One interesting thing that I have noticed recently is that metropolitan intellectuals who live on Bluesky seem to think that the threat from within is democrats feeling so defeated by the administration that they just give up. But as someone who lives in a smaller rural/suburban community in a purple state, what I see is that the people around me are taking way too much comfort in the fact that there will be elections in 2026 and 2028 despite reasons to at least have some doubts. I guess where you stand depends on where you live.
Your view about the nature of populists sounds right. But it does not discredit in any way the judgement that MAGA is acting as if their power is eternal because they will never concede elections. You have offered one broad reason why MAGA will likely never concede elections which undoubtedly exists along side other motivations, for instance simple desire for tribal power.
They could also be thinking “we can destroy enough of the government in two years that it will be impossible to reverse, so we’ll win even if we lose the election.”
I agree with the idea and have long thought that populism is an empty vessel. One can have left wing populism, right wing populism, even centrist populism. But don’t forget the late 19th century Populist Party in the US had very specific ideas, coinage of silver, direct election of US senators, establishing a postal savings bank, government ownership of railroads. True they never won power, nationally or even came that close so what they would have done in power was never confronted. Also onetime populists like Tom Watson and Ben Tillman had no problem gravitating to reactionary racism after populism collapse. But even so, they supported populism for whites only. Another 19th century populism Narodny Volya in Russia sought to build support for a populist opposition to the monarchy but were destroy by the wave of repression following the assassination of Czar Alexander?around 1881, I believe. But you are right, there is no necessary populist program which is why Hofstadter argued that populism is defined by the people vs the elites, which in the US was money power. An ideology fit for the growing concentration of wealth that occurred during the Gilded Age.
Con Don Trump works a bigoted and fraudulent right-wing populism, whereas progressive populism has humane principles.
Then there is the brutal reality of establishment liberalism which is similar to Con Don Trump's right-wing populism in that it is plutocratic. The difference is that the Con Dems are somewhat less bigoted and somewhat more equitable than Con Don Trump - though still wildly and ruthlessly inequitable and often racist - as evidenced by lack of universal health care, the prison system, migrant policies, genocide, police state support, their own plutarchy, and much, much more. Thus both Con Don Trump and the Con Dems are extremely unprincipled and extremely unpopular - except for those who can be deluded.
One difference between Con Don and the Con Dems is that establishment liberalism pretends to be for everyone despite being in reality deeply inequitable too, and in many ways racist also. The Con Dems like Con Don Trump and the Republicans therefore govern as if they too do not care about the broad populace, because they don't, not at the expense of their plutocratic base.
Which is why the Con Dems, like Con Don Trump, lose power, until they can re-effect their own version of the plutocratic Con again.
That's Con Don and the Con Dems in a nutshell - as opposed to progressive populism, the principled left, which is the only real alternative to the two ruling and predatory flavors of the American police state plutocracy.
The corrosiveness of Fascism (the US does not have GOP populism) demands widening culpability to inoculate its tools not only to lawbreaking, but against conventions of relinquishing power. The Trump regime commits crimes to impose its agenda precisely to implicate its backers & enforcers so that the small fear accountability as much as the leaders. They will never transfer power unless evicted, and convicted.
" [When,] in that drive to power, they will commit so many high crimes and unutterable treasons, to add to those already committed, that simple self-preservation demands they can never allow a transfer of power to anyone who might hold them accountable. "
Respectfully, I can’t understand how you seem to want to reduce all these remarks and actions on behalf of the Trump regime to some academic consideration of the supposedly inevitable consequences of “populism.”
First off, you say nothing here that reckons with the very real ways in which the regime is using regulatory capture, judicial capture and blatant illegality (i.e. Musk offering a lottery for people to vote conservative) to warp the political system in a way that will entrench their power permanently. They’re not just SAYING “we will never be defeated.” They are actively taking steps to ensure their future defeat through legitimate political gamesmanship is rendered impossible (e.g. the SAVE act, among many other things).
Perhaps more importantly, your value-neutral assessment of populism seems way off to me. Teddy Roosevelt was a populist, but people actually really DID want the trusts broken up. His movement really DID represent the best interests of average people. Trump and his ilk are just good liars, which is to say: Trump’s “populism” is “populism” in about the same way a schitzophrenic hallucination of fire is a real fire. You seem to psychologize populism as some sort of rational defect, and then reduce everything we’re seeing to an inevitable consequence of that rational deficiency; seems like a dangerously optimistic reduction of the whole affair, to me.
Last point- your third footnote seems patently false. Elon is clearly a “Trumpist oligarch,” and the fact that he’s the world’s richest man by a considerable margin makes a difference. I would think of Thiel and Yarvin count too.
I think you're right about MAGA. But MAGA alone didn't win the election. Why did non-MAGAs vote for Trump? I believe it is because they saw another Trump presidency as a way to get a little more than they're entitled to have. And I suspect that those folks know that Trump won't be forever, but they also know that even a few more years of corruption benefits them.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) the trinity of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
Well also, when Trump said you only have to vote once, after that you won’t have to vote ever again, he may have been referring to himself. He is term limited and has already say he wouldn’t run in 2028 (he’ll be 82). So after 2024 there will be no more opportunities to vote for Trump and so no reason for Trump supporters to vote at all.
One interesting thing that I have noticed recently is that metropolitan intellectuals who live on Bluesky seem to think that the threat from within is democrats feeling so defeated by the administration that they just give up. But as someone who lives in a smaller rural/suburban community in a purple state, what I see is that the people around me are taking way too much comfort in the fact that there will be elections in 2026 and 2028 despite reasons to at least have some doubts. I guess where you stand depends on where you live.
