Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUK Guardian: Why UKIP, the Tea Party and Beppe Grillo pose a threat to the mainstream
These populists are asking the right questions, but they don't have the answers. Mainstream parties must revitalise and respondThe rise of populism across western Europe and the US especially in its radical right form poses more fundamental questions for democrats than has been acknowledged. Whether we are talking about UKIP, Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement or the Tea Party, populists of all kinds are exposing old and hidden fault lines in democracy, and mainstream democrats need a greater alertness to the nature of the threat.
Populists pose a basic question: why is democracy not run as the true expression of a morally pure "will of the people" against a self-serving and corrupt political, bureaucratic, plutocratic or legal elite? This is a forceful question as old as democracy itself and it reveals what has become liberal democracy's unspoken compromise democracy is bounded by institutions, laws and constitutional limits. It is democracy through pluralism and compromise; "minorities rule" as the American democratic theorist, Robert Dahl, described it.
Mainstream democrats take their cue from American republican democracy with its checks and balances and self-restraint. This is an impediment to the true democracy for populists. They wish to sweep away any barrier to their desired ends whether of the left or the right.
So the Tea Party proposes a radical reduction of the role of the federal government in the US political system. The FPÖ challenged the authority of Austrian courts with respect to upholding minority rights. UKIP demands a UK withdrawal from the EU. The Front National drives an anti-Islamic and anti-Gypsy agenda in France. Geert Wilders' PVV following in the footsteps of Pim Fortuyn also confronts fears over the growth of Islam and its purported incompatibility with Dutch values. Viktor Orbán's Fidesz rewrote the Hungarian constitution to give the executive more authority over the courts and to safeguard "traditional family values".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/24/ukip-tea-party-beppe-grillo-threat
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
3 replies, 1218 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (0)
ReplyReply to this post
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
UK Guardian: Why UKIP, the Tea Party and Beppe Grillo pose a threat to the mainstream (Original Post)
pampango
Mar 2013
OP
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)1. Too bad we only get populism of the curdled right-wing variety here.
It seems like the Democratic Party has left a huge opening for it on the left. I'm about ready to join a populist party, if I could only find one. (Oddly enough, I made a typo, spelling out "fund" when I meant "find." Maybe it was a Freudian typo.)
pampango
(24,692 posts)2. True, although the European examples in the article are all of the 'far-right variety', as well.
Not sure why the reaction to a changing world results in right-wing populism rather than a left-wing version. (On second thought, maybe the "reaction to a changing world" helps explain why it is most often a right-wing phenomenon. )
Rise Rebel Resist
(88 posts)3. ukip thunder was taken when the conservatives wanted a ref on the eu