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Thread: Is Trump a Populist?

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    Default Is Trump a Populist?

    Why does Donald Trump exaggerate the size of his inauguration crowd, brag about his election win in conversations with world leaders, and claim without evidence that voter fraud may have cost him the popular vote?

    Why does he dismiss protesters who oppose him as “paid professionals” and polls that reflect poorly on him as “fake news”? Why does he call much of the media the “enemy of the people”?

    Populists are dividers, not uniters, Mudde told me. They split society into “two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other,” and say they’re guided by the “will of the people.”

    The United States is what political scientists call a “liberal democracy,” a system “based on pluralism—on the idea that you have different groups with different interests and values, which are all legitimate,” Mudde explained. Populists, in contrast, are not pluralist. They consider just one group—whatever they mean by “the people”—legitimate.

    This conception of legitimacy stems from the fact that populists view their mission as “essentially moral,” Mudde noted. The “distinction between the elite and the people is not based on how much money you have or even what kind of position you have. It’s based on your values.”

    Given their moral framing, populists conclude that they alone represent “the people.” They may not win 100 percent of the vote, but they lay claim to 100 percent of the support of good, hardworking folks who have been exploited by the establishment. They don’t assert that the neglected people who back them should be kept in mind by political leaders just like all other citizens; they claim that these neglected people are the only people that matter.

    “[P]opulists only lose if ‘the silent majority’—shorthand for ‘the real people’—has not had a chance to speak, or worse, has been prevented from expressing itself,” explains Jan-Werner Müller, a professor at Princeton University and the author of What Is Populism? “Hence the frequent invocation of conspiracy theories by populists: something going on behind the scenes has to account for the fact that corrupt elites are still keeping the people down. … [I]f the people’s politician doesn’t win, there must be something wrong with the system.”

    One might expect this argument to fail once populists enter government and become the establishment.

    But no: Populists—ranging from the revolutionary socialist Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to the religious conservative Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey—have managed to portray themselves as victims even at the height of their power, blaming their shortcomings on sabotage by shadowy domestic or foreign elites.


    The notion of one virtuous people and one vile elite is a fiction, even if it does reflect real divisions and power dynamics in a given society. “There is no single political will, let alone a single political opinion, in a modern, complex, pluralist—in short, enormously messy—democracy,” writes Müller.

    It’s not that populists have some special mind meld with the masses. Rather, “populists put words into the mouth of what is after all their own creation.”

    As an example, Müller cites Nigel Farage, the former leader of the populist U.K. Independence Party, who called Britain’s vote to leave the European Union a “victory for real people,” as if the 48 percent of British people who voted to remain in the EU were “somehow less than real—or, rather, questioning their status as members of the political community.”

    Populists “tend to define the people as those that are with them,” Mudde said. The mark of a populist isn’t which specific groups of people he or she includes in “the people” or “the establishment.” It’s the fact that he or she is separating the world into those warring camps in the first place.

    Stylistically, populists often use short, simple slogans and direct language, and engage in “boorish behavior, which makes [them] appear like the real people,” said Pippa Norris, a professor at Harvard University who is working on a book on the rise of “populist-authoritarian” politicians around the world, especially in Europe. They are typically “transgressive on all the rules of the game.”

    Is Donald Trump a populist?

    Something fundamental in Trump’s approach to politics changed around the time that Steve Bannon, now the president’s chief strategist in the White House, joined the businessman’s campaign, according to Mudde. Trump had been condemning America’s allegedly incompetent political leaders for decades.

    But when Trump launched his presidential bid, he was not, in Mudde’s mind, a populist. Over time, however, he’s come to style himself as one, in ways that help illuminate why Trump does what he does and says what he says.

    continued

    https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-trump/516525/

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    Trump’s initial political vocabulary included the corrupt elite but not the pure people. Instead, in rambling speeches, he focused on just one person: himself. “Our country needs a truly great leader ... that wrote The Art of the Deal,” Trump declared in announcing his candidacy. Gradually, however, his speeches grew more coherent and populist.

    His remarks at the Republican National Convention—which were written by aide Stephen Miller, who developed a taste for “nation-state populism” while working for Senator Jeff Sessions—marked a transitional moment. “I alone can fix” the broken system in Washington, Trump said, promising to serve as the “voice” of the “forgotten men and women of our country.”

