Answering this type of question necessarily involves defining arguments. In this case, it’s about what populism and fascism actually mean. Therefore, if you can get a different answer by making a reasonable change to the definition, it is completely reasonable to ask whether the answer is important. After all, we know what Trump is and what he is doing, so why is the answer to this kind of question interesting? My answer is that such arguments help organize ideas and distinguish the underlying causes from symptoms.
Your answer may depend on how happy you are on the list. As an economist, I’m not that enthusiastic about the list. What does that mean if a politician or party checks six of the seven (for example) listed attributes of being a populist? Some things in the list are more important than others, and some items continue quite automatically from others? My criticism of one definition of populism I’ll explain it here The fact that the elements of the list seem to be cut off from one another and instead appear to be created to encompass a group of politicians/parties, rather than explaining them instead.
For me, a key feature of populists is how they treat people who oppose them. Normal politicians respect the government institutions, the laws, the media and the people who occupy them in general. Populists describe their views as “the will of the people” and dismiss opposing views and institutions as undefined elite work. Power is not just a man, but pluralist democracy in an institution like Congress and the law is a disgust for populists. Pluralist democracy may reflect a variety of views and concerns among voters, but populists are authoritarians seeking full power.
Context is important here. For example, because of the power of money, most or all parts of pluralistic democracy have actually been captured by the elite. In the end we called this elite “establishment.” Sometimes this elite can work against the interests of other countries. I will not call politicians who simply described this reality as populists. If they want to turn this pluralistic democracy into something that had the ultimate power.
The authoritarian nature of populists makes it more possible that populists in existing democracies are likely to appeal to social conservatives rather than liberals, and in that sense they are generally political rights. To appeal to social conservatives means that right-wing populists are trying to create both divisions (cultural wars), highlighting threats from minorities or overseas. These threats are, as almost imagined, right-wing populists. It tends to lie much more More than a regular politician. For similar reasons, and because they dislike the idea that others can have some authority over themselves, they also reject knowledge that comes from experts who support instincts and “common sense.”
Trump’s actions since regaining his strength have usually been a populist. By issuing a declaration on issues that determine issues that are usually the privilege of Congress, and allowing them to effectively close some of the governments that are solely legally powered by Congress, he shows insurance and law light emptying against pluralistic democracy. When the court finds out against him, and if he ignores those courts, the crunch will come. Will the people needed to enforce a court decision follow the court or Trump? Will a sufficient Republican in Congress refuse what Trump is doing, or will he change the law to do what Trump is doing retroactively, or even worse, give him the absolute power of the law? Did Republicans control the Supreme Court along with Trump or the rule of law? Does the law work fast enough to mean that any of these questions are absolutely important?
Similarly, Boris Johnson was a typical populist when he stopped Congress. The right-wing newspaper, which was extremely important in achieving a minority majority to leave the EU, was populist when it attacked the judge “against the will of the people.” [1]
Federico Finchelstein, who wrote a lot about populism and fascism (more recently here) suggests four important pillars of fascism: political purpose, lies, xenophobia/racism, and violence against democratic rejection. According to my explanation above, the middle two are shared with all right-wing populists, but not violence and democratic rejection. Finchelstein defines three waves of populism. The first is fascism from the 1930s, and the second is Latin American populism (e.g. Peronism) and the third current populism equivalent to what he calls aspiring fascism.
These four pillars are, of course, short, but list. I have already explained why right-wing populists encourage xenophobia and are chronic liars. Their authoritarianism puts them at risk of respecting democracy, but both this and the use of violence are barriers they may choose to cross or not. Of course, whether they do so depends, of course, on the historical context. [2].
The second wave of populism in Latin America suggests that unlike populism, populists can live with democracy in the sense that they may be forced out of power. That remains true today. Boris Johnson is no longer the British prime minister, and Poland is not run more by populists. However, my explanation of populism suggests why the relationship between democracy and populism is ambiguous. Populists are authoritarians, but they declare that they represent the will of the people, so they should respect the outcome of the general election.
This ambiguity means that populists tend to support the emergence of democracy over their reality. The extreme case is where elections are equipped, but the same results can be achieved by ensuring that the media is managed by people acting in the interest of populists (as in Hungary, for example). Trump is now They are threatening to steal the business license of mainstream broadcasters
Because he doesn’t like them reporting reality rather than the fantasy track declaring.
In today’s mature democracy, populists are unable to gain power through the use of violent or paramilitary groups, and thus gain power through the ballot box. As recent examples of postwar populist governments show, once they gain power, they do not need to maintain it using the degree of violence displayed under fascism, but they may be willing to use the threat of violence from external governments as a useful threat to the enemy (as well as using violence against minorities). Therefore, I think Finchelstein is right to view fascism as a form of populism, but not the only form.
Using key tests of violence and respect for election outcomes, is Trump a fascist or just a populist? Trump did everything with his power to not respect the outcome of the 2020 election and ignore it and take office. It included inciting mobs, including paramilitary groups (“Rise up and get up.”) Invade the Congress. In particular, this event led Finschelstein to the point suggest
Trump had crossed the line from populism to fascism. During his first office, Trump showed no indication of the hunger for conquest and expansionist violence that was characteristic of fascism in the 1930s, but his recent comments suggest that his refusal to rule out the use of the military that makes it part of Greenland in the United States reject the label of fascists on those grounds.
If Trump is a fascist, does that mean Trump is as bad as Hitler? Of course it’s not. Hitler was just as unique as Trump. In the 1930s there were other fascists like Mussolini and Franco, but Franco survived World War II and relaxed some of his original totalitarian policies. Furthermore, none of the above analyses suggest fascists You need to be smartand they sow their own downfall equally. surely,
Noah Berlatsky points outthe reasons why someone makes a populist or fascist also tend to overflow and sometimes self-destruct. Likewise, it is often them
Very harmful and incompetent. And while fascists aren’t necessarily all powerful, they are populists, they will gain strength to the extent that they dismantle pluralist democracy and make it impossible to defeat an election.
I understand why some people prefer not to call Trump a fascist For tactical reasons. Many in the political and media world don’t want to give up on special relationships and old ideas of United West, so using such language about Potus and his appointees can make you look extreme and on top. However, the use of the term populist is also problematic. Because not all populists want to ignore election outcomes and are not prepared to use violence to maintain power. Calling Trump a populist along with people like Johnson and Farage seriously underestimates the threat he represents. Now we need to be very realistic about the dangers of the Trump administration posing and how we should view people outside the US who continue to support him. How we describe Trump and his administration may help us do that.
[1] I described populism in the US and UK as prudent because the populist leaders involved are either very rich or relying on funding from very wealthy people. This has a major impact on the specific policies you adopt when you are in power. But as I pointed out, this is not a populism that represents the domestic capital. Overall. Brexit certainly wasn’t a capital gain, and it was just Trump’s actions. Instead, they are seen as regimes that support a portion of their domestic capital more than others.
[2] This makes me understand why some historians want to limit the term fascism to certain circumstances of the 1930s. It will also become clear why I don’t want it.
