Category Archives: Populism

The survey was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of its global Estonian diaspora project, and posed the question: "Please could you name one person or fact related to Estonia which characterizes Estonia for you, in a positive or a negative way."

Answers could be couched only in a short comment, with one positive and one negative aspect.

2,250 positive answers were received, compared with 1,850 negative responses, and the surveyors organized the answers into different categories.

Among the negatives, more than a third (39 percent) or respondents expressly named populist and/or right-wing politicians and politics, with two or three politicians specifically named in the responses, ERR reports.

The responses saw a smaller range in the negatives, meaning the most dominant aspects in respondents' minds such as the politics dimension noted above held a much larger share of the total than did any of the positive answers.

The authors of the study said it was: "Noteworthy that, while in the topic block of negative facts there was a large share of politics and factors relating to the political field, the share of positive factors was rather more diverse."

Additionally, 13 percent of respondents referred to "politics" more broadly, and referenced, again, specific politicians, political parties, and policies on, for instance, Covid, and education.

The remaining negative answers constituted less than a tenth of the share, though 9 percent referenced Estonian people's: "Rudeness, carelessness, self-centeredness, envy, narrow-mindedness, intolerance," and other negative character traits.

Racists attitudes and intolerant attitudes to LGBT+ persons were also referenced specifically.

Other negatives included "low salaries" and other economic factors, alcoholism, the cold climate, the proximity of Russia, and the activities or existence of other, non-political public figures.

(including significantly at least in the positive category, and above all politicians), and two to three percent of the answers reflected a negative attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community and alcoholism.

Positive aspects found a much broader range

As noted, respondents to the survey presented a much more diluted selection of answers when it came to positive perceptions of their home country.

These ranged from some political figures most notably the current head of state (appeared in 11 percent of positive asnwers) as well as his preecessors, the e-state, including facets such as e-residency, cyber security and Estonia's international reputation as a digital powerhouse, and the beautiful natural environment and its forests, islands and Baltic coast.

Composer Arvo Prt, many other figures from the world of music, literature, art, sport, science, national and folk culture and even politics, education, innovation, the startup culture and general memories of the homeland were also referenced.

Some positive character traits, such as hard work, ambition and resourcefulness were also mentioned, as well as the fact of being a sovereign, independent republic.

The study, entitled "Estonian foreign communities: Identity, attitudes and expectations towards the Estonian state"was conducted by the Institute of Baltic Studies on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Culture, while those polled were of Estonian origin and resident in: Finland, Russia, Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Turkey, the US and Australia.

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Survey: Right-wing populism ex pat Estonians' main negative image of home - ERR News

Now the story of a powerful family who won everything, and the three sons who had no choice but to screw Brazil together. Its Arrested Development.

So runs the title sequence give or take some poetic license for the purposes of this review of the new PBS documentary following the rise of the Bolsonaro family (also shown on BBC as a three-part affair). Released a month before Brazil goes to the polls in what is effectively a two-horse race for president between President Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, the documentary attempts to warn the world of the consequences of a second term for the incumbent.

However, its criticisms fall rather flat. They reflect how and why the opposition has failed to rally the Brazilian masses. In counterpoising the destruction of the Amazon to Bolsonaros claims about exploiting its untold riches, it fails to tell the truth about Brazilian development and its failures. Worse, it allows bolsonarismo to stand as an avatar of material development (a key part of its mythology), when it is precisely the opposite.

With impressive access to former government ministers and Bolsonaros eldest son, Flvio, Rise of the Bolsonaros, tries and mostly succeeds at avoiding the hysterical tone of much international liberal commentary on the president. Indeed, in letting its interviewees speak, it presents the light and the shadows. Inevitably of course, given the subject matter, the portrayal ends up looking like the thinnest of waning crescents.

In all such documentaries, there is a major editorial choice to be made in how to find that contrast, and on which shadows to focus. Bolsonaros vulgar bigotry and anti-environmental stance are the primary ones here, with threats against democracy and encouragement of violence shortly behind.

The first of the hour-long episodes patiently and sensitively reconstructs who Jair Bolsonaro is, from his humble roots in the interior of So Paulo, through his time in the Rio de Janeiro army barracks, to his seven terms as a member of the so-called lower clergy (bottom-feeding uninfluential politicians) in Congress.

Too irrelevant to be at the nexus of big money corruption, Bolsonaro emerges in episode two as the key politician to exploit anti-corruption sentiment and surf the moralistic, right-wing wave that gripped Brazil from 2015 to 2018 all the way to the Planalto. Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon is given ample screen time to exhibit his enthusiasm for Bolsonaro, who, he insists, inspired Trump as much as the other way around.

Here we might note a missed opportunity. Despite access to a range of domestic and international pundits, the documentary never really goes beyond the tired and erroneous Trump of the Tropics narrative. In that sense, it fails to tell us something about Brazil, and about how the Bolsonaros are particularly Brazilian, as much as they might also be part of a global rightist wave. There are nods to this in the portrayal of the new Brazil of the interiorzo, of cities hundreds of miles from the coast, of cattle, soy, and guns. But that is hardly the whole story, and misses out how one of the fastest-growing economies in the world through a good part of the twentieth century has stagnated despite the commodities-driven boom at the start of the twenty-first.

Focused on his term in power, episode three similarly tells us little about the authoritarian continuity represented by the militarys elevated role in society and politics under Bolsonaro. Jair, we are repeatedly told, is nostalgic for the 19641985 dictatorship, but this appears as a personal defect, a purely ideological inclination, and not a force within Brazilian society that has gained confidence as Brazil finds itself unable to find an exit from perma-crisis.

This deficiency is most clear on two axes. First, there is the Bolsonaros bigotry. Most by now know the litany of outrages, but to repeat them is no sin in and of itself; their words present a window into the bolsonarista worldview. But there is little given materially to back it up. A clip of congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the presidents third son, giving the banana (basically an up yours gesture) to opposition congresswomen is leaned on so heavily across the three episodes that it almost leaves one wondering if thats the extent of the incriminating evidence. (As they say, theres always money in the banana gesture.)

