10 ms·

How to Deal with Populism

79 points by scribu 10y ago

Senji 10y ago
Why are you `dealing` with populism in the first place?
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Because populism leads very quicky to dark places. Most all systems of government, of vested authority and state monopoly of violence, are to address our instinct towards populism. Egging on the mob never ends well.
  - skellington 10y ago
    You're only labeling it "populism" (which is normally defined as 'support for the concerns of ordinary people') because you don't like the outcome. If you liked the outcome you would call it "democratic." Somehow the idea of being concerned about the outcome for ordinary people has become vilified by American liberals because red state, blue collar, ordinary people are worthless. What is going on?! Trump wants to be a job protectionist while Democrats want globalization? Aren't you people aware that not that long ago the Democrats were fighting the Republicans against globalization because they claimed that globalization was only good for corporate interests and bad for ordinary Americans? PS I think Trump is a nut job in many ways so please don't read the above as an endorsement.
    - AstralStorm 10y ago
      In other words, your two parties are now the same party just flipping as it wills. And US considers itself a representative democracy?
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      Populism is, in a political culture, the appeal to the popular regardless of other interests. It is about simplistic concepts easily chanted, divorced from complex realities. It is about doing what the people say they want regarless of how idiotic that may be, regardless of the fact they probably dont want the thing in the long run. By way if example, tieing NAFTA negotiations to whichever country wins the Stanly Cup would be popular, but it isnt sound leadership. Eliminating the IRS is popular, but no rational person would do it. (Either of those wouldnt shock me if tweeted.)
    - InitialLastName 10y ago
      The populous isn't always in the best position to think through the long-term implications of their desires. In this case, Trump rode the anger of voters who want to close the borders to both immigrants and imported manufactured goods, because they perceived that some of their jobs going to illegal imigrants, and other manufacturing jobs had been taken overseas. How many of those people, do you think, buy everything at Walmart (whether it's all they can afford or not)? How many of those people realize that a 35% border tax and getting rid of our internal slave labor force will lead to commensurately higher prices of goods and services, without necessarily bringing back the jobs that were actually automated away? If they have thought it through, where's the better outcome? This is why we don't have a direct democracy. These issues are more complicated than one can wrap their head around without making it a full-time job for an industry, and the decisions aren't helped by folks making decisions out of anger and desperation.
  - ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
    [citation needed] Populism by definition is closer to being synonymous with a functioning democracy that it is to mob rule.
    - dlss 10y ago
      It's not exactly a citation, but high school culture ("that which sounds cool should be done") doesn't exactly lead to the best of all possible places. Looking for symmetric universal moral principals sort of does seem to. Though I admit basically no form of government seems to head in that direction, as founding documents post-revolution are not really a form of government in my model.
hxegon 10y ago
As someone who knows a lot of trump supporters and trump haters, this is what people who are afraid of trump need to recognize. I've seen the advice from this article work first hand, and I've seen people who don't understand what the author is talking about make situations worse first hand.
- skybrian 10y ago
  Interesting. Maybe give some examples?
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    Yes, the author completely misses the core issue: when the populace at large gets tired of getting hammered with elitist & special-interest issues, to the point of being told to actively facilitate what is broadly considered distasteful, they start looking for someone who will restore the mundane norms they are comfortable with. The following is a list of US populist complaints, which Trump successfully addressed. (Don't up/down-vote based on whether you agree or not with the issues of the list, which I may or may not, just note that the points are important to enough people to vote a Trump into office.) In no particular order... Facilitation/celebration of LGBQT (most people aren't, and find differing sexualities repulsive). Demands for "safe spaces" while eliminating the only long socially established safe spaces: sexually segregated restrooms. Taking taxpayer earnings and spending them on advocacy of opposing views. Reducing a sense of safety vs crime, while seemingly protecting criminals (this issue dominated by the US "gun culture"). Laying blame/responsibility for environmental issues on those thinking themselves not guilty (say, global warming). Stifling parental preferences in education (Common