2020 Democratic Presidential Straw Poll (1 Viewer)

[AAABatteries]

Good question because the dictionary definition doesn't really capture how the term is used.

A shortcut to thinking about populism is that it's a rebellion against elitism (also pretty vaguely defined). You know how people complain about "the elites" such as globalist free-traders, deep-state public servants, out-of-touch journalists, ivory-tower professors, self-serving institutional leaders, and know-it-all scientists with all of their technocratic, evidence-based solutions published in fancy-sounding journals and whatnot? Populists are the ones attacking all that stuff whether from the left ("we need protectionist tariffs to protect the common folk in this country") or from the right ("we need a border wall to protect the common folk in this country").

Populists distrust professional expertise, preferring simple, common-sense slogans filled with typos. A populist politician focuses on issues where a man on the street would most sharply disagree with a university professor in his chosen field -- about trade policy, immigration, whatever -- and sides with the man on the street.

Populism is correlated with authoritarianism because it takes a strong leader, who must be given extraordinary powers, to stand up to all of the various institutions run by elites -- i.e., to drain the swamp.

Thanks MT - my apologies for asking the question and then not jumping back in.  What you say makes sense - appreciate the reply.

 

[Summer Wheat]

Biden and Sanders are too old.  If they run they better hook up with Beto as VP

 

[Da Guru]

No Gabbard?

 

[Dedfin]

El Chapo discusses why the Ds better get on board with a populist instead of a corporatist candidate

May as well start from the beginning but you could skip ahead to 30:00 (background is referencing Tucker Carlson's attempt to intellectualize Trump's movement). I know most of you Ds here are more libertarian types so I'm curious what you think if you have the time to give this a listen, thanks. Yes, the overall theme pod is that Bernie is the Ds only good choice, but we don't have to go down that road, although the two are connected.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

I don’t remember what thread the discussions about voting systems, gerrymandering, etc. were in, but kind of related to all that, I think this piece on the urban-rural divide (in all industrialized countries, not just the U.S.) is pretty interesting.

https://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_rodden-the-urban-rural-divide

 

[toshiba]

Amy Klobuchar is currently my pick.

Would love a Beto VP

I still like this as my pick to beat Trump, but I would like to replace Beto with Mayor Pete.