The reality that moralistic explosions emerge at moments of social crisis is missed.

The issue of rising political violence is broached principally through the bloody 2018 assassination of black, bisexual socialist Rio city councilor Marielle Franco. This is hugely important. But the use of this episode as an example of the consequences of Bolsonaros sexism and homophobia is to get things upside down.

Franco was assassinated because she was a fierce opponent of brutal policing, mafia politics, and the military intervention in Rio, conflicts and struggles that are obscured in PBSs telling. That she was a non-white woman probably made her more of a homo sacer someone who can be murdered with impunity but it was not the root of the matter. She was murdered because she presented a threat to the authoritarian mafias born out of Brazils police and military that control Rio de Janeiro.

More broadly, throughout the documentary, the sheer everyday violence of Brazilian society is rather glossed over. It would be churlish to take a three-hour-long documentary to task for not including more it does plenty, and does so attractively and engagingly for a non-Brazilian audience. But given the centrality of violence to Bolsonaros appeal, a few more minutes on this would not have gone amiss. The daily insecurity in Brazils urban peripheries and beyond, created and sustained by a range of parties large gangs, low-level criminals, vigilante groups and militias, the military police creates a desire for reprisal. As Matthew Richmond has noted, many do not like Bolsonaro, but think at least hell give the bandidos a beating.

Instead, we learn about Bolsonaros loosening of gun laws; an important development but one only likely to only accelerate an existing dynamic. It doesnt really explain Bolsonarism or why it might prove a successful political recipe.

In seeking roots, particularly with regard to the aforementioned homophobia and sexism, we are told on several occasions that Brazil is a very traditional society. But it isnt. And to the extent that the presidents bigotry is a major connection point for the president with his hard-core base, it is not tradition as such that is at work. The right-wing shift in Brazil was the product of political mobilizations rather than some immutable curse ingrained in Brazilian society.

Brazilian culture has traditionally had a certain moral laxity at its core, which manifested as hypocrisy once it was put into contrast with moralizing claims. This bred a particular corrosive tolerance, a spirit of accommodation with the imperfect world. There is always a deal to be found, a cordial resolution. To preach something like the eradication of homosexuals or to see the devil behind every door, as some evangelical pastors do, is a puritanical sort of ethos that is relatively new to the country at least in its current form. Previous episodes of puritanical outbursts have actually been momentary political interruptions at moments of social crisis, rather than the norm.

For many working class and poor Brazilians, salvation is often the one hope that is held on to, mediated by a rapidly growing Pentecostalism that promises health and wealth, immediately. If an election were held only among self-described evangelicals (around 30 percent of the population), Bolsonaro would win the first round in a landslide.

Capitalist society is a war of all against all, but in Brazil, the war is almost literal (sixty thousand homicides a year). Moreover, masses of people are deprived of traditional anchors such as formal employment (the informality rate is up to 40 percent) after also having been wrenched from the agrarian society of old. In this context, trying to preserve what little you have takes on an existential connotation. Hence the emphasis on family, and why Bolsonaro has had success in presenting himself as the only true defender of it.

The second axis on which Bolsonaros deficiencies are portrayed is the environment effectively the presidents cardinal sin. At the limit, the documentary comes close to suggesting that this is the one reason you should care. The Amazon is the issue that would define [Bolsonaros] reign, we are told, while the title sequence calls the Bolsonaros a family with the fate of the world in their hands.

Bolsonaros term has seen a reprehensible degree of omission and impunity in the Amazon as protection agencies have been defanged and defunded, with deforestation, increased conflict, and invasion of indigenous lands ensuing, as well as the killings of indigenous leaders and environmentalists. This, we learn, is justified in bolsonarismo by its view of the land as an El Dorado (with freelance miners thus given free reign). This would consequently be Brazils path to enrichment. In this, Bolsonaro is portrayed as picking up where the military dictatorship left off.

But viewers are being served the falsest of dichotomies: jobs, wealth, and development against saving the planet. Anyone would be excused for choosing the former, especially struggling workers, if this were indeed the choice. But it isnt, and it is precisely the dichotomy that fervent Bolsonaro supporters seek to present to the public.

The incursion into the deepest reaches of Brazils interior in pursuit of expanding primary production agriculture and extractive industries is an acceleration of Brazilian de-development. Brazil is a poster boy for premature deindustrialization for its diminution of manufacturing as a share of output and employment at a still relatively low income level (well below where advanced economies were at during the same time in the 1980s, for instance).

No political force is seriously seeking to reverse this tendency, one that intensified over the Workers Partys period in power and that a new government will have to face up to if Lula is victorious. This was one of the reasons that partys political base shrank, and it cannot be explained away by citing the constraints after taking power or blaming the right-wing counteroffensive, given the implications for the Brazilian working class and the countrys future as a whole.

The reality is that the destruction of the Amazon is not a sad consequence of development but a reflection of its failure. The Workers Party may have done a decent job of slowing deforestation, while Bolsonaro has encouraged it, but both are working within the same set of limited choices. The disaster of Bolsonaro is that he represents an acceleration of Brazils worst developmental tendencies.

These are, sadly, issues hardly unique to Brazil. The entry ramp to development looks closed off for most, while the consequences, such as deepening inequality, sclerotic politics, and spectacular populism, are quasi-universal today.

The weakness of the opposition to Bolsonaro is evident in that it has not managed to present a truly alternative vision. Dont be a bigot, dont destroy the state, dont make society more violent, dont burn up the Amazon is preferable to its opposite, but it serves only as a containment of the Brazilian crisis, not its resolution. It is no wonder then that the opposition seemed ineffective and lost until Lula returned to the political scene in March 2021 and one wonders how much road there is left in lulismo anyway.

