Liberalism and populism
Feb. 26th, 2019 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteI call myself a liberal, in the old-fashioned sense. I also call myself a progressive, because I identify with a lot of progressive causes. And with that disclaimer out of the way:
IQ2 Debate: Blame Liberals For the Rise of Populism.
The blurb from the site lays out the ground rules they used for the debate:
"Have the left’s policies of high immigration and multiculturalism caused the disaffection which has given rise to populism? Or is it the right, with its tabloid scare stories about foreigners eroding national identity?"
... And the debate was hashed out mainly along those lines.
I'd like to propose a much more alarming theory:
The strain of liberalism that is obsessed with identity politics is populism. It is all about establishing an under-dog "common man" group and then declaring a powerful established group that is oppressing them (most often the white Christian American male). In the same way, the strain of liberalism that is obsessed with defining a group of rich oligarchs called the 1% and blaming them for the various economic woes of everyone else is also populism.
To put it bluntly, liberals have not just caused a rise in populism, they are part of the rise in populism.
The question is, what kind of chemotherapy can drive this cancer out? Or will we all be abandoning the word "liberal" entirely over the next five years, in favor of something else, like "progressive"?
IQ2 Debate: Blame Liberals For the Rise of Populism.
The blurb from the site lays out the ground rules they used for the debate:
"Have the left’s policies of high immigration and multiculturalism caused the disaffection which has given rise to populism? Or is it the right, with its tabloid scare stories about foreigners eroding national identity?"
... And the debate was hashed out mainly along those lines.
I'd like to propose a much more alarming theory:
The strain of liberalism that is obsessed with identity politics is populism. It is all about establishing an under-dog "common man" group and then declaring a powerful established group that is oppressing them (most often the white Christian American male). In the same way, the strain of liberalism that is obsessed with defining a group of rich oligarchs called the 1% and blaming them for the various economic woes of everyone else is also populism.
To put it bluntly, liberals have not just caused a rise in populism, they are part of the rise in populism.
The question is, what kind of chemotherapy can drive this cancer out? Or will we all be abandoning the word "liberal" entirely over the next five years, in favor of something else, like "progressive"?
