Trump's populism has nothing to do with helping the people who voted for him - By E.J. Dionne Jr.
By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer April 30 at 8:10 PM
If words could bring legal actions, “populism” would sue for aggravated abuse. And President Trump would be a co-defendant.
In a season of dispiriting tidings, few habits have been more infuriating than the ease with which political commentators of all stripes have applied the P-word to Trump. Trump has courted this with old-fashioned union-hall rhetoric about his devotion to “hard-working men and women.” Trump claimed during his campaign that he would curb tax breaks for the wealthy, and his chief of staff gamely insisted on Sunday that the carried-interest loophole for hedge-fund managers was still “on the table.” We’ll see. Trump also said he’d rip up trade treaties and be vigilant against the flight of jobs to China — pronouncing its name in a menacing way.
But as is the case with everything involving Trump, his words had no connection to thought. They were all about the effect they would have. Trump had warned us about this in bestsellers where he admitted that he uses words primarily to get the deal he wants.
This hasn’t stopped the cruel mistreatment of the concept of populism, invoked again and again to turn Trump into a latter-day William Jennings Bryan (a deeply religious and, on most things, very progressive figure who would likely be appalled by Trump) or Pitchfork Ben Tillman. That Trump spends almost all of his time with very wealthy people and only appears truly happy when he’s at one of his resorts never seems to lower his populist score. The defense is to ask: Why can’t a rich guy speak for the people?
Well, yes, Franklin D. Roosevelt was called a traitor to his class. But Trump is nothing of the sort. Just take a look at the net worth of those staffing his administration. We now know that what he said during the campaign to win blue-collar votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin was disconnected from any intentions he had — or, alternatively, that he never pondered the meaning of his words until he got elected.
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