Comments by "Cinderball" (@cinderball1135) on "The rise of modern populism - Takis S. Pappas" video.

  1. I think the real underlying message of Populism is, "You're either with us or against us. Fall in line, or get run over." If we can't say that at the outset, any subsequent explanation is going to fall short. Populism is not just the idea that you want to enforce the "will of the people" (whatever we decide to believe that is) - but it's also achieving it by "any means necessary", whether lawful or not. Populism is about opposing the rule of law and effecting the removal of any potential obstacles to the leadership of the country. This is the common thread that runs through all types of populism, whether that's a Latin American-style socialist regime, or an Eastern European dictator, or a sub-Sahara African generalissimo, or a Pacific island junta. Fascism is itself a strand of populism, but I think the talk struggled to articulate the relationship between the two movements. (I think the easiest way to explain it is that Fascism is one branch on the tree of Populist thinking. Fascism is the type that makes more aggressive use of the military, and which amalgamates the power of the executive with the military branch.) But I think any video which tries to explain these topics too generally or broadly is going to fail to articulate exactly what the problems are with these movements. I really want to underscore this - Populism is dangerous. It's appealing, but it's a poisoned chalice. It feels great to free yourself of the need to show empathy for marginalised groups - to feel like you are somehow the real victim. You then get the head-rush of tearing down big-named people that you've never quite liked, but you can't prove did anything wrong. But what you fail to comprehend in that moment, is that the institutions and people you've destroyed along the way were the ones protecting you from the leadership you empowered. Sooner or later, you too will be taken down because in the final analysis, everyone is part of some minority, whether that's by age, race, culture or gender.
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  2. I think populism isn't so much about the message as the method - it's about attacking the rule of law, and saying "if you're not with us, we're gonna run you down".
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  3.  @markcangila1613  Almost every autocratic regime on Earth, including China, North Korea and Singapore, has "elections". Merely holding votes does not make a society democratic.
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  4.  @SoulControlla99  No. Authoritarianism doesn't even have to pretend to be licensed by the people. It doesn't claim its authority from "the will of the people" - it claims its authority from the ability to force the issue.
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  5. Yeah, as someone who studied a fair bit of government and politics, this explanation doesn't do enough to distinguish democratic values from populist ones. The key difference is that liberal democracy is built on a structure of interlocking systems, which work to moderate the national conversation and avoid drastic or violent swings. Populists seek to smash those systems and open the floodgates for mob rule or autocracy. The idea is buried in the video, but the graphics (while beautiful) do nothing to underline that message, and the essay itself meanders around without nailing the concept to the door. I think the problem is that this is a difficult subject to discuss without accepting the likelihood that you will upset populist voters. Populists take the inherent tribalism of politics and double down on it. It's difficult to take an impartial, neutral stance on a philosophy whose fundamental precept is "You're either with us or against us."
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  6.  Death is our worst Enemy  I'm afraid I just don't agree with the majority of your post. This is YOUR definition, not the commonly-used and generally-accepted one. Fascism is rule by force and the weaponisation of institutions to punish opposition voices. This isn't my definition here - this is what I've read and what I see most frequently used.
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  7.  Vasilijan Nikolovski  Bernie may not be an intentional populist, but arguably his following is more inclined in that direction. I'm not saying they're bad people, but the hardcore "Bernie Bro" crowd do harbour a special hatred for the democratic process that they're working with. Granted, that's understandable, but I think this is part of the difficulty in defining populism. It is possible to inspire populist voters even if you are not yourself a populist.
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  8.  Vasilijan Nikolovski  I know how antidemocratic the US system is. I'm talking about the kind of Bernie supporters who'd prefer to vote for Trump or nobody at all, rather than Biden. There are some, and there are also people who always claim the Primaries were rigged against them, no matter how decisive the margin of defeat. I'm not saying they're bad people, but unarguably, there are some populists in amongst Bernie's voting base.
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  9.  Vasilijan Nikolovski  If so, what other forms of populism did I omit from my post? :)
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  10.  @secrectpirate3096  The message of what I said is that we should be sure to support other minorities, so that they're there to support us in turn. <3
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  11.  @leonidasvazouras1796  I think you raise a fair point - to my mind, tribalism is the practice, but populism is the theory. Tribalism isn't something anybody consciously subscribes to, and it can only really be measured impartially from a distance by a third party. Nobody ever says "I'm a tribalist", after all. I would say populism is a way of putting that same feeling into more legitimate-sounding terms, dressing it up to sound like a real philosophy, when it's just chest-thumping.
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