Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Bogobam here. For years now, populists have
Speaker 1: been popping up all over the globe, from India and
Speaker 1: Europe to the Philippines in South America, and of course
Speaker 1: into the United States. Politicians with populist leanings and those
Speaker 1: who have gone full fledged populist in their quest for
Speaker 1: power have been making a lot of noise and a
Speaker 1: good deal of trouble. Think Marine Lapine in France, Victor
Speaker 1: Orban in Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, former Venezuelan
Speaker 1: President Hugo Chavez, India's Prime Minister Nearndra Modi, and ys
Speaker 1: by many people's definition, Donald Trump in the United States.
Speaker 1: But what is a populist? What is populism? Answering that
Speaker 1: is notoriously difficult. A part of the difficulty arises from
Speaker 1: the fact that populists can come from all part of
Speaker 1: the political spectrum. There are leftist populists around the world
Speaker 1: who combine various forms of socialism with their populist message.
Speaker 1: There are those on the right who push anti immigration
Speaker 1: and anti lgbt Q plus platforms in their populism. Populism
Speaker 1: in general refers to appealing to ordinary people as a
Speaker 1: political ideology or approach. It involves emphasizing the wants, needs, voices,
Speaker 1: and good qualities of the common people, and it usually
Speaker 1: does so by contrasting this idea of the good common
Speaker 1: people with the bad elite working against them. Best case scenario,
Speaker 1: a populist leader would be honestly looking at the issues
Speaker 1: that ordinary people face and helping create solutions for them,
Speaker 1: thus making the will of the people law, and that
Speaker 1: is what populist leaders tend to promise. Unfortunately, what tends
Speaker 1: to happen, and what political scientists have observed in the
Speaker 1: aforementioned play is, is these populist leaders bending the definitions
Speaker 1: of both the common people and the elite in order
Speaker 1: to gain power within a democratic system, and then undermining
Speaker 1: the very fabric of that democracy in order to stay
Speaker 1: in power, de emphasizing some of the crucial parts of
Speaker 1: the democratic process, such as the articulation of varied interests
Speaker 1: and the thoughtful mediation of those interests. It can be
Speaker 1: incredibly effective for the leader and incredibly damaging for the
Speaker 1: democracy that they're distorting, and for anyone who lives within
Speaker 1: that democracy who isn't in the group that the leader
Speaker 1: has defined as the common people. So worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: populism redefines the common people as a group with narrow
Speaker 1: interests and then insists that only their will matters. We
Speaker 1: spoke with political scientists Anna Gujmala Bussa, a professor at
Speaker 1: Stanford University and the director of the School Rules Global
Speaker 1: Populisms Project, which published a white paper in March called
Speaker 1: Global Populisms and their Challenges. It addresses the threats of
Speaker 1: populism and identifies several possible solutions. According to the paper,
Speaker 1: populism is growing across the globe because of the failure
Speaker 1: of major political parties to address the thorny issues that
Speaker 1: ordinary people face in today's world, immigration, economic inequality, and globalism,
Speaker 1: just to name a few. This gives populist leaders a
Speaker 1: sort of foot in the door to claim that not
Speaker 1: only the elite members of those political parties are bad,
Speaker 1: but that the whole system is bad. Populist leaders climbed
Speaker 1: to prominence by dividing society, splitting it into two not
Speaker 1: just separate but opposing factions, the people and the elite.
Speaker 1: A University of Georgia political scientists by the name of cast.
Speaker 1: Mood explained it this way in an article for Vice.
Speaker 1: Quote the key distinction between the people and the elite
Speaker 1: is not based on class or power, but on morality.
Speaker 1: It is always the pure against the corrupt. But again,
Speaker 1: the people is often an exclusive group. But to quote
Speaker 1: the Stanford paper, populists redefine the people, often by excluding
Speaker 1: vulnerable ethnic or religious minorities, immigrants, and marginalized economic groups.
