Trump's proposed massive cuts to Medicaid prove he was NEVER a "populist"

[Ken Burch]

They prove he was never anything but a cynical, grafting economic royalist...a Bourbon in the truest 19th Century sense(other than his supposed teetotaling) or a post-1865 carpetbagger fleecing the wartorn for everything he can get.

And they prove that populism, which is basically just the idea that a country should be run for the good of the many, of ALL races, genders, creeds, orientations and identities, is NOT to blame for Trump, or Le Pen, or Nigel Farage, or Geert Wilders.

The way to fight the guy isn't to equate "populism" with fascism, racism, exclusion and evil.

It's to build a better, truer populism...a true "politics for the people"...that includes the full American majority, regardless of race, creed, orientation, or identity.

We don't have to betray anyone or anything who votes Democratic now to do that. And if we're to end this nightmare and create a long-term coalition for progressive, at times transformative change, we MUST do that.

Because we are, and will always be "the party of the people".

(btw, I'm NOT a "populist"...I'm a left-wing democratic socialist, because I want greater change than populists do. I'm just saying this word is a term for a movement for change that has been hijacked both by right-wing people-hating politicians who make false promises to the desperate AND handed to those politicians by a corporate media who area are determined to discredit the term "populism" as part of their continuing campaign to delegitimize anything that can rally a movement for POSITIVE change).

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. What will stop them?

And then what happens in 2018 if we dont have "pure" candidates?

[Wounded Bear]

2. "Populism" is probably one of the most misused labels in politics...

Especially lately. Pols that get the label are almost never supported by a majority of voters, and generally hold policy ideas not favored by any majority, and are typically assholes exploiting existing societal divides for personal gain.

[Ken Burch]

3. At some point, "populism" was turned into a euphemism for bigotry, nationalism, and even fascism.

and the dirty secret is..."populism" in that sense isn't all that POPULAR. Even in Europe. Even, I suspect in Putin's Russia, given the methods Putin has to keep using to "win" elections.

This is what happens when a label is very, very malleable in its usage.

And it goes without saying that anybody who posts on DU as a "populist" is categorically against any of the horrible things people have justified in the past or present by mislabeling them "populism".

If we are to win, we need to put together a massive majority coalition, a coalition so immense that no amount of gerrymandering and vote suppression can stop it.

The key to that is to bring in everyone who's left out in the cold in the status quo, and to do so without throwing anybody allied with us now under the bus. I see no reason why we can't do that.

[bettyellen]

4. How can you get more men to be active in the resistance?

As yet is they're only 25-30% is that because they're pissed they're not allowed to lead it? That's what it sort of looks like to me.

[Ken Burch]

6. A good question. Thanks for asking it.

I think way to do that(btw, why do you assume I was talking only about men? A lot of women would be involved in this as well) is not to defer to them, but to make the communication something like this:

"We're fighting to save everybody who's bein dumped on. If you've been dumped on, and you're just now realizing this, we will work with you if YOU will work with us-you're going to need to make common cause with some people not familiar to you, some people you were raised to see "not our kind", some people you may even have seen as the enemy. And you're going to have to treat those people with respect. If you can do that, we will make your fight part of our fight, and we can all build something better than this. You'll need to change the way you see a lot of folks, but if you can do that, you can be a big part of building the world we need".

No deference to anyone's prejudices. No minimizing of anyone else's oppression. No telling anybody already in the resistance movement to wait their turn or go to the back of the bus.

if we don't find the way to do that, to build a broad coalition of all of those left out in the cold(a coalition that recognizes that some have had it a lot colder than others), I don't see us ever beating Trumpism or, more importantly, ever defusing the bomb of backlash politics.

[bettyellen]

7. Didn't assume anything- was pointing out the effort has been carried by women

80% of calls and emails, 70-80-% of every protest crowd you see. And oh dear since we're leading nope you don't get to tell us who to respect, ha ha.

I just thought it would be a good thing for you to think about. Where are the 20-35% of dem men shirking the work of democracy? Get men to help out in larger numbers. Go tell them to respect their "enemy". I'd love to see that instead of lecturing those already doing the heavy lifting.

[Ken Burch]

9. It is a good thing to think about.

I'm sorry I misinterpreted your question.

Here's one thought

To some degree, it's about breaking through the toxic part of white cis male identity(the identity I have, by chance) that says you have to fight it out in life by yourself...that it's weakness to admit you need allies in your battles and weakness to admit that you have reasons to find common ground with people not the same as you.

That has happened from time to time in the past.

[bettyellen]

10. I'm thinking they don't feel as immediately threatened as women and POC...

Also they might not want to follow our lead. A shame.

[Ken Burch]

13. Some clearly don't. But some are in flux

Those who are can be reached without throwing women and POC under the bus.

We have to keep trying to unite all who are hard-hit.

And unite it without displacing anyone who's in the fight now.

[bettyellen]

19. Sometimes it seems like it would take the draft to get dudes to pay attention.

But women would be drafted too, so it's likely we'd still be the majority hitting the streets.

[Ken Burch]

20. I'm not defending men for not hitting the streets.

Maximum respect for the women and POC who are leading on this.

[bettyellen]

21. Didn't say you were. I'm just disappointed because I think it would help us.

[Ken Burch]

23. Absolutely agree.

And while what I was talking about isn't for men at the expense of everyone else, couldn't you see a way it could be PART of getting men into the streets?

I'm trying to help unite the many against the common foe.

[bettyellen]

24. Sorry if I have been discouraged, as I see the trend in my real life as well, I'm trying to figure

Out why it is. Is it becasue men don't like going to the doctor as often? Is it becasue they don't feel targeted by Trump? Do they need an angry dude waving his arms- like Dean or Sanders? The guys in thinking about have. There's a disconnect I can't figure out frankly, and every time I see a protest (like the one at Norte Dame today) it gets hammered home- women are pissed off more than anyone.

