General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Free traders will never answer this... if immigrants are needed here... [View all]pampango
(24,692 posts)First of all, Canada's immigration laws are strict but they allow 2 1/2 times more immigrants per capita than the US. How do you figure that Canada's immigration barriers "are more strict than our barriers to immigration" when they allow in so many more than we do given the size of their population. We must have a few "interesting barriers" of our own since we let in immigrants at less than half the rate Canada does.
If someone is concerned for American workers and argues for a higher minimum wage, better legislation to empower unions, a stronger safety net, more progressive taxation, etc., such a person could not rightly be accused of xenophobia, racism or anything of the sort.
If someone was concerned for American workers and went on to blame Jews, women or Blacks for the plight of the American worker, guess what? The terms anti-semitic, misogynist and racist might well be added to the mix even if the source claimed to be none of those things.
But you say, "I'm not blaming Jews, women or Blacks because they can all be Americans and I am not a racist, misogynist or anti-semitic. I'm blaming foreigners regardless of race, gender or religion."
Exactly.
(And the fact that some one or some country is more xenophobic than you are or we are, does not let you or me off the hook. Should we compare ourselves to the xenophobes, racists and misogynists in the world or to the progressive, multiculturalists.)
For left-wing populism in the era of identity politics, the contortions are more and more demanding. But xenophobia is a pliable concept. ... The fact that xenophobia can accommodate huge variations of nature and intensity is a useful resource for populist movements. This means that the other can be expanded to mean just about anything: the elite of course, liberals and intellectuals who favour the complexity of diversity, the traitors amongst us, but also foreign powers (the EU, the US, China).
But, broadly speaking, these fall into three distinct camps: the Strictly Populists, the Demagogues and the Democratic Activists. The first group is toxic and dangerous, the second is regrettable, the third is a necessary by-product of mass, democratic politics with which we can all live. It is a fundamentally different political animal.
The Strictly Populists include the movements and parties who fit all three initial criteria and whose xenophobia however couched is well in evidence. The Marine Le Pens, the Geert Wilders, the Tea Party activists ... All of them have refined their xenophobia by moving it away from outright racism. But their appeal is to those people who not only feel they have been cheated by a system that privileges elites of all sorts whilst abandoning them to a mediocre existence, but for whom solutions are to be found in an increasingly closed model of society that can privilege them, protect them, as the ordinary, true people - the keepers of the national flame. A closed model of society and politics is foundational to this strand of populism.
The demagogues are a kind of populism lite. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a prime example. Anti-elitist but erudite, frank but astute, his rhetoric is nevertheless neither simplistic nor does it come across as common sense. Indeed listening to Mélenchon is a lot like listening to Chomsky or the ghost of Durkheim. References to Bretton Woods, Huntington and Fukuyama abound, and the role of the United States is consistently highlighted as the engine of the current crisis. The anti-globalisation rhetoric sails very close to the wind of xenophobia, but manages not to fall into the trap.
The Democratic Activists: Here we find Occupy and the Indignados, but also the rhetoric of any talented politician or political activist in an era of mass democracy and media driven politics. Those whose explicit use of the concept of accountability (rhetorically and in practice) de facto creates an air de famille with populism, but who dont rely on exclusion or any form of xenophobia to drive the project: those whose vision might encompass enemies, but whose aspirations belong to an open society, mindful of diversity. ... The language of anti-corruption and democratic accountability differs substantially, in that it targets specific laws and specific members of the elite. It is not anti-elitist per se. And in all these points it differs markedly from a populist movement.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/catherine-fieschi/plague-on-both-your-populisms