Ultimately, though Rise of the Bolsonaros is hardly a poor documentary, it reflects this stance. The producers should maybe not be held entirely responsible; if you seek only to document, you cannot invent an ideological pole of opposition where there isnt one, you can only reflect back whats there.

In the end, we are left with a documentary that presents itself as crazy goings-on in goofy old Brazil but that also concludes the world is going to end if Bolsonaro is reelected. Deep historical criticism remains wanting; its more Arrested Development than it is the crucial tale of arrested development.

Continued here:

Jair Bolsonaro's Hard-Right Populism Is Horrifying. But He Didn't Come From Nowhere. - Jacobin magazine

(Photograph by Janos Kummer/Getty Images.)

Weve all grown to expect the unexpected in American politics since the vortex opened in 2015 and we crossed over into the Darkest Timeline. But there are moments that still bring one up short, demanding a moment of wonder and reflection.

Behold the state of the law and order party, embodied here in the person of its most-watched television host.

Carlson didnt just attend. He addressed the crowd of bikers and reportedly became emotional. He paraphrased a letter Sonny Barger had sent to his wife and friends: 'Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor. ... And I thought to myself, if there is a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect, I can't think of a phrase that sums it up more perfectly than that.

The kind of man he respects did multiple stints in prison, once for plotting to bomb the headquarters of a rival biker gang, and was charged with numerous other crimes, including murder. Some members of the gang he led wear a patch that reads 1%er as a sly reference to the observation that 99 percent of bikers are law-abiding. Theyre outlaws and theyre not ashamed of it. To the contrary.

This is not the cohort with which one would expect a former host of CNNs Crossfirea man who spends much of his time on-air indicting Democrats for lawlessness and whose personal style is most closely associated with the bowtieto be commiserating. One can imagine how hed react to Rachel Maddow getting choked up at the funeral of a mafia don, say.

But I suspect there was a point to his attendance beyond the visceral thrill a member of the privileged class inevitably receives from fraternizing with roughnecks and radicals. (Tom Wolfe fans will have already thought of Radical Chic, with Tucker in the Leonard Bernstein role.) The point, I take it, was to associate himself with the spirit of rebellion against social norms that the Angels symbolize in the popular consciousness.

Im reminded again of what J.D. Vance, a Carlson favorite, told an interviewer earlier this year, a line I quoted in another piece for The Dispatch last week. We are in a late republican period, he said. If were going to push back against it, were going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.

To prevail in the culture war and take America back, Republicans are going to have to behave like, well, outlaws. Political 1%ers, if you will.

One wonders how long itll be before the Angels are hired to provide security at CPAC.

The cardinal virtue of modern conservative populism is spite. Whatever gambit a populist is pursuing, whatever agenda he or she might be advancing, the more it offends the enemy the more likely it is to be received by the right adoringly. Ron DeSantis Marthas Vineyard stunt is an efficient example. It accomplished nothing meaningful yet observers on both sides agree that he helped his 2024 chances by pulling it off. He made the right people mad. Thats more important than thoughtful policy solutions.

Spite is there, too, in Carlsons photo op with the Angels. Establishmentarians of either party wouldnt be caught dead at a rally of outlaw bikers. Suckers like me were destined to scold him for his appearance once the photos appeared online, and he knew it. Theres an element of pater la bourgeoisie, unmistakably, to him showing up there. If youre offended by him eulogizing the head of the Hells Angels, good. Then youre exactly the type of weak-kneed chump he was hoping to offend by doing it, by definition.

Why spite has become so important to the right-wing populist ethic is hard to say, as its not symmetrical between the parties. The most prominent left-wing populist in Congress is probably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a politician who, despite her many faults, doesnt want for policy ideas. Ask AOC what her top priority as a legislator is and she might say the Green New Deal or Medicare For All. The most prominent right-wing populist in Congress is likely Marjorie Taylor Greene. Ask Greene what she wants to do with her power as a legislator and shes apt to say, Impeach Joe Biden.

Impeach Joe Biden for what? you might ask, as if that matters. When moderate-ish Republican Nancy Mace was asked on Sunday whether a new House Republican majority might impeach the president, she allowed that its within the realm of possibility-without so much as gesturing toward what the grounds might be.

Spite doesnt need a reason.

Left and right face the same structural pressures toward spitefulness. Most modern House members have more to fear from their primaries than from the general election thanks to remorseless gerrymandering and continued geographic self-sorting by voters. Theyre compelled by social media to perform at all times, and they have unimaginably easy access to the wealth of grassroots activists thanks to Internet donation brokers like ActBlue and WinRed. All told, the incentives on both sides now point toward constant theatrical political combat, producing the dispiriting culture of lib- or con-owning dunks with which youre familiar if you use Twitter. Online retail politics has become little more than a 24-hour stream of spite because political actors on both sides benefit from it being that way.

Where left and right differ is that the leadership of the populist left has a policy agenda whereas the leadership of the populist right does not, apart perhaps from seal the border. Trump didnt run for president because there was a suite of legislation he was keen to pass, he ran because he didnt want to end up as just another rich guy whom nobody remembers. Its amazing yet true that the most significant policy achievement of his populist presidency was passing a traditional Republican tax cut written by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. He ran against foreign intervention, then bombed Syria within three months of being sworn in. He can be so incoherent and ill-informed on policy that, at one point in his term, he briefly came out for gun control.

As Trumpism has somewhat but not entirely dislodged the conservatism of Reagan, the right has been left with an identity crisis. Populists want one thing, traditional conservatives may want another, and the leader of the party often doesnt know what he wants. The Republican National Committee dealt with that problem in 2020 by simply declining to adopt a new platform, punting on the subject by resolving to support the presidents America-first agenda without further specificity.