[Ken Burch]

25. Unfortunately, I have no answers for all of that, and I AM a man.

Dean's appeal didn't last that long.

As to Bernie, it wasn't so much anger as the sense his supporters had that he was believable. He was seen as speaking "truth to power". It wasn't that he was pissed-off and white(while HRC supporters saw him as less concerned with social oppression, but his supporters were not backing him because they saw him as a champion of white privilege.), it was that those who backed him thought he was telling the truth and that supporting him would expand the range of the possible, as opposed to the other primary candidate who, while deeply qualified, seemed to Sanders people to be spending most of her time telling Democratic voters to limit their expectations and give up on anything but the most limited forms of change possiblel. I'm not saying that was a fair perception

A lot of Sanders people are out there in the protests. Those who aren't should be.

[geek tragedy]

5. Populism is a style of political rhetoric, it has nothing to do

with actual policies.

[Ken Burch]

8. OK.

And, while it can be used to do great harm(as can every OTHER style of political rhetoric, including whatever it is that people who have issues with populism support as an alternative form of discourse), it can be PART(not all, but part) of building the resistance and creating a long-term backlash-safe progressive majority.

Any successful politics has to be grounded in the idea of serving the people, of giving the people some sort of say in their destiny.

The right-wing xenophobic politics that Trump and the media CALL "populism" is a distortion of the idea...creating the illusion of populism and the illusion of a defense of the powerless-for the last thirty years or so, the right-wing populist parties, in addition to the bigotry central to their programs, were also the only parties promising to defend the welfare state and in some cases workers' rights. The "social democratic" parties in Europe had abandoned the defense of social welfare and workers' rights and were and are competing with right-wing parties in their eagerness to cut programs for the poor, weaken unions, and destroy job security-the obvious way to stop those parties would be for the social democrats to start defending the working and kept-from-working poor, but even though all of those parties are in long-term decline on the European mainland, they stubbornly refuse to give up on market economics and the corporate fixation with balanced budgets.

Whatever we call our approach, we need to get back to serving the people, defending the people, creating a society in which nobody is cast off and disregarded, where no one is ever called "deadwood", where we are passionately opposed to things like massive layoffs on Christmas Ever.

We have a market economy, but that doesn't mean we have to be market-deferential. We should be treating business as ONE part of life, not as though it is more important than everything and everyone else, not as though the "private sector" should be able to throw human beings on the scrapheap.

That's why I keep saying we need to be a party of the streets, not the suites.

[geek tragedy]

15. the problem is the people, i.e. the WWC voters in this country

who have disproportionate influence in our elections due to geography.

They don't believe in stuff like democracy, principles, etc. They just vote their resentments.

The people who respond to political populism are the very ones that are the most likely to embrace authoritarianism and persecution.

[Ken Burch]

22. Ok, there are horrible people in some parts of the country.

But there are also people who simply made bad electoral choices out of a sense of despair.

What I'm saying is, we need to offer such people a positive alternative to that...a way they can work from below, in coalition with everyone else being dumped on, for the kind of change that would make a real difference in their lives.

If we just write everyone in the Red States off, if we simply equate "working class" with "bigoted morons", we just end up setting up more backlash politics if we ever DO win.

[Hortensis]

12. Umhm. For LEADERS, populism is a method that

seeks to harness resentment against an amorphous "establishment" to gain power. Populist movements, especially right wing, also often harness bigotry against some group, usually minority racial or religious, to gain additional juice.

Populist passions can be harnessed by would-be leaders of virtually any ideology.

In 2016 we had two populist leaders in this country, left and right, both trying to seduce each other's followers away. The left wing movement was relatively weak and fell away. The right-wing one won, powered by the extra "juice" that hostility to Democrats by all, and for many to minority groups, provided.

[geek tragedy]

14. populism is a euphemism for demagoguery.

it rarely, if ever, holds up as a way of governing

[Hortensis]

16. Yes! Populism is NOT an ideology for governing but a tool

for seizing power. For both its leaders and its followers. The followers typically, of course, end up very surprised, whether by their leaders' failure to produce or, typically worse, by what effective leaders choose to do with their power.

[Ken Burch]

18. It's not a way of governing in and of itself.

It can be, though, a positive tool in building a coalition for change.

Other methods...such as speaking blandly, speaking deferentially, offering nothing but timid incrementalism...turn out not to work as a way of governing either, because those methods can't sustain public enthusiasm for the program the government is trying to implement.

What Indivisible is doing is a form populist. Confronting right-wing congressmembers and Senators at town hall is populism. Protest is populism. So is coalition building and campaigning in elections.

[JI7]

11. many of us already said his support was largely based on bigotry and not economics

[Ken Burch]

17. We all agree, I think, that bigotry played a major role.

But isn't arguing that economics played no major role basically an argument for Democrats to be conservative on economics and defer to Wall Street?

You seem to see this a choice of whether the party opposes bigotry OR opposes economic injustice, and you appear-if I am reading your continued arguments on this correctly-to believe that acknowledging economic dispossession as playing any part in the Trump phenomenon HAS to mean putting the fight against bigotry on the back burner.

That isn't the argument economic justice advocates are making.

What we're saying is deal with BOTH...deal with bigotry and address corporate dominance and the consequences of the last thirty-six years of economic abandonment of the working class-and not just the white working-class, but the ENTIRE working class.

What would you need to hear before you could trust that dealing with economic justice DOESN'T mean throwing women and people of color(groups that are disproportionate victims of thirty-six years of economic injustice)under the bus?

Is there ever a time in which you could be open to dialog on this, rather than getting into an automatic "Not so fast, buddy!" response?