Core, lack of school vouchers, absolute intolerance of anything hinting of Christianity). Broad/unrelenting accusations of whites & males as invariably & irredeemably sexist/misogynist/xenophobic/racist/etc (say, Hillary's declaration of 1/4 of Americans as "deplorables"). Incredible growth of national debt ($10,000,000,000,000 in last 8 years, doubling all previous debt) with prospect of populace having to pay it. Lack of jobs (need for jobs has far outstripped creation of jobs). Overwhelming regulations, making compliance & cost untenable. Abortion being considered, on the whole, inexcusable murder of children. Understand that classic US culture is deeply rooted in individual liberty & rights. Basically, taking someone's money to make them pay for something they don't want angers them; they'll put up with a lot, but once "enough!" hits they're prone to taking dramatic steps to end the offense. Also note that the USA is huge, having a broad range of views from coast to coast; what Hillary offered was "coastal" culture, while Trump appealed to "heartland", and with the Electoral College deliberately biasing Presidential elections toward populist views, the large number of central states won the vote.
debt 10y ago
Populism was dealt with by way of the electoral college.
- schnable 10y ago
  Huge point. Beyond the electoral college, the founders of the US had many mechanisms to prevent this kind of thing, but we've degraded them in favor of the idea that everyone's voice counts equally. Senators used to be appointed. Party candidates used to be selected by party officials, not the public. This last one in particular would have prevented a Trump presidency. Andrew Sullivan explains all this very well here: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny... The summary is that too much democracy leads to tyranny.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    I would counter it with facts that the weakening of the democratic process has been done by elected officials. Electoral college rules in fact subtly break democracy even now. Wanted to vote, say, Bernie Sanders? Tough luck.
alva 10y ago
How about addressing the widespread concerns that cause "populism" even if it means setting back your own ulterior agenda? Brexit and immigration is a good example of this. Blair decided mass immigration was a good idea for a number of reasons. At some point they surely realised that although it would provide an economic boost, some people would lose out financially and most did not want significant cultural change in their community. Over the years larger dissatisfaction with this policy grew and grew, only to be labelled racist by the ruling parties. This led to UKIP which led to splits in the Conservative party which led to Brexit. Ignore a valid issue long enough and resentment will spread across the country. If these peoples concerns and wishes were not sacrificed for ulterior motives a EU ref would likely never occur. Parallels to US/Trump seem reasonable. Large groups of people whose concerns have not necessarily been address because the contrary policies benefit an already privileged and distant few. tldr: Offer real solutions to the large number of poor and struggling people in your country. Even if it slows down your grander plan. If you don't, resentment will build and there are more of them than you. edit: The absolute biggest danger to the embedded powers is that Trump succeeds and does a good job. Hard to overstate this.
- zoner 10y ago
  Exactly the same thinking as mine. And what the liberals are doing? Whining more racism and continuing the same agenda.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    They're also irresponsible and blame others (Russian hackers). Like children who grew up being sheltered, then came to college and saw protesting (blaming others) is the answer.
    - badlucklottery 10y ago
      That's obviously a big slice of caricature, don't you think? Why feed the polarization like that? What do you gain from it?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
canadian_voter 10y ago
Your organizing principle is simple: don’t feed polarization, disarm it. This is so important. Samantha Bee can't stop making piss jokes about Trump. That's not going to win anyone over. Nina Donovan's poem, recited by Ashley Judd at the Women's March, is brave and powerful. It is also polarizing. There is a line: "I’m not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust." That's not going to win anyone over. Again and again, people are attacking Trump for the wrong reasons. Focus on the truly bad. Don't get hung up on his hair. It makes you look petty. Edit: Frank Bruni beat me to this in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-take-on-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-...
- tptacek 10y ago
  It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over.
  - dlss 10y ago
    > It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over. Exactly. It's Samantha Bee's job to feed the polarization cycle. If she doesn't, who will?
  - badlucklottery 10y ago
    Of course. It's her job to entertain her audience. But that audience is free to ask for less focus on the insubstantial.
