
How to Deal with Populism - scribu
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/
======
alva
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.

~~~
de_Selby
I agree completely with your premise but I don't think you've identified the
real issue with immigration and brexit - the real underlying issue is
unemployment/underemployment, fallout from the financial crisis, near 0%
interest rates etc all combining to leave the poor with next to nothing.

Then they see immigrants arriving around the same time all this is happening
and assign the blame to them.

~~~
whenwillitstop
"the real underlying issue is unemployment/underemployment"

Why is a country that as high unemployment allowing high levels of
immigration? Being mad about that seems highly rational to me

~~~
beat
Why aren't citizens doing the jobs that immigrants do? That's a more rational
question.

Hiring immigrants isn't necessarily cheaper or easier. It's something
employers do because they can't fill those jobs otherwise.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
It's something employers do because they can't fill those jobs... [at the
slave wage offered]

That last part is rarely, if ever, mentioned when the "locals won't do these
jobs" nonsense gets trotted out.

~~~
beat
Or in the case of skilled labor, locals _can 't_ do those jobs.

Is the reason there are so many immigrants in IT because the job doesn't pay
well enough?

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
Perhaps it has something to do with the institutionalized abuse of the
immigration system in order to import workers who are paid less and are far
less likely to leave or demand higher wages.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU)

The idea that there is a STEM shortage is a bonafide myth. Remember that we're
talking about the same industry that perpetuated the largest wage fixing
cartel in human history.

It's amazing how many people around here just can't wrap their heads around
the fact that increased labor supply means lower wages. You only have to
listen to a handful of earnings calls with giant corporations talking with
glee about how elastic the labor markets are, and how that will be a huge boon
to their earnings.

------
canadian_voter
_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-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/opinion/the-wrong-way-to-take-on-
trump.html)

~~~
tptacek
It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over.

~~~
ctdonath
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.

------
ChrisLTD
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
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?

------
1_2__3
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
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.

------
javajosh
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
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.

------
santialbo
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?

~~~
tomp
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
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.

------
hxegon
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
Interesting. Maybe give some examples?

~~~
ctdonath
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.

~~~
flagratio
>"most people aren't [facilitating/celbrating LGBQT], and find differing
sexualities repulsive"

I believe most people in the US are accepting of homosexuality.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_attitudes_toward_homo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_attitudes_toward_homosexuality)

~~~
akvadrako
Also it's not just homosexuality[1]

> 46 percent of respondents said transgender people should be required to “use
> the public restrooms of the gender they were born into.”

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/half-
of...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/half-of-americans-
dont-think-transgender-people-should-be-able-to-pick-their-bathroom/501947/)

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

~~~
matthewbauer
But a populist wasn't elected in 2008 or 2012. "Economic stagnation" doesn't
explain Trump at all.

~~~
AstralStorm
This plus weak counterpart does though. Plus genius use of new media to sway
undecided people.

------
clueless123
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.)

------
kindarooster
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.

------
mirekrusin
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.

------
debt
Populism was dealt with by way of the electoral college.

~~~
schnable
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...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-
donald-trump.html)

The summary is that too much democracy leads to tyranny.

~~~
AstralStorm
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.

------
dmreedy
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.

------
ConfuciusSay02
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.

------
tonydiep
Great read.

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

~~~
sandworm101
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
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.

~~~
InitialLastName
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.

------
grokkable
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.

