The Viagra-rush of votes populism provides always has an (ignored) final act. Where the crowd turns on the…
The Viagra-rush of votes populism provides always has an (ignored) final act. Where the crowd turns on the populist leader, who they see as betraying them when the gap between populist fantasy and reality gets too great. /1
The mechanism is the same, every time. Demagogues sweep to power promising popular things that completely ignore due process and existing institutional arrangements. When they can't deliver those populist fantasies, the crowd's rage at being betrayed is brutal. /2
The GOP for example thought Trump would be an excellent populist patsy for them, vacuuming up votes and delivering continuous election wins, which they could then do with as they pleased. But they forgot that populism always - always - overwhelms any attempt at control. /3
Trump took this energy and redirected it all towards himself, leaving the GOP in his wake. The Republicans are terrified to oppose him now. What Trump doesn't understand is that eventually all populist leaders will betray their supporters, in the supporter's view. /4
And be replaced, and eventually even any attempt to maintain the framework of power will be cast aside by the crowd, into an incoherent, destructive rage. That's when the looting and violence starts. Here in Oz the LNP, through John Howard, decided to tap populism for votes. /5
Generations of Australian politicians had a gentleman's agreement never to go there, because of the danger. Howard ignored it. Multiple elections were won with populist campaigns on refugees and boats, the politicisation of race. /6
At the same time key players in the public service, which is supposed to hold elected leaders to account, were removed or moved, and ministers given new authorities to make decisions without consultation. All to cement the new populism, which is always just Viagra for votes. /7
And as always, the effect is temporary, with the crowd retaining no affection for their populist liberators once delusional promises are exposed as fairy tales. A succession of LNP leaders have been cast aside, and the populist rage they engineered is starting to break loose. /8
We saw it with the 'lockdown' hysteria in this pandemic. The main reason National Cabinet capitulated to a man and woman was the visceral terror they felt at witnessing the anger of the populist crowd. Social media vastly accelerates this transition. /9
Making popularity the sole metric for power - populism - always ends the same way. In violence and destruction. The cynical politicians who decide to evoke populism don't even believe their own populist spin. It's 100% about engineering votes. /10
The damage to societies is catastrophic and long-lasting. I Tweeted before that what we love to call 'fascism' is really just the end-game of all populism. The authoritarian attempt to force reality to fit the populist narrative. /11
And that's why democracies are now all shifting towards authoritarian framings. It's not a 'shift to the Right', populism ignores all politics. It's a shift to making popularity the only measure of what's right, and even to define reality itself. /12
The pandemic is over. Because that's popular. Climate change isn't real, because it's popular to say it isn't. We still have a long way to go with the destruction and chaos. /end