Britain s Populist Fantasies

Elsewhere, populist anti European parties of the right have been gaining ground with campaigns directed against immigrants and minorities, especially Muslims. This has fueled concern that the populist bloc will be the largest in the European Parliament after next year s EU wide election.

Evo Morales and the Populist Paradox

I've borrowed the hackneyed old populist slogan

It is often said that populists cannot govern, or will be exposed as incompetent, when elected to office. According to this view, populist parties are essentially protest parties, and protest cannot govern, because it is impossible to protest against oneself.

The first at least is populist, and the second is elitist.

The first at least is populist, and the second is elitist.

The best response to today s unholy alliance of populist racist parties is courage, determination, and clarity of position. Any alliance by mainstream conservative parties with far right forces will turn out to be a guarantee of defeat moral as well as political.

Politicians are universally reviled. Mainstream parties, desperate to remain relevant, are caught in a vice, forced to choose between pandering to extremism and the risk of being overwhelmed by populist, anti establishment movements.

Meanwhile, in the European Union, an election has come to a close. But it was an election for nothing the outcome merely reinforced the growing divide between pro Europeans and Euro skeptic populist parties.

In the US, Congress and the executive branch are locked in a stalemate. Europe's political systems are being shaken by the rise of populist parties, many of which are winning support with an anti European platform.

Today s sentiment has been fueled by populist parties positioning themselves as guardians of national identity. Europe, they argue, faces a mass influx that threatens to place even greater strain on its economies, labor markets, and cultures.

Populist anti euro parties of the right and the left are challenging Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. And Marine Le Pen of the far right National Front is polling well ahead of the 2017 French presidential election.

The first two falsehoods deceptions as large as I can remember witnessing during an election campaign are being peddled by the country s two most successful populist parties the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP).

Two types of contemporary populist, however, stand out the ultra rich business tycoon and the clown. In the Anglo Saxon media world, Rupert Murdoch, owner of far too many newspapers, TV stations, and movie studios, is a typical populist tycoon.

Deliberately populist media efforts have succeeded in mischaracterizing security problems as well as the victims of insecurityy.

Right wing populist parties in Europe regularly whip up popular sentiment against Muslim minorities by condemning their treatment of women. There is no doubt that many Muslim men treat women in ways that most modern people in the West would no longer condone.

That 29 is about 15 more than populist right wing parties get in very good years (for them) in other European countries. Strache, the leader of the Freedom Party, wants the government to create a new ministry to manage the deportation of immigrants.

Not surprisingly, that change has fueled demands for more national sovereignty, which populist parties, such as Greece's newly elected Syriza, have translated into electoral success. All of these parties, whether on the right or the left, place national sovereignty at odds with the so called external powers, and seek to tilt the EU's political axis accordingly.

The demagogic, populist reform of Pétion followed, during which the large properties were in the hands of senior officers.

Among the leading politicians of the parties that overwhelmingly won the parliamentary elections the neo liberal Civic Platform and the conservative populist Law and Justice almost every face has been around since 1989. So the members of the new government, although not physically old, are politically geriatric.

But the alternative could be worse a populist backlash that destroys much of what Mexico has achieved over the last two decades.

New populist parties in Italy, Greece, and Germany reflect the direction in which politics is moving, not the final destination. Their ability to win support from both the left and the right suggests a shared aspiration to rebuild the protective national barriers that the post War generation demolished.

New populist parties garner large numbers of votes simply by frightening people about the supposed horrors of Islam, or of clashing civilizations. For the populists, however, the real enemies perhaps even more nefarious than the immigrants themselves are the cosmopolitan elites who tolerate and even encourage these horrors.

Beppe Grillo s populist Five Star Movement emerged with 25 of the popular vote the highest support for any single party. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, confounding those who had forecast his political demise, re emerged at the head of a populist rightist coalition that ended up only 0.3 percentage points away from winning.

The rejection of the EU seems more fundamental in parts of northern Europe, where the elderly tend to vote for right wing populist parties. Especially in the United Kingdom and France, unemployment and a perceived lack of control over borders have played a large role in fostering disaffection with the EU.

We rejected the tendency to equate asylum seekers with criminals, even terrorists, and deplored the harmful exploitation of this confusion by certain populist elements.