A party that cant decide what it wants on policy can at least converge on the belief that the libs are bad and that whatever irritates them must have value. So spite has become the glue that holds together an uneasy coalition of classical liberals, nationalists, country clubbers, hawks, and social cons. And its no wonder that Trump has become its indispensable figure, as he relishes combat with his political enemies for its own sake and rose to fame with policies aimed at excluding undesirables (build the wall, the Muslim ban). Shortly before the 2020 election, Rich Lowry described him as the only middle finger available to the right in repudiating the cultural left. Its hard to do better than that in capturing the spite that animates Trump-era populism.

Although I do often think of a quote from a woman interviewed by the New York Times halfway through Trumps term in 2019. She had supported Trump over Hillary Clinton but was dismayed to see him presiding over a partial government shutdown. I voted for him, and hes the one whos doing this, she said. I thought he was going to do good things. Hes not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.

As a summary of the politics of spite, hurt the people you need to be hurting isnt half-bad either.

Different political actors are drawn to spite for different reasons. For Trump, I think its temperamental. Hes a vindictive personality; of course he enjoys spiting his antagonists. For others, like DeSantis, spite is designed to demonstrate ruthlessness. It communicates that hes a fighter, resolute in pursuing the rights culture-war goals by making the Democrats howl about it. That makes him presidential material. For still others, like Republican strategists, spite performs the function of glue that I described above. At a moment when some members of the Republican coalition might be wavering over, say, abortion policy, a big show of spite in which migrants are airdropped into Marthas Vineyard for the limousine liberals there to sort out might cheer them and bring them back on the team.

For someone like Carlson, I suspect theres a strategy to spitefulness. When Tucker shows up to backslap the Hells Angels, hes not just trying to get a rise out of Democrats and normie conservatives. I think its part of his effort to condition right-wingers to a new type of politics by encouraging them to question their traditional assumptions of right and wrong. Sure, the establishment says crime syndicates are bad even if they happen to ride Harleys and mumble platitudes about freedom. But since when do you let the establishment do your thinking for you?

Ive always believed conditioning the right was the barely hidden goal of Carlsons Russia apologetics. In March, the economist Noah Smith astutely diagnosed the reason the socialist left and the authoritarian right each seemed so invested in seeing Putin prevail in Ukraine:

Both the liberal center-Left and the conservative center-Right are basically committed to upholding the global liberal order. Putin, by invading and attempting to conquer a sovereign state, challenges that order. If Putin succeeds, even modestly, it represents a failure for the U.S. establishment figures who tried to stop him. And establishment failures equal insurgent opportunities. Both the rightists and the leftists here are fighting against the Fukuyaman end-of-history idea that gives their own movements little space to move up.

If Putin defeats the Ukrainians, the conservatives that are standing against Putin will look ineffectual and weak. The Trumpists will then be able to solidify their control over the GOP. And it also means a victory for raw power and will (perhaps implying that efforts like the January 6th putsch are the preferred method for attaining power). But if Putin loses, then Trump and his allies who for years praised and defended Putins regime will be discredited. Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan. Even more damningly, if Putin loses, itll be a success for the globalist order sanctions and aid to Ukraine will represent a triumph of international cooperation. Exactly the kind of world order the Trumpists want so badly to smash.

Carlson understands that convincing the right to ditch traditional conservatism for illiberalism requires uninstalling a lot of civic and cultural software. Republicans who grew up during the Cold War have fear and loathing of Russia in their political DNA. Republicans have traditionally trended toward interventionism, seeing strength in military power and weakness in Democrats hesitancy to use it. Republicans instinctively sympathize with Ukraine as an underdog and a fledgling democracy fighting to oust a colonial power.

Nationalists will never build the sort of post-liberal authoritarian system they want as long as those beliefs persist, so Carlson has made a mission of challenging them: Why are we rooting for Vladimir Putin to lose, exactly? What has he ever done to us? Why spend tens of billions of dollars to arm a country most of us cant find on a map? Are we sure Russia is more corrupt than Ukraine? Why should we prefer a European-style democracy to an Orbanist strongman?

If Russia prevails in Ukraine over the West, itll create the sort of political space for insurgents that Smith describesbut only if the right is willing to claim that space. Thats what Carlsons conditioning program is about, I think. Hes trying to cultivate in his audience an instinct to questionor spiteliberal pieties wherever they arise, from grand-scale geopolitics like Russia is bad to more pedestrian but no less correct beliefs like Biker gangs are bad. If nationalists intend to see their rebellion against liberalism succeed, they cant let the enemy dictate to them what their morals should be. One small but vivid way to signal that is to show up as the guest speaker at Sonny Bargers funeral.

If it bothers you, well, it figures that it would, lib.

Nothing better illustrates how important spite is to the Trump-era GOP than the conventional wisdom that quickly formed after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Any other politician who had their home searched for stolen classified material by federal agents would, at a minimum, be damaged by the process. Hillary Clinton wasnt damaged enough by her email scandal in 2016 to lose a primary to Bernie Sanders, but she was damaged enough to lose a general election to Donald Trump. No one on either side thought the FBI investigation of Clintons servers was an asset to her campaign instead of a liability.

But when Mar-a-Lago was searched, some Trump cronies sounded positively giddy at the development. I think this basically makes it impossible for a DeSantis [run] now, said one Trump adviser to Puck. Another happily proclaimed that The DeSantasy is over! Many political commentators agreed. The populist impulse to spite the Biden Justice Department by nominating Trump a third time would extinguish DeSantis chances, they believed. That the governor is plainly more electable than a twice-impeached disgraced former president facing multiple criminal investigations was neither here nor there.

Im not convinced yet that DeSantis is licked. But if Trump is indicted, all bets are off. The essence of spite, after all, is being willing to damage yourself for the sake of antagonizing your enemy. And since a criminal indictment would bring maximum antagonism between the parties, one might safely assume it will also evoke maximum spite. Trump facing criminal charges really might lock up the nomination for him (before hes locked up himself). Hows that for a law and order party for you?