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    It's not her job to win everybody over. But if she wants to contribute to what she'd consider progress, she can stop injecting so much noise into the signal. People only have so much exposure to "the message", and are likely to dismiss it quickly given too many scatalogical & other insults. There's a difference between "winning everybody over" vs "do your part to contribute to polite discourse" vs "make your side sound dominated by insult-spewing jerks". Parent wasn't asking for total perfect solution, only to stop contributing to needless antagonism.
- 10y ago
sremani 10y ago
The core issue is not populism, its economic stagnation. 2008 came and showed the entire political and financial elite were swimming naked.
- matthewbauer 10y ago
  But a populist wasn't elected in 2008 or 2012. "Economic stagnation" doesn't explain Trump at all.
  - jacobush 10y ago
    Can there not be inertia in the system? Is the GOP and the electorate flimsy as paper?
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    This plus weak counterpart does though. Plus genius use of new media to sway undecided people.
santialbo 10y ago
In Spain the word populism has turned into an insult that traditional political parties use freely against new political parties even if the statements are perfectly legit (e.g. universal basic income). Is this happening in other countries too?
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Not in the US... because we really only have 2 parties, which is extremely unfortunate. We are polarized by design.
- tomp 10y ago
  Yes. Everywhere "populism" is used as an insult for political parties that actually listen to people and intent to do as the population wants, as opposed to established parties that mainly keep their power because of intertia and are getting more and more disconnected from their voters. Populism is how democracy is supposed to work.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    To a point. Good leaders are supposed to explain what is good, useful and especially why in case someone does not understand. That is called propaganda though.
ChrisLTD 10y ago
Serious question, does this guy actually know how to deal with populism? Chavez died of cancer, he wasn't defeated politically. Current day Venezuela is led by Chavez's former Vice President.
- jacobush 10y ago
  In some ways, the issue is not the person. We will all die at some point. How can we limit the damage done to the world meantime?
clueless123 10y ago
Great article but it fails to address a key point of this type of revolutions (I've lived through a couple). Upset people don't like listening to reason. They want relief ( even the promise of it.)
javajosh 10y ago
While it's true that you can reach out and have a meal, share a laugh, with a Trump supporter, I don't think that will do anything lasting or good. Trump supporters are, in my personal experience, willfully ignorant. They make general statements (particularly about the poor state of the US and Obama's failure) and cannot back them up with supporting facts. They get indignant and threatened when asked for facts. They ignore evidence of his lack of personal values. Yet the doom that faces America is very real, and this is really the cause of their emotions. Intuitively they know we can't consume so much without producing it. If we offshore production, we must eventually offshore consumption. Chinese workers earning $5 a day, Chinese factories paying no attention to the environment or workers rights, this is really the ONLY problem we need to address. And the liberal elites don't care, because they don't make money making things, and never did. Are you a liberal elite wanting to heal the divide? Build a factory in the USA. A real, physical factory that builds real, physical things. And if you do the math and realize you can't do that and compete with China, then fight like hell to punish Chinese producers for playing the game by unfair rules (e.g. impose tariffs to at least bring the price up to what it would be if they paid their people a living wage, benefits, and protected the environment).
- ManFromUranus 10y ago
  There is the matter that, even if these Trump supporters provided facts you wouldn't believe those facts anyway. You would attribute the facts they provided to different causes and interpret them in your own way to suit your world view. It's really a waste of time talking to each other. I've spent plenty of time arguing with people on the left. Facts and figures and citations stored on my phone (TO SHOW PEOPLE IRL) and all for nothing. Complete waste of time. The only thing that made a difference was arguing with a liberal friend about diversity. I was able to point out that he lives in the whitest building in the whitest part of the city. So harping on about diversity is hypocritical because when he had time to put his money where his mouth is he did the opposite (he is white). That was the only thing that even made him pause to think for a second. In my experience, no amount of facts, no amount of well meaning discussion has any point. Nobody on the left will agree with you, they won't see your point, they willfully choose to misunderstand your points, they misrepresent your arguments when they repeat them back to you. It is a futile waste of time to talk to each other. The issue will eventually be decided the way all such fundamental irreconcilable disagreements are decided, might will make right in the end.
