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Populism
I read in the Times an interview with Steve Bannon (by Ross Douthat, one of the resident “thinking conservatives”). Bannon actually says a few things that make sense to me, before letting loose a howler like “[DJT is] actually an incredible, kindhearted, empathetic individual” and praising his “moral clarity”. But let’s leave that aside for now.
Bannon is very concerned about making life better for “ordinary workers”, which sounds good to me. (Although both Bannon and I are “the elite”, in that we have degrees from respected universities.) But then he adds “I’m anti- any immigration. I want a moratorium on all immigration right now because I want American citizens to get a shot at the brass ring.” I immediately wondered “Why do people who aren’t currently US citizens (but may want to be) not count as ‘ordinary people’ for populism purposes? Why can’t you be populist without also being racist and jingoistic? And what makes you think shutting down immigration is good for anybody, even current US citizens?”
Yes, illegal immigrants are probably pulling down wages in some places (although a lot of them are doing jobs that you can't get US citizens to do at all), and in theory you could solve that by getting them out of the country, but you could also solve it by making them legal -- they would suddenly be able to demand minimum wage, and safe workplaces, and not getting raped by their bosses, and police protection when they're the victims of crimes, and they'd be able to join unions, all that kind of stuff. They wouldn't be undercutting American workers, they would be American workers.
Bannon and Douthat also talk about the split within MAGAland between, as Bannon puts it, “nationalist populists” (his team) and “globalist technofeudalists” (Musk, Andreesen, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, et al). And I thought “aha! So am I a globalist populist?”
Maybe not, since “populism” is also associated with a deep suspicion of expertise, while I have great respect for expertise. But I recognize that expertise doesn’t only come from graduate school: I can respect the expertise of a really good building contractor or auto mechanic or sheep farmer or basketball player as much as that of a really good epidemiologist or mathematician. The world is better off with people doing those things really well, and I’m better off because I don’t know how to do those things myself. If I’m concerned about avian flu, I’ll ask the experts — epidemiologists, virologists, zoologists, and poultry farmers, each of whom probably knows aspects of the problem that the others don’t know. So does that make me a “populist”?
Back to the nationalism thing. If I were to frame this in religious terms, I might say “humans and other living beings are God’s creations, while nation-states and their borders are human inventions. Why should the latter determine which of the former deserve respect and consideration?”
Bannon is very concerned about making life better for “ordinary workers”, which sounds good to me. (Although both Bannon and I are “the elite”, in that we have degrees from respected universities.) But then he adds “I’m anti- any immigration. I want a moratorium on all immigration right now because I want American citizens to get a shot at the brass ring.” I immediately wondered “Why do people who aren’t currently US citizens (but may want to be) not count as ‘ordinary people’ for populism purposes? Why can’t you be populist without also being racist and jingoistic? And what makes you think shutting down immigration is good for anybody, even current US citizens?”
Yes, illegal immigrants are probably pulling down wages in some places (although a lot of them are doing jobs that you can't get US citizens to do at all), and in theory you could solve that by getting them out of the country, but you could also solve it by making them legal -- they would suddenly be able to demand minimum wage, and safe workplaces, and not getting raped by their bosses, and police protection when they're the victims of crimes, and they'd be able to join unions, all that kind of stuff. They wouldn't be undercutting American workers, they would be American workers.
Bannon and Douthat also talk about the split within MAGAland between, as Bannon puts it, “nationalist populists” (his team) and “globalist technofeudalists” (Musk, Andreesen, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, et al). And I thought “aha! So am I a globalist populist?”
Maybe not, since “populism” is also associated with a deep suspicion of expertise, while I have great respect for expertise. But I recognize that expertise doesn’t only come from graduate school: I can respect the expertise of a really good building contractor or auto mechanic or sheep farmer or basketball player as much as that of a really good epidemiologist or mathematician. The world is better off with people doing those things really well, and I’m better off because I don’t know how to do those things myself. If I’m concerned about avian flu, I’ll ask the experts — epidemiologists, virologists, zoologists, and poultry farmers, each of whom probably knows aspects of the problem that the others don’t know. So does that make me a “populist”?
Back to the nationalism thing. If I were to frame this in religious terms, I might say “humans and other living beings are God’s creations, while nation-states and their borders are human inventions. Why should the latter determine which of the former deserve respect and consideration?”