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The Wild Ones - by Nick Catoggio - The Dispatch

Washington University in St. Louis political scientistsChristopher Lucas,Jacob Montgomery, andMargit Tavits, all in Arts & Sciences, won a $571,000 grantfrom theNational Science Foundationto study the rise of populist rhetoric on social media and its effects on democracies.

Responding to concerns over the rise of populism and its potential threat to global democratic stability, Tavits, Montgomery, and Lucas will produce a new massive dataset capturing the extent of populism in communications by political elites. By scraping social media data from tens of thousands of candidates and hundreds of parties across nearly 80 countries, the team aims to advance political scientists understanding of the spread and consequences of populism in democracies around the world.

That dataset will allow the team to answer questions like: How widespread is populism globally? Which types of candidates and parties are more likely to adopt it, and when? And, is populism contagious? Their ultimate goal is to understand how populism affects political competition both in terms of voter behavior and party politics and what are its consequences to democracy.

The project developed from seed funding provided by theWeidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, which supported initial data gathering byTaishi Muraoka, then a postdoctoral researcher.

Read more about the ongoing research in The Ampersand.

Read more:

Political scientists to study populist rhetoric as a threat to democracy - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis

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ROME, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The leaders of Italy's opposition parties on Monday blamed their defeat on a lack of unity and on voters choosing a path of populism, after Giorgia Meloni's rightist bloc overwhelmingly won the national election.

Near final results showed the conservative alliance, which includes Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini's League and Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, on course for a solid majority in both houses of parliament.

Centre-left and centrist parties, who fought the election on their own after a series of bust ups, collectively won more votes than the right, but an electoral law that awards a third of seats on a first-past-the-post system favours broad alliances.

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Enrico Letta, the head of the opposition Democratic Party (PD), announced he would stand down.

"My leadership will come to an end as soon as the (party) congress identifies a new one," he told a news conference at the PD headquarters in Rome.

Letta - whose party got around 19% of votes - said the rightist victory had its roots in the Five Star Movement (M5S)'s decision to withdraw support from the national unity administration of Mario Draghi last July.

This caused the resignation of the former European Central Bank chief, bringing to an end Letta's plans to forge a electoral alliance with the M5S, who got around 15% thanks to a strong performance in the south.

M5S leader Giuseppe Conte said overnight it was the PD's fault if it proved impossible for the centre left to win.

"They have undermined a political offer that could have been competitive against this centre right," Conte said.

Carlo Calenda, the leader of he centrist Action party who had initially signed on to an alliance with the PD but then backtracked, lamented that a large part of the country "has chosen a path of populism".

"This is a dangerous choice for the country, an uncertain choice, we will see if Meloni will be able to govern," he said, as his federation with the Italia Viva party garnered just under 8% of votes, against their stated aim of winning at least 10%.

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Reporting by Angelo Amante and Rodolfo Fabbri; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Agnieszka Flak, Alvise Armellini and Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Italy's opposition blame disunity and populism for defeat - Reuters

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images.)

One of the core components of a populists view is that things are the way they arebad, unfair, and getting worsebecause they wont let us have the good things and live the good life.

Who they are depends on your flavor of populism. If youre a right-wing cultural populist, they are likely to be individuals and institutions in education, entertainment, corporate America, and the news media whom you see undermining traditional values, imposing woke pieties, and obliterating the existing culture through immigration and anti-white policies. If youre a left-wing cultural populist, they are individuals and institutions whom you see imposing racist and sexist modes from their positions in law enforcement, business, popular culture, and religion in order to deny non-males and oppressed minorities their due. If you are an economic populist, they are bankers and plutocrats who hoard money that could otherwise alleviate the suffering of the poor.

In every case, the premise is that we, the virtuous and afflicted people, are being kept from our natural place of prosperity and prominence by them, the selfish ones who are keeping it from us. This is why populism and authoritarianism are so closely linked. One of the most valuable deceptions of the strongman is to say that the only reason we dont have the things we wantendless prosperity, military dominance, the eradication of crime, the correct social order, etc.is that the people in power are too weak to do the hard and unpleasant things necessary to deliver the good life at least for us.

Whether its Hugo Chavez, Elizabeth Warren, Viktor Orbn, or Josh Hawley, a necessary idea is that the bad people have the means to allow us to be happy and live the good life, but will not allow it to happen for their own reasonsselfishness or maybe just spite. It isnt that the people who disagree with you are sincerely mistaken, even that they see the world much as you do from the opposite direction. It is that they are wicked and need a powerful force to end their reign.

We are truly fighting pure evil right now, said Arizonas Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake. It is evil, what were dealing with in this world. Its coming from the left, its coming from their spokespeople in the media, we all know it.

I dont doubt the sincerity of her hatreds, but imagine what kind of a worldview would be necessary to believe that the way to fight pure evil would be by electing someone to be governor of Arizona. When Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, called an opponent of President Bidens student-loan forgiveness program a miserable little weasel and Lucifer in the flesh, Im sure she meant it. But if Satan himself were on the case, I doubt he would be looking to team up with state attorneys general to file a lawsuit.

Ive long been aware of the advantages for populists of grandiose descriptions of their enemies. Those seeking extraordinary powers need extraordinary foes: people so iniquitous that they have it in their power to give peace and prosperity but deny it. The way you hype up a mob to smash in the windows of the Capitol is by first making the mobs members believe that somehow the mostly unimpressive bunch of strivers with oversized lapel pins in the building had the power to do the right thing, but chose not to. Not wrong, but evil. Not cogs in a machine, but wielders of great power.

What I had missed before, though, was the utopianism beneath the surface of right-wing populism.

