Following the ascendancy of Boris Johnson to the position of Prime Minister of Britain, there has been much alarm expressed by the chattering classes and our erstwhile social media analysts about the seemingly undesirable rise of populism and populist politics within the global political arena.
Johnson’s stepping into office at Number 10 Downing street with its Brexit implications presents further evidence of the right wing, conservative advance (and the retreat of liberalism) within the global body politic that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Not only that, it also showcases the clear historical link between populism with its “Trumpean” characteristics in the current epoch and extreme nationalism, a topic and opinion piece on its own for another day I guess.
The interesting thing with this phenomenon, is that it cuts across both sides of the ideological terrain. We have Donald Trump and Boris Johnson on the right and Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn on the left, all populists tapping into the popular dissent with the current socio-economic climate, which advances the interests of an “oligarchic elite” at the expense of the common man, the ordinary citizen, the subalterns of society or in Fanonian phraseology “The Wretched of the Earth.”
So it would appear that populism, with its innate characteristics has no ideological biases unlike most of us who look at issues through the parochial lenses of our dogmatic ideological leanings. In considering all this, my point of departure was that populism is not a new or novel phenomenon within the global political arena, rather it is to some extent “the essence of the quintessence” of modern, popular (there is a reason why it is called that) democracy with all its idiosyncrasies.
Politics after all, is about the contestation of power and within the modern, democratic framework the person or party that wins the “popular vote” in the end attains the power that is needed in order to advance a certain political programme or agenda. (Although, this “popular vote” phenomenon did not work for Hillary Clinton in the context of the American electoral college system). So populism is by definition a permanent feature of democratic politics not a recent, unwanted phenomenon.
In fact, the best politicians throughout history have used populist appeals to advance themselves and whatever agendas they espouse to, whether right or wrong. Hence, Adolf Hitler, one of the greatest orators in history, was a brilliant politician. At this point, I must put forward the disclaimer that this is an objective analysis of Hitler the politician’s modus operandi to attain and retain power through populist, nationalist appeal within the modern political context, not a normative approval of his warped, evil ideas lest I end up in trouble like a mate of mine who is a prominent #FeesMustFall leader in this country.