the border, and not getting us into wars of choice.

And so, I tend to think that Vance will be protectionist, you know. He would not revive the Pacific Trade Pact that Trump pulled out of. He would build the wall, if he could get the votes for it in a non-metaphorical sense, and in a metaphorical sense, he would be much more restrictionist on the Mexican border. And hell oppose the Ukraine war or the United States role in it. I think those are three things trade, the border, foreign policy.

I mean, it still seems to me, and Im curious to get your thoughts, David, that because of what Id call the nationalization of politics I grew up with it makes me sound like Im 80 years old to talk this way but I think it is interesting to me that after growing up with Ohio politics being Ohio centered, as if Ohio was, and I quote, the heart of it all.

But now you see like you were just talking about, the trade policy, and the war in Ukraine, and securing the Mexican border. And Im just like, what does this have to do with my mom? What does this have to do with if I am elected, this thing will happen. Well finally do something about the I-71, 75 interchange. I mean, this is perhaps just a general pet peeve of mine.

But I think that the nationalization of politics coincides with the sense that Congress cant actually do anything because individual congresspeople are talking about the Mexican border, or war with Ukraine which are both really important issues. But at a certain point, if J.D. Vance wants the wall to get built as a United States Senator, hes got some power to do so, but not much. If you are supposed to call your Senator when theres a thing going on in your state and theyre, like, hang on a second, I got to stop unnecessary wars in Ukraine

Yeah.

I would get a sense of who are you here for? Are you here for Ohioans, or are you here for this larger political project?

Well you know, I think that the rise of negative polarization kind of enables a J.D. Vance style candidate, who I see as sort of what is he going to be like in the Senate? I think weve seen the model, and the model is Josh Hawley. I think thats what youll see with J.D. Vance, is youre going to see a guy who will become a Senator and hell file some really performative legislation. He has this whole album side about, you know, seizing the endowments of universities and things like that.

But if were going to take for half a second this idea that if and when he wins the Senate in Ohio that thats going to show that Republicans really dont want to see American military support for Ukraine, we need to rethink that kind of analysis because hes going to win because he won the primary because he got Trumps endorsement. He didnt get Trumps endorsement because of some really difficult, highly ideological test.

One of the reasons he got it is Trump liked his golf swing. I mean, this is the world were living in right now. And what weve constantly tried to do, I feel like, in this post-Trump world is were constantly trying to apply a complex intellectual frame

Yeah, were trying to intellectualize someone who also endorsed Dr. Oz.

Right, endorsed Dr. Oz, endorsed David Perdue in Georgia for the very simple reason that David Perdue will do his bidding on arguing about the 2020 election. And so this is where I feel like theres this disconnect often when we try to intellectualize Trump, and theres this disconnect when we try to intellectualize J.D. Vance.

Trump, A, tapped into this well of animosity. He tapped into it, and I agree that he changed the country in some ways. He changed the country by amplifying pre-existing trends towards partisan antipathy in much of the way that sometimes a symptom can make an underlying disease worse, like a hacking cough can break a rib. He did not really, actually, at the grassroots, introduce some sort of really fascinating new ideological enterprise, because the reality is kind of, whatever Trump did, they liked.

And look, Ive piled a lot on the Republican populist movement now, but let me flip this around a little bit here. The Democrats really made a pivot towards an identity-based coalition. I remember all the talk after 2012 of the coalition of the ascendant, right? People of color, single women, all of the rising demographics of America are going to rise and swamp you. Its all over for you, Republican Party.

Why is it all over for you, Republican Party? Well, youre just too white and too male to win anymore. And I think when your political opponents move very much towards an identity-based coalition and away from a working class-based coalition, you leave a lane and you leave a lot of voters just right there. And if you look at the demographics of Ohio, Ohio is 81 percent white thats more white than in America.

I know. Im aware.

Jane, news to you, Jane?

