The Six Principles of the New Populism (and the Establishment’s Nightmare)

[xchrom]

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/05/07-2



***SNIP

1. Cut the biggest Wall Street banks down to a size where they’re no longer too big to fail. Left populists have been advocating this since the Street’s bailout now they’re being joined by populists on the right. David Camp, House Ways and Means Committee chair, recently proposed an extra 3.5 percent quarterly tax on the assets of the biggest Wall Street banks (giving them an incentive to trim down). Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter wants to break up the big banks, as does conservative pundit George Will. “There is nothing conservative about bailing out Wall Street,” says Rand Paul.

2. Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act, separating investment from commercial banking and thereby preventing companies from gambling with their depositors’ money. Elizabeth Warren has introduced such legislation, and John McCain co-sponsored it. Tea Partiers are strongly supportive, and critical of establishment Republicans for not getting behind it. “It is disappointing that progressive collectivists are leading the effort for a return to a law that served well for decades,” writes the Tea Party Tribune. “Of course, the establishment political class would never admit that their financial donors and patrons must hinder their unbridled trading strategies.”

3. End corporate welfare – including subsidies to big oil, big agribusiness, big pharma, Wall Street, and the Ex-Im Bank. Populists on the left have long been urging this; right-wing populists are joining in. Republican David Camp’s proposed tax reforms would kill dozens of targeted tax breaks. Says Ted Cruz: “We need to eliminate corporate welfare and crony capitalism.”

4. Stop the National Security Agency from spying on Americans. Bernie Sanders and other populists on the left have led this charge but right-wing populists are close behind. House Republican Justin Amash’s amendment, that would have defunded NSA programs engaging in bulk-data collection, garnered 111 Democrats and 94 Republicans last year, highlighting the new populist divide in both parties. Rand Paul could be channeling Sanders when he warns: “Your rights, especially your right to privacy, is under assault… if you own a cellphone, you’re under surveillance.”

5. Scale back American interventions overseas. Populists on the left have long been uncomfortable with American forays overseas. Rand Paul is leaning in the same direction. Paul also tends toward conspiratorial views about American interventionism. Shortly before he took office he was caught on video claiming that former vice president Dick Cheney pushed the Iraq War because of his ties to Halliburton.

6. Oppose trade agreements crafted by big corporations. Two decades ago Democrats and Republicans enacted the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since then populists in both parties have mounted increasing opposition to such agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, drafted in secret by a handful of major corporations, is facing so strong a backlash from both Democrats and tea party Republicans that it’s nearly dead. “The Tea Party movement does not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” says Judson Philips, president of Tea Party Nation. “Special interest and big corporations are being given a seat at the table” while average Americans are excluded.

[pipoman]

1. True change, as opposed to lip service

Will come when the disenfranchised left and the disenfranchised right put their differences aside and concentrate on their similarities. The occupy movement is the manifestation of disenfranchised left, teabaggers are the manifestation of disenfranchised right. As this article points out, they have many similarities. The DNC and RNC are set on keeping them at odds. When/if they can come together they will be a force to be reckoned with. I have hoped for just such a mixed ticket in the upcoming presidential cycle.

[Supersedeas]

6. there may be more common ground there than many in present leadership seriously consider

[malthaussen]

2. Umm... overturn Citizens United?

That should be in there somewhere, shouldn't it?

-- Mal

[Demeter]

3. THE TIMES, THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Forgive me for being a skeptic

but Libertarians are not grounded in reality (unless Somalia is your role model for a well functioning society).

We on the left have long agreed with them on wars, legalizing MMJ and bailing out corporations. Its the other shit they want to enact that scares me. Will we have to give in on Medicare and SS and other social contract safety nets to appease closing foreign bases?

[starroute]

5. There is a potential conceptual space for non-corporate libertarians

I can't recall where I saw it -- but I ran across an indication recently that certain libertarians are coming around to the viewpoint that they should be focusing on small business and easy paths to entrepreneurship, and that corporate mergers and monopolies stand in the way of that.

If more of them would make that shift -- and stop taking money from Exxon or the Koch brothers -- we might have something worth talking about.