tonydiep 10y ago
Great read.
1_2__3 10y ago
It's disappointing to me how many comments still refer to concerns by Trump or Brexit supports as essentially optics. "They blame immigrants", "they see immigrants coming in at the same time as things being bad and make assumptions", "they're just being racist", etc. Maybe some of them believe their country's culture is suffering and that part of the problem is an influx of immigrants. Maybe they're not wrong. Acting like this is all a matter of misinformation needing to be corrected seems stupefyingly arrogant to me.
kebolio 10y ago
Don't like this pejorative use of the word populism. Populism is getting people to vote for you for what they want, telling them they need to do what you want is the polar opposite of what needs to be done to fight the far right.
dmreedy 10y ago
It's convenient that this article and another on the nature (or lacking) of modern humility are both on the front page at the same time. I think this entire argument reduces to a recommendation: "Humble yourself". It's so damn easy to get caught up in egocentrism. There's an intrinsic human bias towards believing that what you believe is the right thing to believe. I've never met someone who is genuinely innocent of this fault (if it can be called a fault), especially when it comes to dogmatic issues of genuine belief. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to exist as a creature that does not put its own beliefs first, of course, so I think the logic instead has to be, "yes, we may believe our own beliefs foremost, at the expense of the beliefs of others. But we must commit time to hypothetical sympathy". To participate in an argument, we must engage in hypothetical sympathy with our counterparts. The first assumption on hearing what is perceived to be a wrong idea cannot be, "this idea is wrong, and therefore the carrier of this idea must be stupid and inferior to me, the right and correct". That turns an issue that might be argued productively into an issue of dogmatism. Most people are rational, to a functional extent. The difference lies more in the set of axioms we possess, rather than the logic used to build from them. And so we must humble ourselves; our axioms are unproveable by the definition of the word. The first step to engaging someone else is to try and imagine what set of axioms, assuming similar logic, would allow them to reach the positions they hold. --- I will note as a postscript that of course, there is a strong counterargument to this position: that there's no time for this bullshit. In an austere ivory tower, perhaps we could be humble all day, but as it stands in the real world, the lives of humans are finite, and the beliefs of some inflict real suffering. And so, most of the time it's impossible to justify this kind of gentle work towards mutual understanding. This is the perspective of arguing for the Human instead of Humanity. I don't have a good response to this other than, "damn, that's a hard one". And so, sometimes, wars are fought. I will never support their necessity, but I am sympathetic to their causes.
kindarooster 10y ago
My take from this is that Trump is a symptom of a problem. The problem is never going to go away by attacking Trump or his policies. He is promising a solution to a problem that people are experiencing in the US. Like it or not, people are buying his solution. If you don't like his solution, then you find a better one and sell it the people who are buying Trump's. But most importantly, before we build another product to sell, we have to understand the problem. Get out of our ivory tower and understand the plight some people are experiencing.
normalperson123 10y ago
the populism craze is just the latest effort of liberal people to de-legitimize trump. its retarded. how is hillary clinton appealing to all the needs and demands of her voters not populism then?
mirekrusin 10y ago
Feels like shallow reasoning to me to be honest. What can the author say about problem with 2nd/3rd generation of young immigrants' kids/large ghettos in Paris? Is it fictional problem? Probably not as my Parisian friends are saying and you can see burning cars from time to time. Police no-go zone seems to me like reasonable issue to be worried about. The problem imho is that the issue is not so close in time, but a bit further, 2+ generations (40y) from now. Similar to Rio de Janeiro favelas who is there to blame for all of the massive mess? Children don't choose where they want to be born. First immigrants are seniors/not here anymore. Politicians rotated dozen times. In general I think that mass relocations of any kind for any reason are bad and should be throttled to sustainable throughput. This way churches, schools, hospitals and what not can keep up.
ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
It's hard to take someone like this seriously when he comes from the elite banking class that has long been at war with the Chavez/Maduro faction. He's about as partisan as you can get.
grokkable 10y ago
The wikipedia entry for Hacker News needs to be changed. It currently says: "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship." Politics needs to be added. What a fucking joke. Someone regex the submissions.