Your view about the nature of populists sounds right. But it does not discredit in any way the judgement that MAGA is acting as if their power is eternal because they will never concede elections. You have offered one broad reason why MAGA will likely never concede elections which undoubtedly exists along side other motivations, for instance simple desire for tribal power.
They could also be thinking “we can destroy enough of the government in two years that it will be impossible to reverse, so we’ll win even if we lose the election.”
I agree with the idea and have long thought that populism is an empty vessel. One can have left wing populism, right wing populism, even centrist populism. But don’t forget the late 19th century Populist Party in the US had very specific ideas, coinage of silver, direct election of US senators, establishing a postal savings bank, government ownership of railroads. True they never won power, nationally or even came that close so what they would have done in power was never confronted. Also onetime populists like Tom Watson and Ben Tillman had no problem gravitating to reactionary racism after populism collapse. But even so, they supported populism for whites only. Another 19th century populism Narodny Volya in Russia sought to build support for a populist opposition to the monarchy but were destroy by the wave of repression following the assassination of Czar Alexander?around 1881, I believe. But you are right, there is no necessary populist program which is why Hofstadter argued that populism is defined by the people vs the elites, which in the US was money power. An ideology fit for the growing concentration of wealth that occurred during the Gilded Age.
Con Don Trump works a bigoted and fraudulent right-wing populism, whereas progressive populism has humane principles.
Then there is the brutal reality of establishment liberalism which is similar to Con Don Trump's right-wing populism in that it is plutocratic. The difference is that the Con Dems are somewhat less bigoted and somewhat more equitable than Con Don Trump - though still wildly and ruthlessly inequitable and often racist - as evidenced by lack of universal health care, the prison system, migrant policies, genocide, police state support, their own plutarchy, and much, much more. Thus both Con Don Trump and the Con Dems are extremely unprincipled and extremely unpopular - except for those who can be deluded.
One difference between Con Don and the Con Dems is that establishment liberalism pretends to be for everyone despite being in reality deeply inequitable too, and in many ways racist also. The Con Dems like Con Don Trump and the Republicans therefore govern as if they too do not care about the broad populace, because they don't, not at the expense of their plutocratic base.
Which is why the Con Dems, like Con Don Trump, lose power, until they can re-effect their own version of the plutocratic Con again.
That's Con Don and the Con Dems in a nutshell - as opposed to progressive populism, the principled left, which is the only real alternative to the two ruling and predatory flavors of the American police state plutocracy.
Well, I think we all know deep down what it is coming down to. It’s not going to be pretty. And God knows we are all sick of this shit.
The corrosiveness of Fascism (the US does not have GOP populism) demands widening culpability to inoculate its tools not only to lawbreaking, but against conventions of relinquishing power. The Trump regime commits crimes to impose its agenda precisely to implicate its backers & enforcers so that the small fear accountability as much as the leaders. They will never transfer power unless evicted, and convicted.
" [When,] in that drive to power, they will commit so many high crimes and unutterable treasons, to add to those already committed, that simple self-preservation demands they can never allow a transfer of power to anyone who might hold them accountable. "
Respectfully, I can’t understand how you seem to want to reduce all these remarks and actions on behalf of the Trump regime to some academic consideration of the supposedly inevitable consequences of “populism.”
First off, you say nothing here that reckons with the very real ways in which the regime is using regulatory capture, judicial capture and blatant illegality (i.e. Musk offering a lottery for people to vote conservative) to warp the political system in a way that will entrench their power permanently. They’re not just SAYING “we will never be defeated.” They are actively taking steps to ensure their future defeat through legitimate political gamesmanship is rendered impossible (e.g. the SAVE act, among many other things).
Perhaps more importantly, your value-neutral assessment of populism seems way off to me. Teddy Roosevelt was a populist, but people actually really DID want the trusts broken up. His movement really DID represent the best interests of average people. Trump and his ilk are just good liars, which is to say: Trump’s “populism” is “populism” in about the same way a schitzophrenic hallucination of fire is a real fire. You seem to psychologize populism as some sort of rational defect, and then reduce everything we’re seeing to an inevitable consequence of that rational deficiency; seems like a dangerously optimistic reduction of the whole affair, to me.
Last point- your third footnote seems patently false. Elon is clearly a “Trumpist oligarch,” and the fact that he’s the world’s richest man by a considerable margin makes a difference. I would think of Thiel and Yarvin count too.
I think you're right about MAGA. But MAGA alone didn't win the election. Why did non-MAGAs vote for Trump? I believe it is because they saw another Trump presidency as a way to get a little more than they're entitled to have. And I suspect that those folks know that Trump won't be forever, but they also know that even a few more years of corruption benefits them.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) the trinity of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
Unfortunately, the father, son and unholy ghost (Trump, Vance and Musk) of the increasingly incompetent party have no plans to take the last train to the coast. You would think their self imposed rapid decline in popularity would be a boon to that other party’s prospects, but no. No matter how low the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.
Their historic Democratic counterparts, FDR, HST and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although two were upper class they all understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.
A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.
Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow nuclear power.
Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines.
Dump vaccine mandates.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.
Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.
Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.
Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.
Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.
Keep support for unions and fair wages
Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.
Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.
Well also, when Trump said you only have to vote once, after that you won’t have to vote ever again, he may have been referring to himself. He is term limited and has already say he wouldn’t run in 2028 (he’ll be 82). So after 2024 there will be no more opportunities to vote for Trump and so no reason for Trump supporters to vote at all.