Okay,
who wants to take the blame for this one?
I
want to mention that I am past my limit in tolerating repeated uses of the
words “populist” and “populism” in commentary on the current presidential
campaign.
A
recent New Yorker item pushed my button. John Cassidy wrote a piece titled “Bernie
Sanders and Donald Trump Ride the Populist Wave.”
I
think anyone who has finished 7th grade can figure out that Sanders
and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Again could not, in any planetary system, simultaneously
represent a singular socio-political phenomenon.
Furthermore,
Cassidy refers twice to a “populist wave” without clarifying his meaning in any
way.
Strictly
speaking, nobody knows what “populism” means, at least not in the way that we
have a consensus understanding of “apple” or “rainbow.”
So,
“populist” and “populism,” here are some attempts to define them:
—a member or adherent of a political
party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people—that’s right, you
can move right along to argue about the meaning of “ordinary people”….
—a
belief in the power of regular people, and in
their right to have control over their government rather than a small group of
political insiders or a wealthy elite—let the dance begin, what does “regular
people” mean?
—political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox
solutions or policies and appeal to the common person—yup, this narrows it
down, until you start arguing about who the “common people” are….
—Wikipedia mentions that definitions of “populism” have
varied widely over the centuries, and the term has often been employed in loose
and inconsistent ways to denote appeals to "the people"—ah, at last,
everyone knows who “the people” are….
Politicians and commentators and the news media don’t
hesitate to use and abuse emotionally-laden words like “populism,” and everyone
tacitly agrees to avoid defining the word. Who is served by this convenient and
inflammatory obscurantism?
I think we can rule out ordinary people, regular people,
common people….
Next time you hear someone say “populism,” just say no.
Copyright
© Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.
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