A Defense of Populism
Reclaiming Our Voice
Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains. These essays explore common topics from different perspectives and disciplines to uncover unique insights and solutions.
Today’s topic strives to untangle and understand what is actually meant when we use populism as a pejorative. As with much of politics, we find that its use reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of a critically important concept, and that the solution is far easier to achieve individually than we’re told. It’s a perfect topic as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence here in the United States.
It doesn’t take long on social media or even just watching the news to hear the word “populism” thrown out as a pejorative specifically toward the right wing of political America. “Right-wing populism” is lumped in with Fascists and Nazis as some deep, menacing force that threatens our country.
But what is populism?
noun
a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
Huh… Doesn’t that make almost any Democrat a populist under a Republican regime and vice versa? Oh, and do you know what else is profoundly populist? Communism and Socialism. In fact, their entire foundation requires populism, and it doesn’t take a hard look at the revolutions over the past 100 years to see that, whether right-wing or left-wing, they’re populist.
But also, wasn’t that the entire reason for the American Revolution? I mean, if you’ve read the Declaration of Independence, you saw the unmistakable flavor of unadulterated populism constantly pushing back on government excess and disdain of the elites. That’s what we celebrate every 4th of July for the past 250 years.
In fact, our entire Constitution is based on empowering populist agency, with power in the federal government restrained and governance structures pushed down to the states and the people. Even more fundamentally, democracy itself is populism, in which the masses get to vote for their preferred candidates.
This is what I’ll call healthy populism, which recognizes that institutions are failing to represent ordinary people, that elites have become insulated, and that power needs to be made accountable again.
There’s an interesting flipside to democracy, though, which Alexis de Tocqueville coined: the "tyranny of the majority" in his seminal 1835 work, Democracy in America. What he describes is the potential for democratic majorities to impose their will, suppressing the rights and voices of minority groups or individuals.
What this is really describing is a form of populism which suggests that “We alone are the real people. Our enemies are illegitimate. Institutions that block us are corrupt. Losing only proves the system was rigged.”
This is unhealthy populism that tilts toward factional authoritarianism. It’s also apolitical, as you can see with how fast communism turned from anti-elite to the elite communist party as the ‘real people,’ and anyone who disagreed was considered illegitimate. I merely have to point out that the Gulags existed to put proof to point.
Balance
The thing to recognize is that few of our political systems would exist without populism. This is the nature that Travis Monteleone describes as both anti-elite and revolutionary. Which makes sense because your elites are my tyrants and vice versa, and the only way to fix that is revolution. What he adds, though, is key, and that’s polarization. As he describes:
Affective polarization refers to the belief that the “other side” is not merely wrong, but illegitimate, dangerous, or evil.
While populism describes a theory of politics, affective polarization occurs when that theory of politics becomes manifest.
Polarization is the natural manifestation of any political ideology, and populism is how you motivate polarization in order to make a change. Put another way, no revolution, including the one that founded the United States, could happen without populism and polarization.
I’d also suggest that polarization isn’t bad either, as we need to challenge the status quo to grow, or at least avoid being stagnant. For example, a perfectly conservative nation will die for lack of growth, and a perfectly progressive nation will die from a lack of controlled identity. So you need a functioning polarization to keep the two balanced, which is driven by their own populisms.
This is why the Founders didn’t create a democracy; they created a Constitutional Republic with multiple checks and balances. Did you know that the Senate was originally designed to temper the populist House of Representatives? Representatives are elected by the people for two-year stints and reflect the will of the people. Conversely, Senators were originally representatives of the States, and voted for six-year terms to temper the passions of the populace with the pragmatism of the States. On top of this they added the Executive Branch and the Judiciary, providing three legs of government with their checks and balances (read empowered yet managed polarization and populism), all further constrained by the Bill of Rights.
This allows true populism to happen down deeper at the state and local levels. Even the original intent of the States were to be areas where people could experiment with what worked well based on their desires. This allows California to manage differently than Texas and the people can vote with their ballots and their feet as they’re currently doing. The system has constrained populism overall, with fractional polarization, keeping the voice of the people clear, ensuring the elites weren’t tyrannical.
The Fear
So what’s the fear of modern populism? Fundamentally, because power has slowly concentrated higher and higher, and polarization has also concentrated into two major parties, which weaponize populism, stoke polarization, and tilt toward factional authoritarianism and the ‘otherization’ of their opponents. The irony of accusations of right-wing populism is that it’s a mirror back. The right wing are the ‘others’ against whom? The left wing’s noble population and glorious leaders?
This is a topic we explored in Looking Into a Mirror, where you realize the ones levying the insults and accusations are reacting to what they see in themselves. They’re reacting to what they’d do in your situation, not what you’re doing. And that should be patently obvious as well. (We can invert this, but the main accusations of populism come from the Left, so I’m holding the mirror up that way first)
Simply put, they’re expecting from the other side what they expect from themselves. And since many of our elite universities, elite companies, elite governments, and elite social circles have tilted towards the Left, they naturally see the anti-elite and revolutionary elements of populism as an existential threat. Thankfully, there is still a chance at balance.
