• WatDabney@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Populism is a reactionary movement. It doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere - it comes to be specifically if and when there’s a relatively common perception among the people that the government no longer serves their interests.

    The solution then is simple and straightforward, at least in principle - all it takes is for the government to institute the necessary reforms to win back the trust and support of the people.

    The problem comes because all too many politicians don’t have the necessary empathy, integrity and/or determination to actually do that.

    So they have nobody to blame but themselves.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Yup. I don’t even get what “populism” is when mentioned in media. Isn’t that-- democracy?

      I’m a leftist but even I understand when people come into the embrace of the far-right, because the mainstream parties neglected the people’s everyday concerns.

      People who are hungry, people who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

      • Franklin Roosevelt
      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        3 months ago

        People are also using “populism” here to be a solely negative political movement associated with the right wing, but it’s just a matter of people thinking the people running society aren’t doing a good job for the majority. Not sure if that’s intentional or not, but it’s a value-neutral political expression. Anywhere you say “populism” you should generally be able to substitute “anti-establishmentism” and it’ll be roughly correct, but doing so in a lot of these comments doesn’t make sense. The establishment isn’t inherently good, though I can see why the head of the largest religious establishment in the world might consider challenges to it bad.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Seems to me the rise in populism in western countries are the majority being treated the same as minorities.