79 points by scribu 10y ago

Senji 10y ago

Why are you `dealing` with populism in the first place?

sandworm101 10y ago
Because populism leads very quicky to dark places. Most all systems of government, of vested authority and state monopoly of violence, are to address our instinct towards populism. Egging on the mob never ends well.
- skellington 10y ago
  You're only labeling it "populism" (which is normally defined as 'support for the concerns of ordinary people') because you don't like the outcome. If you liked the outcome you would call it "democratic." Somehow the idea of being concerned about the outcome for ordinary people has become vilified by American liberals because red state, blue collar, ordinary people are worthless. What is going on?! Trump wants to be a job protectionist while Democrats want globalization? Aren't you people aware that not that long ago the Democrats were fighting the Republicans against globalization because they claimed that globalization was only good for corporate interests and bad for ordinary Americans? PS I think Trump is a nut job in many ways so please don't read the above as an endorsement.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    In other words, your two parties are now the same party just flipping as it wills. And US considers itself a representative democracy?
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Populism is, in a political culture, the appeal to the popular regardless of other interests. It is about simplistic concepts easily chanted, divorced from complex realities. It is about doing what the people say they want regarless of how idiotic that may be, regardless of the fact they probably dont want the thing in the long run. By way if example, tieing NAFTA negotiations to whichever country wins the Stanly Cup would be popular, but it isnt sound leadership. Eliminating the IRS is popular, but no rational person would do it. (Either of those wouldnt shock me if tweeted.)
  - InitialLastName 10y ago
    The populous isn't always in the best position to think through the long-term implications of their desires. In this case, Trump rode the anger of voters who want to close the borders to both immigrants and imported manufactured goods, because they perceived that some of their jobs going to illegal imigrants, and other manufacturing jobs had been taken overseas. How many of those people, do you think, buy everything at Walmart (whether it's all they can afford or not)? How many of those people realize that a 35% border tax and getting rid of our internal slave labor force will lead to commensurately higher prices of goods and services, without necessarily bringing back the jobs that were actually automated away? If they have thought it through, where's the better outcome? This is why we don't have a direct democracy. These issues are more complicated than one can wrap their head around without making it a full-time job for an industry, and the decisions aren't helped by folks making decisions out of anger and desperation.
- ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
  [citation needed] Populism by definition is closer to being synonymous with a functioning democracy that it is to mob rule.
  - dlss 10y ago
    It's not exactly a citation, but high school culture ("that which sounds cool should be done") doesn't exactly lead to the best of all possible places. Looking for symmetric universal moral principals sort of does seem to. Though I admit basically no form of government seems to head in that direction, as founding documents post-revolution are not really a form of government in my model.

hxegon 10y ago

As someone who knows a lot of trump supporters and trump haters, this is what people who are afraid of trump need to recognize. I've seen the advice from this article work first hand, and I've seen people who don't understand what the author is talking about make situations worse first hand.

skybrian 10y ago
Interesting. Maybe give some examples?
- ctdonath 10y ago
  Yes, the author completely misses the core issue: when the populace at large gets tired of getting hammered with elitist & special-interest issues, to the point of being told to actively facilitate what is broadly considered distasteful, they start looking for someone who will restore the mundane norms they are comfortable with. The following is a list of US populist complaints, which Trump successfully addressed. (Don't up/down-vote based on whether you agree or not with the issues of the list, which I may or may not, just note that the points are important to enough people to vote a Trump into office.) In no particular order... Facilitation/celebration of LGBQT (most people aren't, and find differing sexualities repulsive). Demands for "safe spaces" while eliminating the only long socially established safe spaces: sexually segregated restrooms. Taking taxpayer earnings and spending them on advocacy of opposing views. Reducing a sense of safety vs crime, while seemingly protecting criminals (this issue dominated by the US "gun culture"). Laying blame/responsibility for environmental issues on those thinking themselves not guilty (say, global warming). Stifling parental preferences in education (Common Core, lack of school vouchers, absolute intolerance of anything hinting of Christianity). Broad/unrelenting accusations of whites & males as invariably & irredeemably sexist/misogynist/xenophobic/racist/etc (say, Hillary's declaration of 1/4 of Americans as "deplorables"). Incredible growth of national debt ($10,000,000,000,000 in last 8 years, doubling all previous debt) with prospect of populace having to pay it. Lack of jobs (need for jobs has far outstripped creation of jobs). Overwhelming regulations, making compliance & cost untenable. Abortion being considered, on the whole, inexcusable murder of children. Understand that classic US culture is deeply rooted in individual liberty & rights. Basically, taking someone's money to make them pay for something they don't want angers them; they'll put up with a lot, but once "enough!" hits they're prone to taking dramatic steps to end the offense. Also note that the USA is huge, having a broad range of views from coast to coast; what Hillary offered was "coastal" culture, while Trump appealed to "heartland", and with the Electoral College deliberately biasing Presidential elections toward populist views, the large number of central states won the vote.