    By Inauguration Day, the transformation was complete: Trump’s rhetoric was thoroughly populist. “January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again,” he proclaimed. That speech was written by Miller and Bannon, who envisions Trump leading a new “economic nationalist movement” modeled on the “populism” of the 19th-century U.S. President Andrew Jackson.

    In his presidential-announcement speech, Trump used versions of the word “I” 256 times. In his Inaugural address, he used those words three times.

    Trump shifted from exclusively “selling himself” to presenting “himself as a vehicle of the people,” Mudde observed, and this allowed his supporters to feel part of something bigger than Trump. “You couldn’t be part of Trump, and that was what he sold before,” Mudde said. “That was where the genius came in. Before it was just one man standing against everyone. Now it was a movement that had him as its leader. That energized [people] much more.”

    (Norris pointed out that Trump usually portrays himself as a “paternalistic leader who will do things for the people” rather than seeking to directly empower them.)

    The moral dimension of populism “explains why someone like Donald Trump, who clearly is not a commoner, can nevertheless pretend to be the voice of the people,” Mudde told me. “He doesn’t argue, ‘I am as rich as you.’ What he argues is, ‘I have the same values as you. I’m also part of the pure people.’”

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    pooulism just means you don't want to kill all useless eaters. it means just not being a eugenicist.

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    Don is a symptom of a society in decay.

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    " populists are dividers not uniters"

    good thing you're not prone to over simplistic divisiveness.

    do you get the intense comic irony of your own desperate stupidity?

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    laura silsby -- Clinton's human trafficker in haiti.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AssHatZombie View Post
    popoulism just means you don't want to kill all useless eaters. it means just not being a eugenicist.
    Wrong.. Hitler was a populist and believed strongly in Eugenics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kudzu View Post
    Wrong.. Hitler was a populist and believed strongly in Eugenics.
    hitler was a pawn of swiss bankers used to drive germany off a cliff, not a true populist.

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    Donald Trump is not a true populist, in that Donald Trump does not carry the same opinions as the vocal Majority.

    A true populist is actually an altruist, who determines the opinions of a vocal majority, and campaigns on the vocal majority concerns.

    Donald Trump's problem, is he is not with the vocal majority, on most every issue!

    Donald Trump's following can't seem to get over the 44% approval hurdle. And it tapers downward from there, depending on which specific issue!

    So, until he can broad jump that hurdle- NO! HE IS NOT A TRUE POPULIST!

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    Quote Originally Posted by AssHatZombie View Post
    "populists are dividers not uniters" ...

    do you get the intense comic irony of your own desperate stupidity?
    You are quoting Cas Mudde of the University of Georgia. He goes on to say:
    [populists] split society into two antagonistic groups: the pure people on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other.

    Are you saying Trump doesn't do that? Drain the Swamp! The "Deep State" is conspiring against him! The fake news media is the enemy of the people! It's classic populism and deeply illiberal (in the old-fashioned sense).

    Btw, if he really did "drain the swamp" he would have very few associates left.

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    Just curious; did all the people who were outraged over Football Players taking a Knee, even cared that Trump Disrespected Veterans Day over a Bad Hair Day?
    ONE-N-DONE, YOU GOT PLAYED; Time To Play-On
    Remember ... ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES ... So STFU Bitch

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    Quote Originally Posted by kudzu View Post
    Trump’s initial political vocabulary included the corrupt elite but not the pure people. Instead, in rambling speeches, he focused on just one person: himself. “Our country needs a truly great leader ... that wrote The Art of the Deal,” Trump declared in announcing his candidacy. Gradually, however, his speeches grew more coherent and populist.

    His remarks at the Republican National Convention—which were written by aide Stephen Miller, who developed a taste for “nation-state populism” while working for Senator Jeff Sessions—marked a transitional moment. “I alone can fix” the broken system in Washington, Trump said, promising to serve as the “voice” of the “forgotten men and women of our country.”

    By Inauguration Day, the transformation was complete: Trump’s rhetoric was thoroughly populist. “January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again,” he proclaimed. That speech was written by Miller and Bannon, who envisions Trump leading a new “economic nationalist movement” modeled on the “populism” of the 19th-century U.S. President Andrew Jackson.

    In his presidential-announcement speech, Trump used versions of the word “I” 256 times. In his Inaugural address, he used those words three times.