Progressive populism is almost expressly utopian. The story goes like this: If humans have a nature at all, it is overwhelmed by the conditions of ones birth and experiences. People do bad things because bad things have been done to them, because of bigoted, classist, or sexist constucts that opress them. Crime, poverty, and ill health are the results of external forces. If we could provide a reasonable income and services for people, in time, the maladies of the past 100,000 years would fade away. Shiny, happy people holding hands. Even a passing familiarity with people, though, would defeat this thinking. Our nature is such that even if it were possible to concentrate wealth and power in such huge quantities to obliterate the existing barriers for all people, we would abuse those powers and build new, more nightmarish tyrannies.

But I hadnt thought enough about right-wing utopianism, since nationalism and its populist expressions are almost always reactionary. It was not until I got into the book from Matthew Rose, A World After Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right, that I started to think about that other parallel in populism. I first heard Rose, a conservative who talks and thinks like a theologian, interviewed by Andrew Sullivan on Sullivans podcast, The Dishcast. A first-rate intellectual historian, Rose is more than up front to the laments about post-Enlightenment Western civilization:

In theory, liberalism proposes a neutral vision of human nature, cleansed of historical residues and free of ideological distortions. In reality, it promotes a bourgeois view of life, placing a higher value on acquisition than virtue, he writes. In theory, liberalism makes politics more peaceful by focusing on the mundane rather than the metaphysical. In reality, it makes political life chaotic by splintering communities into rival factions and parties.

But in his biographies of five intellectual fathers of the current American nationalismOswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Francis Parker Yockey, Alain de Benoist, and Sam FrancisRose shows how their yearnings for a pre-Christian, authentic civilization is a utopianism just as powerful as the futuristic paradise imagined by progressives. Like the Southern Agrarian movement of the 1930s, they yearned for a time that had never really existed, a sort of militant nostalgia. The desire from the new nationalists today is deeply rooted to the appealing but mistaken belief in a before time, that once things had been good and orderly but that outside forces, including the teachings and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, ruined the good life.

Right-wing utopianism holds that if enough power can be placed in the right hands, human nature can be overcome, and men and women will be forced, to their benefit, into the correct communal settings where they can prosper and avoid the chaotic splintering of modernity.

One utopia is not more ridiculous than the other. Both are easy to see in their falsity if one understands, even a little, the ways in which power is, has been, and always will be abused. But to understand our political moment, it is important to hear Roses message from the past century or so. Right-wing populism is just as attached to Utopianism as its left-wing counterpart. But one is an imaginary past, while the other is an imaginary future.

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Utopian Nostalgia and the Radical Right - The Dispatch

Please join associate professor Najib Ghadbian on Friday, Sept.23, in Giffels Auditorium as he discusses "Safeguarding Constitutionalism Worldwide."

Ghadbian will focus on three challenges to constitutionalism: the rise of populism, the spread of autocracyand the difficulty in drafting constitutions in democratizing countries.

Ghadbian says of the lecture:"Constitutions codify the social and political contract between society and the state. They set the parameters for the political structure. They provide rights to citizens and protect individuals from the state. Constitutionalism refers to the way constitutions define the rule of law and limit exercises of power. Today we are witnessing broad attacks on constitutionalism throughout the world. In my presentation, I will address three types of challenges to constitutionalism.

"First the populist challenge. Populist leaders exploit fear during times of crises, then undermine political institutions and practices. One prime example is President Trump rejecting election resultsand thereby contesting the election itself as an institution. Indian Prime Minister Modi incited widespread anti-Muslim violence, infringing on the principles of religious freedom and minority rights. Populist President Jair Bolsonaro, echoing President Trump, has repeatedly criticized the integrity of Brazil's voting systemand suggested that he may not accept the results of the election citing voters' fraud.

"The second challenge is the autocratic challenge an old phenomenon in which non-democratic regimes have constitutions but abuse the rights of citizens, create an overarching executive branchand apply constitutionalism selectively. Lately, autocratic leaders such as Putin in Russia and Sisi in Egypt have been amending constitutions to eliminate term limits.

"The third challenge is the obstacle of drafting constitutions in democratizing countries, particularly where constitutions are introduced without going through a sound process of inclusivity, transparency, national ownershipand citizens' awareness campaigns. In Egypt, both constitutions designed by presidents Morsi and Sisi excluded political opponents from the drafting process and thereby lacked legitimacy. In Tunisia, president Kais Saied drafted his own constitution against the background of another constitution previously drafted that had followed the right protocols. Saied used his populist appeal to contradict the existing constitution; he used the economic crisis to justify bypassing citizen input.

"I will conclude my presentation with recommendations to safeguard constitutionalism globally, based on my comparative outlook and personal involvement with the constitutional design track in the Syrian case."

Light snacks and drinks will be provided by Ozark Catering.

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Constitution Day Lecture to be Given by Political Science Professor Najib Ghadbian - University of Arkansas Newswire

Hold onto your hats, and strap yourselves in, Canadians, because were about to take a wild ride on the rollercoaster that is 21st-century political populism.

If youre a political adrenaline junkie, youre in for a heady, loopy ride. If youre prone to populist nausea, take your Pepto Bismol.

Last weekend, Conservatives gave Pierre Poilievre an overwhelming endorsement with nearly 70 per cent support on the first ballot.

Like a start-up entrepreneur pitching to investors on Dragons Den, he won over members of the party and sold thousands of memberships in a winner-takes-all assault.

Poilievre did more than just woo the Conservative party. He reached out, grabbed them by the lapels and shook them right out of their shoes.

This marks a tectonic shift in the political landscape of the Conservative party and Canada.

So how did he do this?

Well, he ditched those old battles and pitched out something less rigidly ideological, deploying the language of grievance which was amplified by social media.

He borrowed heavily from the playbook of political populism, targeting elites, gatekeepers and woke culture. These are familiar villains evoked by populists of the right. They need something to blame so they can build communities, foment discontent and rally their base.