On edit: Here's a story from another current thread that supports the point:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-koch-brothers-new-foe-20140502-story.html#axzz30aYFijfe

Recently, I wrote about how the billionaire Koch boys, conservative state legislators and big utilities are leading the charge in several states to force private citizens with solar panels on their homes to pay extra fees to be connected to the power grid. At the time it looked as if they had won a big victory in Oklahoma, where the Republican-dominated Legislature passed a bill authorizing just such a fee scheme.

It turns out all the hard work of the anti-solar forces was immediately blunted by an executive order issued by Gov. Mary Fallin. The order directs the state energy commission to impose solar fees only as a last resort and to continue making expansion of solar power a priority.

The question is how a Republican governor in a deep red state can go against the Kochs, the most notable financial contributors to right wing causes in the country. The answer is that among the thousands of people who are installing solar panels on their roofs (at an estimated rate of one new system every four minutes) are a whole bunch of independent-minded folks with strong libertarian impulses. They may or may not belong to the tea party, but they want to be able to fend for themselves without big government or big business telling them what they can and can’t do. Koch brothers have run into an unexpected and potent adversary: tea party conservatives.

[WillyT]

7. HUMONGOUS K & R !!!

[Fairgo]

8. Building a nation starts with a platform

Good on ya! I hope this kind of constructive op gets popular. From thoughts to intent to action. Very refreshing.

[pampango]

9. Nice, Mr. Reich. Work with Paul/Cruz on these issues - sure. Vote for them over a Democrat - no.

It is wise to form tactical alliances on certain issues that we believe in regardless of who our temporary allies are. If you accept that Paul/Cruz are anti-corporate, then work with them on those types of issues.

However, they are also anti-government. I disagree with them on many more issues than I agree with them on, so I could never vote for them - even as the 'lesser of two evils'. If I have to compromise some of my values to vote for one of two candidates for president, it will not result in a vote for a right-wing populist - assuming I was even convinced that they are genuine in their 'populism'.

For right-wing populism, a variant of racism ... will do the trick ... But given the contemporary left’s complicated relationship to diversity (that pesky conundrum resulting from the dual demands of equality and representation), clear cut racism is no longer an option and neither is a classic xenophobia necessarily related to race, ethnicity or even religion.

But, broadly speaking, these fall into three distinct camps: the Strictly Populists, the Demagogues and the Democratic Activists. The first group is toxic and dangerous, the second is regrettable, the third is a necessary by-product of mass, democratic politics with which we can all live. It is a fundamentally different political animal.

The Strictly Populists include the movements and parties who fit all three initial criteria and whose xenophobia – however couched – is well in evidence. The Marine Le Pens, the Geert Wilders, the Tea Party activists ... All of them have refined their xenophobia by moving it away from outright racism. But their appeal is to those people who not only feel they have been cheated by a system that privileges elites of all sorts whilst abandoning them to a mediocre existence, but for whom solutions are to be found in an increasingly closed model of society that can privilege them, protect them, as the ordinary, true people - the keepers of the national flame. A closed model of society and politics is foundational to this strand of populism.

The demagogues are a kind of ‘populism lite’. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a prime example. Anti-elitist but erudite, frank but astute, his rhetoric is nevertheless neither simplistic nor does it come across as common sense. Indeed listening to Mélenchon is a lot like listening to Chomsky or the ghost of Durkheim. References to Bretton Woods, Huntington and Fukuyama abound, and the role of the United States is consistently highlighted as the engine of the current crisis. The anti-globalisation rhetoric sails very close to the wind of xenophobia, but manages not to fall into the trap.

The Democratic Activists: Here we find Occupy and the Indignados, but also the rhetoric of any talented politician or political activist in an era of mass democracy and media driven politics. Those whose explicit use of the concept of accountability (rhetorically and in practice) de facto creates an ‘air de famille’ with populism, but who don’t rely on exclusion or any form of xenophobia to drive the project: those whose vision might encompass enemies, but whose aspirations belong to an open society, mindful of diversity. ... The language of anti-corruption and democratic accountability differs substantially, in that it targets specific laws and specific members of the elite. It is not anti-elitist per se. And in all these points it differs markedly from a populist movement.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/catherine-fieschi/plague-on-both-your-populisms