    Trump shifted from exclusively “selling himself” to presenting “himself as a vehicle of the people,” Mudde observed, and this allowed his supporters to feel part of something bigger than Trump. “You couldn’t be part of Trump, and that was what he sold before,” Mudde said. “That was where the genius came in. Before it was just one man standing against everyone. Now it was a movement that had him as its leader. That energized [people] much more.”

    (Norris pointed out that Trump usually portrays himself as a “paternalistic leader who will do things for the people” rather than seeking to directly empower them.)

    The moral dimension of populism “explains why someone like Donald Trump, who clearly is not a commoner, can nevertheless pretend to be the voice of the people,” Mudde told me. “He doesn’t argue, ‘I am as rich as you.’ What he argues is, ‘I have the same values as you. I’m also part of the pure people.’”
    Brilliant analysis! It's hard to add anything to that, but I will say, I've talked to mental health professionals and they are nearly all unanimous that he's a corporate psychopath. They can diagnose him without a face to face diagnosis because of the volume of information they can gather from his t.v. appearances.

    I would think you know and understand what goes into the making of a psychopath but it's something that a lot of Americans would benefit from learning and knowing.

    The tactic you speak of is a winning strategy for the short term obviously. It only took somebody like Trump to be the one to play the part. The psychopathy is in his lack of feelings for the people he hurts. There's no goodness in the man to which anyone can appeal. And no sense of shame over the lies he's spewing that would prevent a normal person from using the tactic.

    Has he studied Hitler's winning strategy or did he just accidentally fall upon it? That's a serious question.

    A psychopath will not be beaten. What tactics will he need to stoop to in order to make sure he isn't beaten? That's the scary question! I think there is only one way to prevent him from doing great harm to your country.

    And he has Bolton by his side!

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    Quote Originally Posted by AssHatZombie View Post
    laura silsby -- Clinton's human trafficker in haiti.

    New Life Children’s Refuge. The New Life Children’s Refuge (NLCR) was founded in November 2009 by Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter, who are both members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Li...7s_Refuge_case


    On January 29, 2010, a group of ten American Baptist missionaries from Idaho attempted to cross the Haiti-Dominican Republic border with 33 Haitian children, most of whom were not orphans and had families. The group, known as the New Life Children’s Refuge,[1] did not have proper authorization for transporting the children and were arrested on kidnapping charges.[2][3] The missionaries denied any wrongdoing and claimed that they were rescuing orphans and leading them to a Dominican hotel which was being transformed into an orphanage.

    Nine of the ten missionaries were later released but NLCR founder Laura Silsby remained incarcerated in Haiti. By the time she went to trial on May 13 the charges had been reduced to "arranging irregular travel" and the prosecution sought a 6-month prison term.[4] On May 17, she was found guilty and sentenced to the time served in jail prior to the trial.[5]

    More at the link.

    What did this have to do with Hillary Clinton?

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    Quote Originally Posted by montgomery View Post
    Brilliant analysis! It's hard to add anything to that, but I will say, I've talked to mental health professionals and they are nearly all unanimous that he's a corporate psychopath. They can diagnose him without a face to face diagnosis because of the volume of information they can gather from his t.v. appearances.

    I would think you know and understand what goes into the making of a psychopath but it's something that a lot of Americans would benefit from learning and knowing.

    The tactic you speak of is a winning strategy for the short term obviously. It only took somebody like Trump to be the one to play the part. The psychopathy is in his lack of feelings for the people he hurts. There's no goodness in the man to which anyone can appeal. And no sense of shame over the lies he's spewing that would prevent a normal person from using the tactic.

    Has he studied Hitler's winning strategy or did he just accidentally fall upon it? That's a serious question.

    A psychopath will not be beaten. What tactics will he need to stoop to in order to make sure he isn't beaten? That's the scary question! I think there is only one way to prevent him from doing great harm to your country.

    And he has Bolton by his side!

    His wife Ivana said he kept a book of Hitler's speeches on his nightstand for years.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AssHatZombie View Post
    hitler was a pawn of swiss bankers used to drive germany off a cliff, not a true populist.
    Nope... You don't know anything about Hitler or Swiss bankers. Germany was flat broke, in debt and suffering terrible inflation... the worst example of the Great Depression in Europe and the US.

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