He threw out some pretty audacious, headline-grabbing ideas like using bitcoin to manage inflation. Ask El Salvador how that worked for them after the crypto crash. He promised to fire Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, another one of his elites.

He pummelled the Liberal governments money-printing to help Canadians and businesses through pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Sure, its a bit of a sucker punch, but hes boxing in a different ring and there are no Queensbury Rules.

He supported the convoy movement and seized its rally cry of freedom, another piece of potent language in the populist playbook. He railed against freedom thieves, personified by Prime Minister Trudeau and the Liberals.

He supports immigration to welcome new Canadians into his tent and fulminates about the public debt to garner support of fiscal hawks. He says he will abandon the unpopular carbon tax and cut other taxes.

He has fashioned himself as one of the people, a kid from humble origins, born to a teenage mother, adopted out and brought up by school teachers.

As a career politician elected at the age of 25, he doesnt necessarily align with the one-of-the-people crowd, but a multi-millionaire property developer and reality TV star wasnt an obvious choice as one of the people, either. And we know what happened there.

But this is populism. It doesnt have to be 100 per cent rational to work.

Like any clever populist, he can smell alienation, the fear and anger over a changing world. He gives voice to those who feel left out and under-served by governments and larger economic orders of elites who attend things like the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Populists take their oxygen from the times they are in. Fear and economic anxiety are low-hanging fruit as Canadians grapple with inflation, rising gas prices and astronomical housing prices. If Canada plunges into recession, there will be more fruit weighing down that tree.

And if you want a monster piece of low-hanging fruit, take health care.

All of this has obviously been intoxicating to the Conservative party, which has been infused with a new sense of purpose. But will it be sticky with the urban set, cultural progressives and people worried about climate change?

I honestly dont know, but can you say political polarization?

Canadians and the Trudeau government would be unwise to dismiss Poilievre populism as kooky or UnCanadian.

With an election unlikely for the next few years, Poilievre will now have time to widen his populist offensive. He will have to walk a fine line between growing his appeal and containing his movement from toxic forces that exist within.

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GAIL LETHBRIDGE: No one should underestimate appeal of Poilievre populism - SaltWire Halifax powered by The Chronicle Herald

The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity

Author: Michael Tomasky

Publisher: Doubleday

Price: $28

Pages: 304

For those who see the Democratic Party in turmoil, poised to lose its razor-thin congressional majority in November, and then the White House in 2024, Michael Tomasky has a message: Calm down.

The party is back in good hands, moving cautiously to the left, where Tomasky, the liberal editor of The New Republic, insists it belongs. Democrats are most successful, he believes, when they focus on the economy and the ways in which big government can make the lives of ordinary Americans fairer and more secure. Its been a winning formula since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, he writes in The Middle Out, an engaging, briskly paced mix of partisanship and history, and it has found a new champion in a president not previously known for his economic populism.

The story begins with FDR, the godfather of modern liberalism, whose New Deal programmes provided a vital safety net for the hungry and unemployed without actually ending the Great Depression. World War II did that by creating millions of high-paying but potentially short-term jobs in the defence industries. Could full employment be sustained in peacetime, or would the nation sink into another depression?

The coming decades would turn out to be the most prosperous in American history. Wages shot up, unemployment remained low, the middle class exploded in size. And the key reason, says Tomasky, was the governments unprecedented involvement in the economy the Keynesian approach begun by Roosevelt and continued by future administrations, Democrat and Republican, until Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.

It was a heady but imperfect time. Racial and gender discrimination kept large swaths of the population from sharing equally in the bounty, while the curse of McCarthyism was on full display. Yet for all its faults, notes Tomasky, the nation enjoyed a shared prosperity, compared with today. People may not have known much about John Maynard Keynes, but they did learn to trust the governments expanded role in their lives.

Tomasky pays particular attention to income inequality. Indeed, the books title refers to a middle out philosophy in which the government creates a more democratic economy, not a nanny state, by focusing on ways to enlarge the middle and working classes at the expense of the wealthy.

When did the forces of free market capitalism re-emerge? In Tomaskys telling, the first seeds were planted with the publication of Milton Friedmans Capitalism and Freedom in 1962, which argued that government had no business doing most of what it did be it running national parks or providing Social Security reached a much wider audience.

The tipping point came in the 1970s, when Friedmans calls for privatisation, tax cuts and deregulation gained political traction. Tomasky superbly reconstructs the ideas and personalities behind this neoliberal advance.

But he doesnt connect them to the devastating events that caused Americans to lose faith in the governments handling of the economy. There is barely a word about the OPEC oil embargo, the Iranian boycott or the appearance of stagflation. Even Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose draconian policies are credited with reversing the downward economic spiral, goes unmentioned.

While Republicans wear the dark hats in The Middle Out, Democrats to the right of Senator Elizabeth Warren fare poorly as well. He was, in fact, the most economically successful president of the last 60 years, Tomasky writes of Bill Clinton. Job creation surged, as did median family income. Inflation held steady and the massive deficit run up by Ronald Reagan disappeared. Indeed, Clinton handed George W. Bush the rarest of gifts: a $236 billion surplus.

So, whats not to like? Tomasky faults Clintons most touted policies welfare reform, financial deregulation, a balanced budget for widening the gap between the rich and everybody else. The consensus among the liberal economists and policymakers quoted in The Middle Out is that both Clinton and Barack Obama grew too close to their Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors, and that both feared the political fallout from being labelled big spenders.

Enter Joe Biden, whose 36-year Senate career had been spent in the centre lane of Democratic politics. Running for president in 2020, however, he moved decisively to the left. The Democratic Party apparatus had become more liberal in recent years, fuelled by activists and think tank intellectuals sympathetic to solving big problems through Keynesian means.