debt 10y ago

Populism was dealt with by way of the electoral college.

schnable 10y ago
Huge point. Beyond the electoral college, the founders of the US had many mechanisms to prevent this kind of thing, but we've degraded them in favor of the idea that everyone's voice counts equally. Senators used to be appointed. Party candidates used to be selected by party officials, not the public. This last one in particular would have prevented a Trump presidency. Andrew Sullivan explains all this very well here: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny... The summary is that too much democracy leads to tyranny.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  I would counter it with facts that the weakening of the democratic process has been done by elected officials. Electoral college rules in fact subtly break democracy even now. Wanted to vote, say, Bernie Sanders? Tough luck.

alva 10y ago

How about addressing the widespread concerns that cause "populism" even if it means setting back your own ulterior agenda? Brexit and immigration is a good example of this. Blair decided mass immigration was a good idea for a number of reasons. At some point they surely realised that although it would provide an economic boost, some people would lose out financially and most did not want significant cultural change in their community. Over the years larger dissatisfaction with this policy grew and grew, only to be labelled racist by the ruling parties. This led to UKIP which led to splits in the Conservative party which led to Brexit. Ignore a valid issue long enough and resentment will spread across the country. If these peoples concerns and wishes were not sacrificed for ulterior motives a EU ref would likely never occur. Parallels to US/Trump seem reasonable. Large groups of people whose concerns have not necessarily been address because the contrary policies benefit an already privileged and distant few. tldr: Offer real solutions to the large number of poor and struggling people in your country. Even if it slows down your grander plan. If you don't, resentment will build and there are more of them than you. edit: The absolute biggest danger to the embedded powers is that Trump succeeds and does a good job. Hard to overstate this.

zoner 10y ago
Exactly the same thinking as mine. And what the liberals are doing? Whining more racism and continuing the same agenda.
- tdkl 10y ago
  They're also irresponsible and blame others (Russian hackers). Like children who grew up being sheltered, then came to college and saw protesting (blaming others) is the answer.
  - badlucklottery 10y ago
    That's obviously a big slice of caricature, don't you think? Why feed the polarization like that? What do you gain from it?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

canadian_voter 10y ago

Your organizing principle is simple: don’t feed polarization, disarm it. This is so important. Samantha Bee can't stop making piss jokes about Trump. That's not going to win anyone over. Nina Donovan's poem, recited by Ashley Judd at the Women's March, is brave and powerful. It is also polarizing. There is a line: "I’m not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust." That's not going to win anyone over. Again and again, people are attacking Trump for the wrong reasons. Focus on the truly bad. Don't get hung up on his hair. It makes you look petty. Edit: Frank Bruni beat me to this in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-take-on-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-...

tptacek 10y ago
It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over.
- dlss 10y ago
  > It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over. Exactly. It's Samantha Bee's job to feed the polarization cycle. If she doesn't, who will?
- badlucklottery 10y ago
  Of course. It's her job to entertain her audience. But that audience is free to ask for less focus on the insubstantial.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  It's not her job to win everybody over. But if she wants to contribute to what she'd consider progress, she can stop injecting so much noise into the signal. People only have so much exposure to "the message", and are likely to dismiss it quickly given too many scatalogical & other insults. There's a difference between "winning everybody over" vs "do your part to contribute to polite discourse" vs "make your side sound dominated by insult-spewing jerks". Parent wasn't asking for total perfect solution, only to stop contributing to needless antagonism.
10y ago

sremani 10y ago

The core issue is not populism, its economic stagnation. 2008 came and showed the entire political and financial elite were swimming naked.

