Populism vs Elitism

Last month, I re-read Loose Lips, a novel whose central character is going through the first year of CIA training. When I first read it, I was mostly sympathetic to the main character and to the CIA and their secrecy. In fact, I cringed when she divulged information to a trusted source (who probably she should not have trusted).

I re-read it though last month after hearing Tucker Carlson's credible report that the CIA had a hand in the assassination of JFK. On second reading, the opaqueness and secrecy made me feel queasy (not to mention feeling dismay at the way that the institution is portrayed as sometimes using its assets with obvious disregard for their well-being).

What prompted me to re-read the novel was a brief Twitter exchange I had with the author, Claire Berlinski, regarding the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccine. She did not share my skepticism of the vaccine (which is fine) but I was left thinking that her trust in the vaccine parallels her trust of elite institutions such as the so-called medical experts (and, I presume, the CIA, as well).

I suspect that she rejects Trump and the populist movement, as I did when Trump was running in 2016. But I was converted to the populist way of thinking after seeing how Trump as President strove to keep his promises, accomplishing things that recent past Presidents of both parties claimed to want but somehow never actually bothered to implement (e.g. moving US embassy to Jerusalem; brokering peace treaties between Israel and Arab countries; reining in excesses of the EPA; cutting regulation).

Yet Trump is despised or simply not respected by the elite and those loyal to them. He is considered crass and his simple use of language is often incorrectly seen as a sign of his stupidity. They do not credit him with purposely speaking that way, putting things bluntly and simply, in order to better communicate to his likely voters.

There's a reason that Trump puts things bluntly in simplified language. It's related to the reason he uses coarse language. It's also related to why the phrase "Fuck Joe Biden" and the bowdlerized "Let's Go Brandon" are popular. The people he wants to reach take the blunt and profane as a sign that he is not playing the nicey-nice game that the decorous elite insist on, giving him an air of authenticity among his supporters.

In the introduction to the book The New Class War, author Michael Lind posits that the pluralism of the postwar era (during which various groups shared power and negotiated with each other) has been replaced with a neoliberal managerial elite (neoliberalism calling for free markets and global trade; managers being corporate, academic and government bureaucrats). The managerial elite run things, intentionally or not, to the detriment of masses of disempowered people, spawning resentment among the majority.

And given recent revelations about how the Federal government has been surreptitiously suppressing free speech, censoring voices that diverged from their chosen narrative regardless of whether it was true, one begins to wonder whether the elite is intentionally disempowering the masses as the result of explicit disdain for those they seek to control.

Certainly, the way the FBI, DOJ and other agencies abused their power by making unconstitutional attacks on President Trump, starting in 2015 when he was merely a candidate for the office. None of it was justified. They knew as they were doing it it was unjustified. And after he became President, they had to work furiously to cover up their abuse. They have yet to fully come clean.

Trump in the US, and others in Europe, capitalize on this resentment of the elite manipulators. In order to communicate effectively with these millions of disaffected, less-educated voters, he speaks bluntly and avoids "politically correct" phrases (the very phrases that made the Clintons, Bush and Obama appeal to the managerial elite). By saying, "That's bullshit", he, in effect, demonstrates to the masses that he's not bullshitting them. He's not dressing up his thoughts.

By saying FJB, we're saying "Guys, we outnumber these bastards. Why are we letting them ruin our lives and run our country into the ground?"

We're saying that we don't buy into the charade anymore. A leader can't mouth a meaningless phrase like "compassionate conservative" and then foist uncompassionate results on the people. Or "Yes, we can" and then for 8 years tell us incessantly what we cannot do. Quoting Lind:

Populist demagogues have launched similar counterattacks on dominant neoliberal establishments in all three realms of social power. In the realm of the economy, populists favor national restrictions on trade and immigration to shield workers from competing with imports and immigrants. In the realm of politics, populists denounce neoliberal parties and factions as corrupt and elitist. And in the realm of culture, populists denounce elite-promulgated multiculturalism and globalism, while deliberately flouting the norms of the "politically correct" etiquette that marks membership in the university-educated managerial elite.

Lind goes on to predict that populists will almost certainly lose the battle with the establishment. "History suggests that populist movements are likely to fail when confronting well-entrenched ruling classes whose members enjoy near-monopolies of expertise, wealth, and cultural influence".

Sad, but probably true. It's a hill worth (metaphorically) dying on, though. And if this be insurrection, so be it.

No theory, no promises, no morality, no amount of good will, no religion will restrain power. . . . Only power restrains power.

-- James Burnham (1943)