That included the pandemic that had upended the global economy. Only the federal government had the resources to confront it. Even the Trump administration had opened the coffers for vaccine development, while reluctantly supporting the $2.2 trillion CARES Act to keep the economy afloat. For Biden and his advisers, however, the pandemic exposed the inequities that Keynesian methods had mitigated in the past.

Biden responded with a $1.9 trillion rescue plan that included enormous outlays for schools, public safety, health care and infrastructure all geared to a future beyond the pandemic. Dramatic social change requires a catalyst, and in this case a deadly virus provided it.

Whether this will be enough to keep Democrats in control of Congress and the White House remains to be seen. Tomasky says the liberal vision for America will be a winner if Democrats can make the case that they are far better stewards of the economy by every major measure. It will be a tough sell, given current inflation and supply chain problems, but its an argument that has worked selectively in the past. On balance, history appears to be on Tomaskys side.

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The power of populism - Business Standard

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His populism is at times messy but is entirely necessary

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Pierre Poilievre became the new leader of the Conservative party on Saturday, sweeping the contest with 68 per cent of the vote. Poilievres victory is good for Canada his disruptive politics, while not always pretty, are sorely needed in a country where the seldom-challenged status quo has left too many Canadians behind.

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Voters are frustrated. Skyrocketing prices have locked young and new Canadians out of the housing market, trapping them in a quasi-feudal system where generational wealth is a prerequisite for homeownership.

The NP Comment newsletter from columnist Colby Cosh and NP Comment editors tackles the important topics with boldness, verve and wit. Get NP Platformed delivered to your inbox weekdays by 4 p.m. ET.

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Ballooning inflation, coupled with longer-term increases in the cost of living, is eroding the buying power of average Canadians with salary-based incomes, while the wealthy feast upon bloating investments and dividends. The current government has, perplexingly, decided that firehosing more money into the economy will solve this problem.

Immigrant professionals doctors, engineers and the like continue to work in jobs beneath their skill levels (i.e. driving Ubers), because, despite decades of promises, expedited pathways havent been built to recognize their foreign credentials.

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When those who have been left behind, culturally or economically, express their desperate anger, they are smeared and condescended to by well-to-do technocrats.

Given the situation, is it any wonder that Canada has become more open to populism lately?

Someone needs to address these inequalities and give voice to Canadians seething frustration which is what Poilievre has done. In the process, he is forging an unusual coalition of voters that testifies to the diverse appeal of his politics.

Is it any wonder Canada has become more populist lately?

For example, over the past year, an astonishing number of young Canadians have been turning towards the Conservative party. Younger Canadians, millennials in particular, have been crushed beneath decades of hostile policy-making that has ignored, if not actively opposed, their interests. And so, for the first time since the 1980s, a plurality (but not majority) of voters under 30 are prepared to back the populist-minded Tories.

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Some believe that populism is inherently harmful. Thats a reasonable concern, because on many occasions populism has been a destructive force. But populism demonstrably has the potential to be constructive (on both the left and right) Roosevelt and Reagan are key examples.

The best forms of populism tackle economic injustice rather than stoking racial resentment. Thats why it matters that Poilievres populism has been noticeably attentive to how elitism harms Canadians of all colours and creeds injustice over homeownership, for example, has consistently been framed as an issue that harms immigrants.

To put it another way: while European right-wing populism scorns ethnic immigration (see France), Poilievres populism wants to ensure that immigrants can work in their chosen professions and buy homes.

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Economic-minded populism has been historically championed by the left, but, in Canada, progressive politicians have ceded that ground, having preoccupied themselves with placating white-collar college graduates and waging cultural warfare at the expense of kitchen-table issues.

Poilievre merely swooped in and filled this gap. Its a prudent strategy that already worked in Ontario, where Premier Doug Fords Progressive Conservative government fostered an unexpected alliance with private-sector unions.

However, even if Poilievres populism isnt xenophobic, it still has its faults. Not all attacks against perceived elitism are equally legitimate, and Poilievres crusade against the Bank of Canada and Supreme Court risk undermining their overall legitimacy. Challenging the status quo doesnt justify weakening our governments core institutions.

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Poilievres tone has also often been too belligerent and divisive. This certainly plays well with his base and is a huge part of his appeal, but, should Poilievre hope to become prime minister, he will need to learn how to be more diplomatic so that he can credibly represent all Canadians, not just his main supporters.

To his credit, Poilievres overwhelming victory in the Conservative race shows that concerns about divisiveness may be overblown. His political opponents warned that he would tear the Conservative party apart, but the results from Saturdays election suggest that, on the contrary, he is a great unifier in all regions of the country, voters swarmed to him.

But it is one thing to unify your party and another to unify the entire country.

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It is one thing to unify your party and another to unify the entire country

Poilievres post-election victory speech was promising, as it demonstrated a more diplomatic approach to governance. Rather than gloat or berate, Poilievre thanked his defeated opponents for their contributions to Canadian politics. This included kind words for Jean Charest, with whom Poilievre had been viciously feuding for months.

In a similar spirit, Poilievres speech he avoided some of his more controversial rhetoric and instead focussed on economic issues, such as building housing, tackling affordability, unleashing the energy economy and getting taxes under control.

Should Poilievre maintain this more diplomatic approach, while also maintaining the integrity of his populist message, his chances of winning a general election are high.

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Whether he becomes prime minister or not, Poilievre has already, at the very least, forced his opponents to reconsider their complacency on key issues.

The Liberals, for example, may be forced to finally take housing seriously and invest in reforms that substantially boost housing supply. The NDP might finally re-evaluate its relationship with the working class and realize that blue-collar Canadians care about financial stability much more than language policing and TikTok politics.

Poilievres populism has its risks, but they are much less dramatic than his critics believe. Canada cannot afford to maintain a sclerotic status quo that denies so many people the opportunity to thrive. If Poilievre can shake things up, then great.

National Post

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Adam Zivo: The timing was right for Pierre Poilievre's populism - National Post