Likewise, her invitations to the White House are being used for populist messaging. Who came over to watch the White House chef with Mrs. Obama?

There is more interest in Sarkozy s populist ideas about currency intervention and adding a new political dimension to monetary policy decisions than is commonly realized.

Add to this the rise of populist and nationalist parties in Britain, partly a consequence of the political and economic alienation that have resulted from globalization and economic troubles, and Labour and the Conservatives are fighting over dwindling support. The latest polls indicate 34 support for Labour, and 32 for the Conservatives.

Meanwhile, the rise of identity driven political movements presents a huge challenge for Europe s traditional political parties. Mainstream conservatives, widely perceived as being in thrall to the economic interests of the wealthy, must find ways to appear populist but without sounding too much like their far right competitors on immigration and human rights.

This new nationalism takes different economic forms trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favoring domestic workers and firms, anti immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism. In the political realm, populist, anti globalization, anti immigration, and in some cases outright racist and anti Semitic parties are on the rise.

Austerity fatigue in the periphery is clearly evident from the success of anti establishment forces in Italy s recent election large street demonstrations in Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere and now the botched bailout of Cypriot banks, which has fueled massive public anger. Throughout the periphery, populist parties of the left and right are gaining ground.

Can the French really violate their values to such an extent? Will re introduction of the death penalty be the next step on this populist downward spiral?

Such populist measures are vote winners. The civil rights of small religious minorities do not matter much politically the perceived rights of animals (and economic motivations) do.

Correcting these policy failures is made more difficult by the rise of populist political forces. The National Front in France, the United Kingdom Independence Party, and far right anti immigration parties in Sweden, Denmark, and Italy are picking up votes and shutting down informed public debate on a tough policy question that has no easy answers.

In this environment, the full economic, banking, fiscal, and political union that a stable monetary union eventually requires is not viable The eurozone core opposes more risk sharing, solidarity, and faster integration. And populist parties of the right and left anti EU, anti euro, anti migrant, anti trade, and anti market are becoming stronger throughout Europe.

LAGUNA BEACH Dark clouds are lowering over Europe s economic future, as three distinct tempests gather the Greek crisis, Russia s incursion in Ukraine, and the rise of populist political parties. Though each poses a considerable threat, Europe, aided by the recent cyclical pickup, is in a position to address them individually, without risking more than a temporary set of disruptions.

The first is economic not just the current reality of slow growth, but the prospect that slow growth will continue without respite, owing above all to policies that often discourage businesses from investing and hiring. The rise of populist political parties of both the left and the right across the continent attests to popular frustrations and fears.

This combination of high debt and rising inequality may be the source of the secular stagnation that is making structural reforms more politically difficult to implement. If anything, the rise of nationalistic, populist, and nativist parties in Europe, North America, and Asia is leading to a backlash against free trade and labor migration, which could further weaken global growth.

Pheu Thai s victory thus suggests that a previously marginalized electorate has been permanently awakened. A similar majority of the Thai electorate voted for Thaksin s parties and their pro poor populist platforms in January 2001, February 2005, April 2006, and December 2007, defying a military coup, a coup induced constitution, judicial interventions, and army coercion and repression.

Then consider Poland, where the Kaczynski twins, who hold the presidency and the prime ministership, have allied themselves with populist, xenophobic, and anti Semitic parties. One of their priorities is to attack the central bank and slander its governor, Leszek Balcerowicz, the iconic father of Poland s economic transformation, with accusations that echo those of the Stalinist era.

Italy s parliament is divided among three mutually incompatible political forces, with none strong enough to rule alone. Worse, one of these forces, which won 25 of the vote, is an anti euro populist party, while another, a Euro skeptic group led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, received close to 30 support, giving anti euro parties a clear majority.

When Tamil Nadu s chief minister at the time, the film star M.G. Ramachandran, introduced free school meals statewide, the measure was widely criticized as populist and fiscally irresponsible.

The tone of populist movements, whether in Europe, Asia, or the US, would suggest that the elites are too powerful, that they dominate the little people, whose voices are drowned out by the liberals, the multiculturalists, and the city slickers. This is a common form of populist paranoia, promoted in the US by radio talk show hosts and Fox television, and in Europe by men like Wilders.