Populism is presumptuous in claiming to speak for all of the people, but it can’t be wished away. It calls for creative engagementThe west is proud to be governed on the strength of popular elections, and so it is curious that “populist” is typically a term of derision. Many of the European parties that used to make up the mainstream are hollowed out. Amid yawning inequalities in wealth and power, the rules of trade, finance and migration are settled internationally, brokered by people for whom there’s not always an easy answer to the Tony Benn question: how do we get rid of you?A thoughtful Syriza supporter in Greece, or even a reflective Ukip voter in Britain, might argue that those who despair at the populist tide are not real democrats at all. The snotty remarks of today’s anti-populists, they might say, will one day sound as silly as Lord Salisbury’s description of the American civil war as the price of “deference to a dreamer’s theory” about giving votes to the poor. Continue reading...
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