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Historian: Trump's style of governance classifies as "sadopopulism".
https://www.salon.com/2018/05/09/timothy-snyder-on-trumps-campaign-against-democracy-he-is-deliberately-hurting-white-people/“Sadopopulism” is the notion that you’re doing half of populism. You promise people things, but then when you get power you have no intention of even trying to implement any policy on behalf of the people. Instead, you deliberately make the suffering worse for your critical constituency. The people who got Trump into office, for example, are traditional Republican voters plus people in counties who are doing badly in terms of health care and other measures, and who need help.
Under Trump, of course, things will just get worse in terms of both the opioid addictions and in terms of wealth inequality. But that’s OK, because the logic of sadopopulism is that pain is a resource. Sadopopulist leaders like Trump use that pain to create a story about who’s actually at fault. The way politics works in that model is that government doesn’t solve your problems, it blames your problems on other people — and it creates the cycle that goes around over and over and over again. I started talking about sadopopulism because I got tired of people talking about populism.
It just seems like “populism” doesn’t capture a specific American racial and oligarchic situation where people like Trump come to power, promising that the government is going to do something and then, in power, deliberately do nothing positive.
Not so long ago the currency of government was achievement. Government had to do something. Now, the currency of government is discourse. Government has to make you feel worse about people around you. That’s an achievement.
...
One of the truths that is rarely stated in American public discourse is that the welfare state exists to sustain a more or less politically reasonable middle class. You break the welfare state in this country in order to make the white people crazy. You don’t do it to punish the black people. That’s what you say you’re doing — and maybe you take a pleasure in doing that. But ultimately what you’re doing when you break the welfare state in this country is that you’re hurting white people. Trump and his allies can then direct that vulnerability for political ends.
Under Trump, of course, things will just get worse in terms of both the opioid addictions and in terms of wealth inequality. But that’s OK, because the logic of sadopopulism is that pain is a resource. Sadopopulist leaders like Trump use that pain to create a story about who’s actually at fault. The way politics works in that model is that government doesn’t solve your problems, it blames your problems on other people — and it creates the cycle that goes around over and over and over again. I started talking about sadopopulism because I got tired of people talking about populism.
It just seems like “populism” doesn’t capture a specific American racial and oligarchic situation where people like Trump come to power, promising that the government is going to do something and then, in power, deliberately do nothing positive.
Not so long ago the currency of government was achievement. Government had to do something. Now, the currency of government is discourse. Government has to make you feel worse about people around you. That’s an achievement.
...
One of the truths that is rarely stated in American public discourse is that the welfare state exists to sustain a more or less politically reasonable middle class. You break the welfare state in this country in order to make the white people crazy. You don’t do it to punish the black people. That’s what you say you’re doing — and maybe you take a pleasure in doing that. But ultimately what you’re doing when you break the welfare state in this country is that you’re hurting white people. Trump and his allies can then direct that vulnerability for political ends.
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I was listening to NPR on my way to work this morning and they were interviewing someone from the CIA regarding the appointment of Gina Haspel.
