It has been a bad week for populists. Boris Johnson out of Parliament. Donald Trump arraigned on espionage charges and Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi buried.
But it has also been a bad 21st century for the anti-populists. Trump elected and threatening to return. Brexit, Johnson and Truss in the UK. Viktor Orban in Hungary. Putin in Russia. Bolsonaro in Brazil. Modi in India….
Electorate after electorate has fallen victim to a string of self-serving narcissists prepared to exploit irrational fears, issue empty promises and bend, ignore or break the law in blatant pursuit of power and self-interest.
Silvio Bunga Bunga Berlusconi led the way. He started his working life as a cruise ship crooner before moving into property development and the media. His Mediaset television empire broke the Italian’s TV’s puritanical mode with topless models and secured 90 percent of the viewing audience.
In 1993 Berlusconi formed his own political party; persuaded 33 of his advertising executives to stand with him for parliament and then harnessed his media empire to his campaign. The result was first of Berlusconi’s four terms as Italy’s prime minister.
Scandal and corruption dogged Berlusconi throughout his political career. By his own account he made 2,500 court appearances in 106 trials. Not all of the mud stuck, but enough did for him to be convicted of tax fraud and banned from holding public office for ten years.
This should have been the end of Berlusconi. But he bounced back to join the Senate and become the acknowledged kingmaker of Italian politics. He was a junior member of the current government of Giorgia Meloni. He is a clear object lesson of the political establishment’s inability to hold down the bad boys of politics.
Victimhood is one of the major weapons of the populist. Trump says he is target number one of “The Deep State”. Boris Johnson blames “The Blob” for his problems. This amorphous political entity which can means anyone and everyone opposed to the populist has become the ultimate scapegoat for the evils of the world.
The heroes of the world of populism are not the lawmakers. They are those who are prepared to grab power to break the law and if the law opposes them they are the victims on behalf of all the “real people” who are daily exploited by “The Blob.”
Donald Trump has elevated victimhood to its political heights. He claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election because of the “Deep State.” His arraignment in Manhattan on tax fraud charges and his civil court defeat on sex abuse were the result of a “political witch hunt.”
But those legal battles are as nothing when compared to the charges levelled against him in Miami this week by the Department of Justice. It is difficult to imagine anything worse in the legal firmament then a former president of the United States being charged with breaches of the Espionage Act. And the squeals of Trumpian outrage mirrored the gravity of the situation.
In anything other than a looking glass world, Donald Trump’s legal problems and Munchausen politics would have spelled the end of his political career years ago. But his cloak of victimhood protects him. In the wake of his Miami court appearance his popularity among Republican voters moved up a percentage point.
The same cannot be said of Boris Johnson who has moved from buffoon Mayor of London, to leader of the successful Brexit campaign, to hopeless foreign secretary, to right-wing Tory Party leader, to a major election victory in 2019 and then the victim of his own covid-spun web of lies, ejection from 10 Downing Street, and, finally, a disgraced exit from Parliament.
Boris Johnson has been described as a junior Trump who attempted to emulate his American idol on the British stage. But Britain is not America and in that fact lies some hope for the opponents of populism.
Britain is a parliamentary democracy. Constitutionally, the voters do not elect a prime minister. They elect a person in their constituency to represent them. That person belongs to a political party. The leader of the political party with the support of the most members of the House of Commons becomes prime minister. The party leader is not directly elected by the voters but by his fellow party MPs and the members of his political party.
This means that the British parliament has much more direct power than the US Congress. It also means that if you intentionally lie to parliament – as did Boris Johnson you pay the price of ejection from the Palace of Westminster.
The former British PM is shouting to all and sundry that he is a victim of a “kangaroo court”. But only a handful are listening. Unlike Donald Trump, Boris Johnson’s popular base is disappearing down the pan and providing a ray of hope for those opposed to the populists.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain". To subscribe to his email alerts on world affairs click here.
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6 Comments
Trouble is Tom, those that vote for ‘Populist Parties’ have hardly been living it up under globalization ..
Empty promises – no doubt …But reiterating the status quo ain’t exactly great either …
“But it has also been a bad 21st century for the anti-populists.”
Not quite as bad as the 20th century!
One lesson we can draw from history is that when economic conditions are poor there tends to be a swing towards the ‘populist’ right. There was no particular reason why economic conditions should have been bad in the 20s and 30s which led to the rise of Mussolini, then again in the 30s which led to the rise of Hitler and Franco.
Both Germany and Italy had workers who wanted to work and there wasn’t any particular shortage of raw materials. What else was needed? Vesuvius hadn’t erupted in Italy which could have caused some real problems. So why did we have the economic depression which led to fascism?
If you don’t like what you call ‘populism’, don’t allow the economic conditions to exist which encourages its growth.
Incidentally I’m not that sure about the word “populism”. It has connotations of elitism. We know better than the hoi polloi. Like it or not, the winner of any democratic election has to be sufficiently popular to attract enough votes.
Yes change is needed.The aim should be to redirect globalization to the benefit of ‘the little man’. (or get rid of it).
If one argues that populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups,” then isn’t it better to punch up than the punching down of austerity?
Bad political policies, bad political thinking can come from all places on the political spectrum. But yes, it’s been a bad year for populist politicians.
The troubling thing though is that tame response to climate emergency by several countries around the world is going to ensure there are fewer natural resources, fewer places where humans can live safely and desperation will lead us back to populism. It’s already on the horizon and Starmer (as predicted next PM) chasing after the Tory vote is setting up this swing.
The standard definition of populism is as George Thomas says: “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups,” And, if that is the case, it must be a good thing in a democratic system. The problem, I believe, is that populism has taken on a newer, darker meaning. Yes, it is an attempt to appeal to ordinary people, but it focuses on their fears rather than their aspirations. Furthermore, it exagerrates those fears. It may even throw in a few conspiracy theories and scapegoats for good measure.
Although populism might well target people who feel “disregarded by established elite groups” this is more symptomatic of populism than a definition. In fact populism is very often practised by “established elite groups” in order to maintain their privileges.
Populism is surely offering popular remedies irrespective of their efficacy, of a rationale and of (rather more complex) reality simply because they are popular or can at least temporarily be made popular. All political parties are likely to indulge in populism to some extent, however this tactic predominates with populist parties