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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@ Drunken Nordmann, Exactly Breadtube is a huge community with wildly different people in it, they are not the Borg, heck a lot of them end up fighting with each other.
Also BLM is a populist movement, should we reject it just because its populist.
I do get my news from a lot of sources, but I think having an actual set of values that informs your world view is inevitable. My values reflect left wing populism and I think saying any sort of populism is bad because of Trump's reactionary populism is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Edited by Overlord on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:03:27 AM
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Three Arrows has repeatedly called out people
for preferring fascism to an imperfect candidate, so there's that.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Sep 5th 2020 at 4:02:29 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from historyRe: Populism - Between Trump, Brexit, and Bernie Sanders (or, to be more precise and fair to Sanders himself, the Unicorn Brigade Bernie or Busters) I've become inherently skeptical, if not suspicious, of anything that seems overly populist.
Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:03:02 AM
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Doesn't matter to his supporters. He's not "elite" to them because of (shallow) reasons like him eating Mc Donalds.
These are the kind of people who raised a fuss over Obama wearing tan suits and eating arugula after all. They are also the people who got super pissed over a Marine holding an umbrella over Obama.
It's the same kind of mentality that frames people who live in California as "coastal elites" regardless of how much their actual income or influence is.
Edited by M84 on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:07:19 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI think just saying populism is bad is reductive logic and a way to dismiss a wide variety of information and view points.
I think I would prefer someone like Vaush to Thought Slime, though both are left wing anarchists, Vaush thinks its a good idea to elect Biden and then hold his feet to the fire. Vaush is more willing to work within the system than Thought Slime is.
I like Thought Slime's content, but he does just preach to the choir, he is not a good intro to leftist thought.
Edited by Overlord on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:09:24 AM
I'm sorry, but as soon as anyone talks about anarchism as a serious political ideology, I tune out.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:08:41 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
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It's kind of hard to escape populism if you do do any kind of political campaign. Hell, I don't think it is unreasonable to say that Biden's pre and early primary campaign was based on a kind of Centrist Populism with his big emphasis on a return to normalcy and a rejection of extremists.
Admittedly he never really framed the people he's against as elites so that isn't quite the best example.
Edited by Mio on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:11:53 AM
When I turn on the TV and see shows like Desperate Housewives and 90 Day Fiancee glorifying the dumbest, most selfish, most self-centered, and least educated people in the country, I think... yeah, let's appeal to populism. Clearly the average American understands all they need to know about economics, military strategy, international politics, science and technology, finance, law...
Let me clarify: there's nothing wrong with explaining to voters how policies will benefit them, or asking voters what they want. We should do that. The problem is when you create artificial divisions between the common person and "elites", be they intellectual, financial, or whatever, and then use those elites as scapegoats.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:13:16 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@ Fighter, Its not my ideology, but I think its interesting and legitimate. I buy into Market Socialism, less ambitious, but more achievable, IMO:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
I think there are some interesting anarchist thinkers out there, even if I do not agree with them on everything.
@ sgamer82, I also think you need populism to fight something like structural racism. BLM is populist movement, fighting elite racist power structures.
Edited by Overlord on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:15:58 AM
Admittedly he never really framed the people he's against as elites so that isn't quite the best example.
You can argue that populism has its place, if nothing else you need popularity to win elections, but when a movement or campaign seems based primarily on it, that's when you should be wary because, I think, that's when you start seeing people stop thinking.
Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:14:35 AM
Ironic, when racism is a highly populist phenomenon.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I find the disdain for populism rather than ignorance to be a disdain for the common people affected by law. It is the heart of the conservative movement and an enemy of democracy.
At the end, those ruled should say how they should be ruled.
Almost like populism means the opinion of the public and people who hate it don't care about the opinions of the people.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:15:10 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.On the other hand a lot of anti-populism has been trending towards a pro-elitist and even an anti-democratic strain, which I hopefully shouldn't have to say why that is bad.
I really don't want to see the broad trend of "Illiberal Democracy" countered with "Undemocratic Liberalism".
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It's really less important to me that any particular person is utilizing populism so much as who are they defining as the "people" and who are they defining as the "elites". That'll tell you a lot more about what their program actually is rather then just focusing on their rhetoric.
Edited by Mio on Sep 5th 2020 at 10:17:46 AM
Three Arrows has repeatedly called out people for preferring fascism to an imperfect candidate, so there's that.
That's lovely to hear, his content has been great and it would be awful if he was a buster like Shaun.
Ironic, when racism is a highly populist phenomenon.
I'm not sure how useful statements like this are.
Anti-racism has also been a highly populist phenomenon.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:17:51 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangYes, people who hate populism seem to have a decided strain of royalist, "Only the elite should dictate to the unwashed mashes" attitudes that I sincerely loathe.
Not all of them but enough I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who uses it as a slur.
People accused abolitionism and Civil Rights of being populist rhetoric.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I'm going to argue there's a distinct difference between 'anti-intellectualism' and 'anti-elitism'. One seems to dismiss the idea that there could be people with a better understanding and therefore better equipped to answer questions than any random person. The other seems against people acting 'better than the common person' for whatever reason. They can interact, but are not synonymous.
The American Revolution was anti-elite. The King and Parliament thought they were better than the North Americans implicitly and had a right to set the rules. The Americans disagreed.
The anti-vaccine movement, or at least a lot of it, is anti-intellectual. No matter there is no actual evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism and what doctors say (and the one study which suggested so was discredited and could not be replicated), they know better.

@M84: I'm not sure if that's a useful definition, especially if you are taking a pro or anti-populist stance since that just allows you to dismiss large swathes of views and opinions without even having to think about it.
I tend to prefer to define populism as a style of rhetoric that defines a "people", and an "elite", and defines them as "good" and "bad" respectively.
Something to keep in mind is that no political program can represent all of the people so whoever the "people" and "elites" are is something that is defined and constructed by whoever the political populist are. That's how you can get such narrow definitions as "White Middle Americans" as being the "people" while everyone on the coast is the elites.
That latter part is why I would consider populism to be dangerous as opposed to just a general anti-elitism, because sometimes the elites are bad and should be opposed. But that requires identifying who the elites in society really are and if their influence is negative, as opposed to the elites just being whoever you don't like.
Edited by Mio on Sep 5th 2020 at 9:58:51 AM