I wouldn’t be the first to say that populism is a very complex thing. Just because the rules the game are rigged, doesn’t mean those deprived of a fair chance will agree about who is to blame.
Sometimes things get truly confusing when both seething radical conservatives and vocal leftist activists agree that something is rotten before marching off in very different directions to register their frustration at the polls.
We get it, and apparently Bernie Sanders gets it.
In an interview for “Face the Nation,” as reported at Politico, Sen. Sanders said he “believes he can win over supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, explaining that Trump has been successful at channeling working-class anger.” He added that ‘many of Trump’s supporters are ‘working-class people’ who have ‘legitimate’ angers and fears because of decreasing wages and the rising cost of college tuition, among other reasons.”
“What Trump has done with some success is taken that anger, taken those fears, which are legitimate, and converted them into anger against Mexicans, anger against Muslims,” Sanders said.
He said he would instead “work to channel that same anger into support for proposals such as raising the minimum wage — as opposed to ‘dividing us up and having us hate Mexicans or Muslims,” adding that “We need policies that bring us together, that take on the greed of Wall Street, the greed of corporate America.”
The $64,000 dollar question in politics, or at least one of them, is why people who are continually screwed over can be so easily convinced that it is the least privileged and powerful rather than the wealthiest and most powerful who are primarily responsible for rigging the system to the detriment of those in the relative middle.
A very wise professor once said to me that so many of the less well-off don’t hate the rich. They want to be the rich (which helps explain the rise of Mr. Trump). And I would add that while they want the rules of the game to provide a fairer chance for everyone to become wealthy, they don’t want anything to happen that will make the existence of extreme wealth and power less likely.
Sen. Sanders is right. People who are frustrated by the rules of the game should be with him. Unfortunately, economic elites have always been very good at convincing people that the rigged rules that need to be changed have more to do with ensuring that the most marginalized don’t somehow jump the queue. Think entitlement reform, anti-immigration, anti-affirmative action, and the general Republican complaint that Democrats are all about giving people “free stuff.”
You will recall that in the 2008 presidential election, the term economic “redistribution” was thrown in then candidate Obama’s face, and to good effect. This continues to be a challenge for a social democrat like Bernie Sanders. To put a fine point on it: For many Americans, fairness primarily means equal opportunity to be on top, and socialism (or however it is named) means levelling (think Robinhood), which they view as theft, not fairness.
There may well be a family resemblance between right-wing and left-wing populism, but I believe Sen. Sanders underestimates the challenge involved in appealing to many of those lining up behind billionaire Donald Trump.
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