Speaker 1: The result is majority rule without minority rights. Once in power,
Speaker 1: populist leaders attack not only the rights of individuals who
Speaker 1: don't fit into the defined majority, but the very foundations
Speaker 1: on which the country lies. That includes the papers authors
Speaker 1: wrote quote, the takeover and taming of courts and oversight institutions,
Speaker 1: and new laws that limit the freedom of the media
Speaker 1: and civil society. We've seen this in the United States,
Speaker 1: with Trump calling the press the enemy of the people,
Speaker 1: criticizing judges, resisting congressional oversight, claiming that elections are rigged,
Speaker 1: flouting laws, and claiming that a deep state of bureaucratic
Speaker 1: actors is out to get him to deny the will
Speaker 1: of the people he represents. It happens with other populist
Speaker 1: leaders all over the world. Gamala Busa explained the mindset, saying,
Speaker 1: the opposition is the enemy of the people. Why would
Speaker 1: you listen to them? The media is the swamp. Why
Speaker 1: would you listen to them? Everything is fake, everything is suspect,
Speaker 1: and no one is to be trusted except the populace.
Speaker 1: And that populace, remember, does not include voices of the
Speaker 1: population's minorities or anyone who disagrees with the labeled majority.
Speaker 1: Gamala Busa said, this is not about making poor people wealthy.
Speaker 1: This is not about punishing the elite and redistributing wealth.
Speaker 1: There's almost nothing in the populist program that actually makes
Speaker 1: everyday people's lives better. Populists don't do that. They simply don't.
Speaker 1: It's not the people who have suffered the most who
Speaker 1: support populist parties. It's really sort of the people who
Speaker 1: fear dropping further down in societal prestige and economic status.
Speaker 1: Populist leaders often don't spring from the working class roots
Speaker 1: of what's thought of as being the people though. Consider
Speaker 1: Trump is a self professed billionaire real estate investor. Brazilian
Speaker 1: president Shaier Bosonar is a longtime congressman and military leader.
Speaker 1: Francis Lepine is the daughter of a career right wing
Speaker 1: politician the Philippines to Thirte spent decades as a mayor
Speaker 1: and lawyer, and India's Muody came from humble beginnings, but
Speaker 1: he's been in politics for more than forty years. Whatever
Speaker 1: their origins, populist leaders are identifiable by their claim to
Speaker 1: understand the people, by their US versus Them rhetoric, and
Speaker 1: by their assertations that they alone are the answer to
Speaker 1: the people's problems. They often speak in brash common of
Speaker 1: the people talk to. Despite their often highbrow educations, they're
Speaker 1: considered by many to be charismatic, and they damage democracies
Speaker 1: in other not readily apparent ways by striking down or
Speaker 1: radically altering what has become accepted over years of building
Speaker 1: a society, things like healthy debate, respect for opponents, and
Speaker 1: civil discourse. The illusion of telling it like it is
Speaker 1: draws in those looking for a change or not wanting
Speaker 1: to lose their grip on their place in society, but
Speaker 1: the populist leaders popularity is not forever. Populists who rise
Speaker 1: to power, the Stanford Project found often are punished more
Speaker 1: heavily by voters in trying to hang onto their power
Speaker 1: because they don't fulfill the promises they made. However, through
Speaker 1: these tactics of dividing people into good and bad, by
Speaker 1: chipping away at society's institutions, the courts, the media, the legislature,
Speaker 1: and by weakening norms of healthy debate, fair elections, and
Speaker 1: respect for one another, populists can hang on to power
Speaker 1: and even become all powerful. The Stanford paper authors wrote,
Speaker 1: the result is a gradual slide into authoritarianism, each step
Speaker 1: justified by the need to better root out disloyal elements
Speaker 1: and better serve the people read the partisan interests of
Speaker 1: the incumbents. Populism, gamal Abusa said, doesn't help the people
Speaker 1: it purports to serve. In the end, that's just politics.
Speaker 1: She also noted that populism and populist politicians aren't all bad.
Speaker 1: She said, I think populism in opposition of populists who
Speaker 1: don't enter government, play incredibly powerful roles in sort of
Speaker 1: shaking up the system, and above all, in reminding the
Speaker 1: existing political parties and politicians that they shouldn't be complacent.
Speaker 1: Today's episode it was written by John Donovan and produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other topics. Visit how stuffworks dot com. Green Stuff is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio. Or more podcasts my heart
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