Synthesis
To balance populism, there should be tension, and I think we need to return to MORE populism, not less. This is where I found what Adam Karaoguz wrote in the recent essay, These Two Books Contain the Sum of All Human Knowledge, so insightful. The First book is The Revolt of the Elites, which posulates that the elites have locked themselves away from reality and disconnected themselves from society, where the author, Lasch, recommends:
Return to a more populist, community-oriented form of democracy, where power is decentralized, and citizens are actively engaged in public life, restoring trust in institutions and bridging the gap between the elites and the masses.
The second book is Revolt of the Public, which suggests that the public’s access to social media and the ability for almost anyone to garner an audience regardless of who they are undermines the legitimate authority necessary to function as a country, and the author, Gurri, recommends:
We need new models of governance—more responsive and adaptable to the demands of the digital age, to maintain the visibility the public demands of its elites.
I agree with Adam that we see both manifesting today, and that’s what I’d suggest is inflaming polarization, which is fueling the elites on both sides who want nothing more than to weaponize populism. However, it’s not like a cabal of Crystaliens or Lizard People,1 it’s something much simpler. It’s the abdication of our healthy populism, and that populism relies on one thing, and only one thing: Agency!
Healthy populism requires each of us to recognize that we own ourselves, that we are responsible for ourselves, and that we can elect people who we also hold accountable. What we see on both sides is the abdication of agency. MAGA isn’t about individual accountability but siccing the attack dog of Trump and Company© on the Elites™ on the other side.
Which, I actually support because those elites had become so entrentched and ossified that a counter dark populism bubbled up with Trump Derangement Syndrome® where you’ve seen a political party go from viewing open borders as a Republican Conspiracy as Bernie Sanders accused in 2015 to the full embrace of open borders and claims that anything less is pure racism that the left flipped to in 2021, largely in opposition to Trump’s Build the Wall campaign.
Other notable flips include the general leftist distrust of big-pharma and the medical-industrial complex as recently as 2015, to their incredible inversion and full-throated defense of the COVID vaccine in 2021 (but not when the vaccine was Trump’s idea). Ironically, this created an inversion collision between both sides with “My Body My Choice” where Republicans used bodily autonomy arguments against vaccine mandates while supporting abortion restrictions, and Democrats used bodily autonomy arguments for abortion rights while supporting vaccine mandates.
On the right, it’s just as bad as they pivoted from fiscal responsibility under Obama to Trump-era debt expansion and from free trade to tariff nationalism. They “back the blue” but complain about the weaponization of the FBI. They decry the over-reach and militarization of the police while supporting paramilitary ICE raids.
What you see in each of these is a complete abdication of Agency in support of demagogues and elite elements. You also don’t see the demand for accountability, of actual agency from others (unless it’s the opposing side). The abdication is complete, and politics is driven by Narcisssists and NPCs where freedom dies in the middle.
The key thing to remember, though, is that changing this starts with you! You have to break the shackles, free your mind, think for yourself, and step beyond the slogans. Populism isn’t the problem. Our lack of Agency is.
That’s not to say that we’re all free to live to our own desires. The structure of the Republic was designed to balance populism against the ambitions both of the few and of the many. This requires that agency, and its subsequent liberty, cannot be separated from civic duty; otherwise, it turns into private indulgence, turning back into the negative populism that is being corrupted and weaponized.
And that’s what is most likely to upset the balance of populism and create polarization, because there’s no shortage of people looking to gain power, and there’s no shortage of people with half-baked opinions that will say anything to gain clicks and engagement. The only way to balance it is with our agency connected to civic duty.
So, let’s get back to populism. Let’s wrangle with what Lasch and Gurri are warring with in those two books regarding our elites and ourselves. Let’s embrace our agency and recognize that the institutions are failing to represent ordinary people, and that elites have become insulated, and that power needs to be made accountable again. Let’s defend populism and also temper it by recognizing that healthy populism requires individual agency. Let’s keep this great experiment going long into the future.
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Or those nefarious JEWS! Which cracks me up because it’s such a self-dunk to blame everything on the Jews. Like, how epic are these folks who can be thumbed down for millennia and STILL RUN THE WORLD?! If I were an alien, based on social media content, I’d just assume the Jews were a superior being and wouldn’t even ask where to find our leaders. I just don’t get the obsession with the Jews as antagonists.
Well written and thought-provoking. I particularly appreciate your point about accountability. We’re governed by bureaucrats that have no accountability. If our government were a commercial enterprise, it would’ve collapsed decades ago. While I’m not suggesting government should be a commercial enterprise, it needs to be measured and held accountable.
We also desperately need an educated populace. It’s hard to expect people to act and vote responsibly when they don’t even understand there are three branches of government and the concept of checks and balances. (dare I mention enumerated powers?)
If I were really hoping for the stars, I’d wish for people to read the Federalist Papers and understand what the framers of the Constitution were trying to create.
I like your distinction between healthy and unhealthy populism, Michael. 👏
In general, I am not a fan of using single words for complicated matters that serve as Rorschach tests (eye of the beholder) and breed confusion and unfruitful conflict. Words like populist, liberal, conservative, socialist, feminist, fascist etc. We would all be better off using 10+ words to define what we really mean rather than ambiguous shorthand. But that requires a bit more effort like you put into writing your essay!