Ohio is more white than the rest of America. If you look at Iowa that is now completely in the G.O.P. camp, its super white. And so its not that the Democrats were necessarily wrong that there was an emerging Democratic majority, its just that the majority was emerging in a lot of the wrong places where they didnt need it to emerge. You know, how many more progressives do you need in Brooklyn or Berkeley?

And so youre doubling down on identity-based politics, leaving behind class-based politics. And my issue isnt that Republicans have moved into this open field that Democrats have left them, its more how theyve moved into it than the fact that theyve moved into it.

I just theres a premise thats come up that I think I disagree with both of you on, which is that theres something unusual about a Senate candidate dealing with these national issues.

I dont think its not unusual to me, but my point is that I dont think its good. I think that it is problematic to have candidates who inherently focus on issues that they themselves could not fix, or they themselves could bear no responsibility for.

Oh, but I think you could. I think, you know, the Senate has a constitutional responsibility regarding treaties. Congress gets to declare war, and not

Well, they do.

The border is a national matter. There is a division of labor between, you know, state and national governments, and I think theres a feeling that the government of Ohio is pretty well in hand.

Thinking more about you wrote about Trump in your piece, saying that you know, globalization and being against NAFTA was one of Trumps most effective rallying cries. And you wrote yourself though, Whether Mr. Trump has effectively stopped anything related to globalization can be debated. And it seems that maximalism is the privilege of being able to say anything you want without anyone really calling you on it.

Yeah.

So with Trump, you have someone who doesnt really do anything related to globalization, because its an effective boogeyman. Its effective to just have the thing that is there is a problem, and we all know what the problem is, but youre not going to do anything to fix the problem because either the solution is too politically complicated, or too politically unpopular. We are asking, or would be asking, J.D. Vance to do something, to be a United States Senator to represent my mom.

But if you are leaning hard on, here are all of our problems. We are in late-stage capitalism. We have to fire everyone and liquidate the Kulaks. And then you get into actual office, then what do you do?

I know, but I dont think people are saying that. And I dont think that the difference is between rhetoric and reality, I think it has to do with the passage of time. Governing is really complicated, and I think that failed governments, whatever they propose enacting, learn a lot from the way they were thwarted, and they get better at it as time goes on. So the rhetoric always seems to be at odds with reality until it becomes reality. So I dont, you know, some of these ideas might be good, some of them might be bad, but Im not suspicious of them just because theyre being proposed.

You know, I think you raise a really interesting question about the distinction between fixing and fighting, OK? So you say Ohio has problems A, B, C and D. What are we going to do to fix them? is one kind of thrust in campaigning. Then theres another that says the Democrats have problems A, B, C and D. What are we going to do to fight them?

And I think thats where Trump really discerned the building wave of Republican resentment. It wasnt so much on the fixing prong, it was much more on the fighting prong. And you know, the interesting thing, if youre diving into the ideology of Trumpism, is there isnt really an ideology, its more the ambitions and power hunger of a single man. If you look at his single term in office, his two largest concrete policy achievements were a corporate tax cut designed by Paul Ryan, and the nomination of a whole slew of Federalist Society judges that were put into a pipeline over the last generation of establishment, Republican, judicial and legal activism.

And I would note here on that point that there is no reason to believe that any other Republican president would have not nominated those judges.

Oh, yeah.

The judges were going to be in there, no matter what.

Oh, they were coming out of the establishment pipeline. You do not get more establishment than Brett Kavanaugh. But what did make Trump different, it was the fighting, it was the fighting.

And I think if you talked to J.D. Vance in 2016, he would say, wait a minute, this fighting stuff is a distraction from what needs fixing. And I think what changed in 2016 to 2020 was not these folks, it was J.D. and the way he transitioned from the fixing to the fighting. And I think what he saw in Trump was somebody who would inhibit the fixing. He was somebody who was certainly an avatar for grievances, but not a instrument for remedies.

