Short Stories, Long Odds

Dear liberals and Democrats - stop saying that what you want in a candidate is populism. Populism is what’s winning now, and it is not the answer.

What’s that you say? You say the Republicans don’t have the interest of the common man at heart? Well, let me break populism down for you, and you tell me if this sounds familiar to you. Firstly, Wikipeda has the best technical definition I could find and link to by exhaustively going to wikipedia and looking up populism:

Populism is a political philosophy or rhetorical style that holds that the common person is oppressed by the “elite” in society, and that the instruments of the State need to be grasped from this self-serving elite and used for the benefit and advancement of the people as a whole. A populist reaches out to ordinary people, talking about their economic and social concerns, and appealing to their common sense. Most scholarship on populism since 1980 has disussed it as a rhetorical style that can be used to promote a variety of ideologies.

Individual populists have variously promised to “stand up to corporations” and “put people first.” Populism often incorporates nationalism, jingoisms, and occasionally racism. Many populists appeal to a specific region or a specific social class rather than the broader society.

Hmmmmm. Who uses jingoism and nationalism? Who stands up to corporations, guys? No, not who may actually someday attempt to stand up to corporations - who stands up to corporations according to a controlling majority of the electorate? Right. Republicans do. This is the whole “I’m gonna get back at big business by voting for Sam Brownback” thing. Forget the truth, it doesn’t matter.

What you are thinking of when you reach in the Wayback Bag to the turn of the 20th century is agrarian populism, practiced by no less than William Jennings Bryan and sought to stop industrialists and big industry from poisoning the well of government and destroying America’s farmers. What we have to-day is merely political populism which strikes back at the moneyed elite in favor of regular, everyday Americans. The kind that love Nascar and hate the elite for their lack of values and being out of touch with salt of the earth folks. The Hollywood elite. The academic elite. The hilariously-antiquated-but-still-effective ‘limosine liberals’. To Red State America, we are the elite. To them, obscenely rich Republicans have simply been good enough (or chosen enough, depending) to acquire means.


You guys aren’t populists because the populism you’re thinking of doesn’t even exist anymore. You sound dumb and embarass the rest of us. Trying to invoke a “class struggle against the elite” in which Republicans are the elite is like being a German, saying you’re going to attack those oppressive bastards in Germany, and then invading Spain. It isn’t going to make any sense to anyone other than us, and you certainly won’t convert any Republicans.

UPDATE: In case you think my assertions are bogus, behold common anti-liberal sentiment:

Liberalism occurs in two varieties, political and religious, but is in fact a single worldview with a common agenda. The ultimate goal of Liberalism is to create a totalitarian socialist government in which an elite controls society. Liberals consider themselves to be the elite.