The cancer infecting the political Left

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-23-2020, 04:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I always like to point out that the word "populist" is often misused these days when referring to the political right wing. Right-wing "populists" may stir passions and prejudices that appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people, but using this as a basis for the word "populist" assumes that the "people" must always be liable to reduce themselves to the level of being misled and and deceived in this way. Really, the people should be expected to rise above this. Populist really means that the people, rather than a demagogue or an authoritarian ruler or class, can be trusted to rule, and should rule. "Populist" thus means, and has meant ever since it began in the 1890s, that power is given to the people politically. It means government of, by and for the people, and in the peoples' interest. That can only occur on the left, which always means to bring more power to the people, rather than to traditional authority. Those who appeal to prejudice, the "populist right wing," are always doing this in order to buttress and support traditional authority.

Trump, Bolsonaro, LePen, Orban, Duda, Duterte, Johnson, Sisi, et al, the current crop of these "right-wing populists," are doing precisely that, and nothing BUT that.

Unfortunately, racism was popular.  In LBJ's time, he went after the black vote, the Republicans went after the racist vote, and the progressive era ended.  America willfully stopped being great so that many people could view themselves 'above' minorities.

Black Lives Matter may have ended that.  Given videos of the result of some of racism, a lot of people were turned off by racist violent policing, and this bleeds over to racism in general.  If so, what was popular a while ago and which many politicians tried to exploit may be less popular today.  They are doubling down on an attitude which may be no longer there.  This change in viewpoint might leave a lot of those that exploited the old values high and dry.

Couln't happen to a finer bunch of people.

It sometimes takes a crisis...