And I think that thats what Im talking about when Im talking about if you have a population of white working class voters where there are real problems and how do you appeal to them and mobilize them, I think that there are constructive ways to appeal and destructive ways. J.D. was concerned in 2016 that the very method he chose in 2020 was deeply destructive, and yet thats where he went.

I think theres no doubt that Trump is a fighting politician. But I think that fighting I was really struck by the entrance of the word fight into a lot of political rhetoric well before Trump 10 years or so ago. And it seems to have come with a lot of psychological research on how people respond to rhetoric.

And I think its of a piece with the negative advertising which we see because negative advertising, whether we like it or not, has a strange effectiveness on voters. If you listen to Elizabeth Warren, she talks about fighting probably even more than Trump does. I think its really more a best campaign practice than an ideological side-effect.

I dont think anyone disputes it. Theres a wide open lane for populist incitement. I think the issue with J.D. Vance, and the issue with the Republican Party in general, is this move that says, were going to indulge it, were going to stoke it, were going to ride it. There isnt actually a program of governance thats attached to that beyond a few basic impulses about border security, and some vague ideas about trade.

I think its wrong to assume that theres going to be a symmetrical Republican policy program to the Democratic policy program. The Democrats are the party of policy programs. They have a lot more initiative in devising new things for government to do. And youre just not going to find a sort of reflected mirror policy image on Republicans. Its not a symmetry.

The Republicans will tend to be obstructing new policy initiatives. And I havent really thought about what this would mean in terms of rhetoric, but the rhetoric is bound to be different. You know, just simply sitting around and doing nothing, for Republicans, can in certain circumstances be a constructive way to spend four years. And people participate in politics for different reasons, and not all of them are constructive.

Well.

I think we will find unanimous agreement on that one.

[MUSIC]

More with David and Chris on the new standard bearers of Trumps legacy after the break.

[MUSIC]

So we have debated whether Vances win and Trumps endorsement of Vance is about policy or about vibes, and whether some of the fighting rhetoric is just usual stuff politicians do to get elected. I want to talk a little bit now about how much we should infer from his victory about where the G.O.P. is going, and if Trump clearly is king here. And I want to know where you think the Republican platform is, going forward, because I dont think its party stalwarts like Mitch McConnell. I think its, quote unquote, fighters like Ron DeSantis.

Yeah, I think the most politically effective way in which a Republican politician is trying to inherit Trumpism is Ron DeSantis. And thats not a novel insight here, but there are two aspects to the way in which Ron DeSantis is inheriting Trumpism effectively.

And that is, one, he has the right enemy, and that is the media. So he got very fortunate that the mainstream media, left media, really focused on him early in the pandemic, more so than Texas, more so than Tennessee, more so than anywhere else. Really drilled down on him and launched a frontal attack sort of on the Florida approach. And so he built up this immediate constituency just because people are going to rally on the side of whatever Republican is seen to be in the cross-hairs of the media, so he emerged with the, quote unquote, right enemy.

And then the other thing is, what he has done that is different from Trump is that Trumps fighting was a lot of rhetoric, was a lot of tweeting with a lot of outbursts. DeSantis version of fighting is a lot of legislation aimed at targets that are popular targets for the right. So, in essence, DeSantis is the next evolution of Trumpism in that its taking the online beef into the real world through legislation.

Here is the original post:

Opinion | What J.D. Vances Primary Win Says About Populism and Resentment in the G.O.P. - The New York Times

The Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) governments attempt at re-election brings to the forefront questions of Canadian conservatism and its viability, not just in the countrys most populous province.

Throughout its tenure, the PC government has undergone significant changes in policy, appearance and general tone. A 2018 populist movement has seemingly shifted to the moderate PC coalition of old.

To capture this change, is it necessary for Ford to turn back the clock to 2018? After all, he won both the party leadership and the election on a populist agenda.

Following the more centrist Patrick Browns removal as PC leader in January 2018, Ford entered the race brandishing his previous anti-establishment and brash Toronto City Council persona.