matthewbauer 10y ago
But a populist wasn't elected in 2008 or 2012. "Economic stagnation" doesn't explain Trump at all.
- jacobush 10y ago
  Can there not be inertia in the system? Is the GOP and the electorate flimsy as paper?
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  This plus weak counterpart does though. Plus genius use of new media to sway undecided people.

santialbo 10y ago

In Spain the word populism has turned into an insult that traditional political parties use freely against new political parties even if the statements are perfectly legit (e.g. universal basic income). Is this happening in other countries too?

monkmartinez 10y ago
Not in the US... because we really only have 2 parties, which is extremely unfortunate. We are polarized by design.
tomp 10y ago
Yes. Everywhere "populism" is used as an insult for political parties that actually listen to people and intent to do as the population wants, as opposed to established parties that mainly keep their power because of intertia and are getting more and more disconnected from their voters. Populism is how democracy is supposed to work.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  To a point. Good leaders are supposed to explain what is good, useful and especially why in case someone does not understand. That is called propaganda though.

ChrisLTD 10y ago

Serious question, does this guy actually know how to deal with populism? Chavez died of cancer, he wasn't defeated politically. Current day Venezuela is led by Chavez's former Vice President.

jacobush 10y ago
In some ways, the issue is not the person. We will all die at some point. How can we limit the damage done to the world meantime?

clueless123 10y ago

Great article but it fails to address a key point of this type of revolutions (I've lived through a couple). Upset people don't like listening to reason. They want relief ( even the promise of it.)

javajosh 10y ago

While it's true that you can reach out and have a meal, share a laugh, with a Trump supporter, I don't think that will do anything lasting or good. Trump supporters are, in my personal experience, willfully ignorant. They make general statements (particularly about the poor state of the US and Obama's failure) and cannot back them up with supporting facts. They get indignant and threatened when asked for facts. They ignore evidence of his lack of personal values. Yet the doom that faces America is very real, and this is really the cause of their emotions. Intuitively they know we can't consume so much without producing it. If we offshore production, we must eventually offshore consumption. Chinese workers earning $5 a day, Chinese factories paying no attention to the environment or workers rights, this is really the ONLY problem we need to address. And the liberal elites don't care, because they don't make money making things, and never did. Are you a liberal elite wanting to heal the divide? Build a factory in the USA. A real, physical factory that builds real, physical things. And if you do the math and realize you can't do that and compete with China, then fight like hell to punish Chinese producers for playing the game by unfair rules (e.g. impose tariffs to at least bring the price up to what it would be if they paid their people a living wage, benefits, and protected the environment).

ManFromUranus 10y ago
There is the matter that, even if these Trump supporters provided facts you wouldn't believe those facts anyway. You would attribute the facts they provided to different causes and interpret them in your own way to suit your world view. It's really a waste of time talking to each other. I've spent plenty of time arguing with people on the left. Facts and figures and citations stored on my phone (TO SHOW PEOPLE IRL) and all for nothing. Complete waste of time. The only thing that made a difference was arguing with a liberal friend about diversity. I was able to point out that he lives in the whitest building in the whitest part of the city. So harping on about diversity is hypocritical because when he had time to put his money where his mouth is he did the opposite (he is white). That was the only thing that even made him pause to think for a second. In my experience, no amount of facts, no amount of well meaning discussion has any point. Nobody on the left will agree with you, they won't see your point, they willfully choose to misunderstand your points, they misrepresent your arguments when they repeat them back to you. It is a futile waste of time to talk to each other. The issue will eventually be decided the way all such fundamental irreconcilable disagreements are decided, might will make right in the end.

tonydiep 10y ago

Great read.