In narrowly beating Christine Elliot for the leadership, Ford quickly shifted the image and platform of the party to his own image.

The partys electoral platform, titled A Plan for the People, contrasted the people from the elites, who, through waste, mismanagement and scandal, had along with a set of special interests benefited from exploiting every day Ontarians.

The platform argued that Fords PC party, by being better connected to the taxpayer, would bring in a period of fiscal restraint, less wasteful government spending and a more common-sense driven policy process. Among the partys promises were to fire the CEO of Ontarios utility provider, Hydro One, launch a full audit of Liberal government spending and repeal the provinces cap-and-trade program.

These initiatives shaped the initial year of the Ford government as it brought in aggressive and controversial policies.

By the time the 2019 spring budget was tabled, the government had scrapped cap-and-trade, legislated an end to the strike at York University, cancelled several green-energy contracts, put in place the student choice initiative that was later struck down, fought teachers unions over increased class sizes, limited the salaries of public servants and budgeted significant cutbacks in public spending in addition to $26 billion in tax relief.

In particular, the decision to cut the size of Toronto City Council, coupled with the threat to use the Constitutions notwithstanding clause to enshrine its bill limiting third-party election advertising, seemed to show the willingness to lash back against conventional norms and institutions.

Read more: Doug Ford uses the notwithstanding clause for political benefit

To many, this was met with a certain dread: critics, particularly those on the left, saw Ford as the Donald Trump of the North whose emergence to power marked Canadas entry into a brash, authoritarian and xenophobic populism seen throughout the world.

Alternatively, many Conservatives positively regarded Fords government as a return of former premier Mike Harriss Common Sense Revolution of neo-liberal reform.

Neither of these predictions have turned out to be correct.

By 2022, Ford and the Progressive Conservatives have come to resemble an older, conservative powerhouse: the Big Blue Machine of onetime premiers Leslie Frost, John Robarts and Bill Davis.

This is because rather than making efforts to display its ideological or populist integrity, the Ford government has come to focus more pragmatically on the consequences of each of its policies. In particular, there remains next to no rhetoric on elites versus the people.

The party was in power for 42 consecutive years in Ontario, from 1943 to 1985, and its success has been attributed to its pragmatic, moderate and borderline bland style of governance, particularly in the way it ensured a consistent level of economic growth.

The change in tone for the Ford government seems to have started in late 2019 when, following a significant drop in popularity, it regrouped via a drastic cabinet shuffle and staffing changes in the premiers office.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 showed a new side to Ford and his government. The governments response, while far from perfect, suggested Ford was empathetic and, most importantly, concerned about the practical success of policies.

Rather than disparaging the media or other governments as part of the elite, the Ford government developed a solid working relationship with the governing federal Liberals.

This new, more moderate and pragmatic tone has taken over the partys 2022 policy platform, entitled Get It Done and there appears to be no intention to shift back to right-wing populism.

As Get it Done communicates, the party now bases its appeal in the claim that it can effectively get results and most competently manage the affairs of the province.

This includes providing more benefits for workers, expanding health care and investing $158.8 billion in several large transportation projects. The governments prior fiscal hawkishness seems to have disappeared given a balanced budget isnt projected until 2027.

This suggests that a contrarian populist appeal, while it could be useful in attaining office, is much more difficult to sustain as a coherent, effective and popular governing strategy over time.

As the Ford government learned, an aggressive and contrarian approach can quickly create too many enemies, especially given Ontarios large and powerful public sector.

This could be unique to Ontario. The provinces political culture has long favoured moderation and pragmatic governance.

But its also important to recognize the implications this could have for the rest of Canada, because it provides Canadian Conservative governments with one of two choices in the coming years.

First, form legislatively influential but short-lived populist coalitions or, second, compromise to enjoy a longer, but likely much less impactful, control over the government.

Read more:

What Doug Ford's shift to the centre says about the longevity of populism - The Conversation