1_2__3 10y ago

It's disappointing to me how many comments still refer to concerns by Trump or Brexit supports as essentially optics. "They blame immigrants", "they see immigrants coming in at the same time as things being bad and make assumptions", "they're just being racist", etc. Maybe some of them believe their country's culture is suffering and that part of the problem is an influx of immigrants. Maybe they're not wrong. Acting like this is all a matter of misinformation needing to be corrected seems stupefyingly arrogant to me.

kebolio 10y ago

Don't like this pejorative use of the word populism. Populism is getting people to vote for you for what they want, telling them they need to do what you want is the polar opposite of what needs to be done to fight the far right.

dmreedy 10y ago

It's convenient that this article and another on the nature (or lacking) of modern humility are both on the front page at the same time. I think this entire argument reduces to a recommendation: "Humble yourself". It's so damn easy to get caught up in egocentrism. There's an intrinsic human bias towards believing that what you believe is the right thing to believe. I've never met someone who is genuinely innocent of this fault (if it can be called a fault), especially when it comes to dogmatic issues of genuine belief. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to exist as a creature that does not put its own beliefs first, of course, so I think the logic instead has to be, "yes, we may believe our own beliefs foremost, at the expense of the beliefs of others. But we must commit time to hypothetical sympathy". To participate in an argument, we must engage in hypothetical sympathy with our counterparts. The first assumption on hearing what is perceived to be a wrong idea cannot be, "this idea is wrong, and therefore the carrier of this idea must be stupid and inferior to me, the right and correct". That turns an issue that might be argued productively into an issue of dogmatism. Most people are rational, to a functional extent. The difference lies more in the set of axioms we possess, rather than the logic used to build from them. And so we must humble ourselves; our axioms are unproveable by the definition of the word. The first step to engaging someone else is to try and imagine what set of axioms, assuming similar logic, would allow them to reach the positions they hold. --- I will note as a postscript that of course, there is a strong counterargument to this position: that there's no time for this bullshit. In an austere ivory tower, perhaps we could be humble all day, but as it stands in the real world, the lives of humans are finite, and the beliefs of some inflict real suffering. And so, most of the time it's impossible to justify this kind of gentle work towards mutual understanding. This is the perspective of arguing for the Human instead of Humanity. I don't have a good response to this other than, "damn, that's a hard one". And so, sometimes, wars are fought. I will never support their necessity, but I am sympathetic to their causes.

kindarooster 10y ago

My take from this is that Trump is a symptom of a problem. The problem is never going to go away by attacking Trump or his policies. He is promising a solution to a problem that people are experiencing in the US. Like it or not, people are buying his solution. If you don't like his solution, then you find a better one and sell it the people who are buying Trump's. But most importantly, before we build another product to sell, we have to understand the problem. Get out of our ivory tower and understand the plight some people are experiencing.

normalperson123 10y ago

the populism craze is just the latest effort of liberal people to de-legitimize trump. its retarded. how is hillary clinton appealing to all the needs and demands of her voters not populism then?

mirekrusin 10y ago

Feels like shallow reasoning to me to be honest. What can the author say about problem with 2nd/3rd generation of young immigrants' kids/large ghettos in Paris? Is it fictional problem? Probably not as my Parisian friends are saying and you can see burning cars from time to time. Police no-go zone seems to me like reasonable issue to be worried about. The problem imho is that the issue is not so close in time, but a bit further, 2+ generations (40y) from now. Similar to Rio de Janeiro favelas who is there to blame for all of the massive mess? Children don't choose where they want to be born. First immigrants are seniors/not here anymore. Politicians rotated dozen times. In general I think that mass relocations of any kind for any reason are bad and should be throttled to sustainable throughput. This way churches, schools, hospitals and what not can keep up.

ConfuciusSay02 10y ago

It's hard to take someone like this seriously when he comes from the elite banking class that has long been at war with the Chavez/Maduro faction. He's about as partisan as you can get.

grokkable 10y ago

The wikipedia entry for Hacker News needs to be changed. It currently says: "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship." Politics needs to be added. What a fucking joke. Someone regex the submissions.