America Swallows the Populism Pill
What Could Go Wrong?
Image by Michael Vadon, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The United States is in a remarkable point in its politics. With the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House, who will by all accounts be far more prepared this time around, the US just swallowed the populism pill. We’re hardly the first. Populism is a tried and true political path, and there are both left-wing (think Venezuela or Argentina) and right-wing (think Hungary or Poland) stripes of it.
What’s (relatively) new is that populism is coming for advanced democracies. And it’s upending some of the received wisdoms that political scientists have long held dear. Like the notion that wealthy democracies in particular are somehow inoculated against authoritarianism.
So what is the new American Populism going to look like? Will the US wall itself off from the world? Will the government really attack core American institutions and the media? Could Trump actually remake the political landscape?
Lots of pundits and political strategists are already talking about a major political realignment. And Democratic party operatives and allies are lawyered up, prepped to resist Trump’s policies in the coming years. Buckle up, because things are about to get interesting.
So far, how we’ve gotten here and where we’re going seems to hue fairly closely to the standard populist playbook that we’ve seen work elsewhere. Trump has made crystal clear his intent to attack institutions and “the establishment”, including the media, “elites,” and the bureaucracy. He promises a nostalgia-tinged return to the basics and “common sense,” and he vows to return power to the people.
A lot of this resonates with people, which after all helps to explain his election win. Of course, the economy and anti-incumbent effects lingering from the pandemic’s aftermath was huge and can’t be overstated. And how people acquire information matters, as do sentiments toward immigration, the housing crisis and more. But it’s impossible to ignore how much American trust in institutions across the board – Congress, the courts, the media, etc – has declined. People don’t have faith in government and the establishment.
Enter the populist. Cut government waste and inefficiency? Hell yeah. Slash taxes? I’m with you. Protect American jobs? You’re speaking my language. Goose the economy? Sign me up. Keep my child tax credits, social security, health care? Sounds good.
As it turns out, populist messages are often popular. Most people are going to get something they want. You might too, even if the broader picture is hard to stomach.
Populists have a typical playbook once they’re in office. Deliver some quick wins for the people and stoke the economy. Attack your enemies: harass them legally, expropriate or buy out or co-opt them. Prize loyalty above all else. Institutions can’t be trusted and personalism rules the day. Fear, risk aversion, and picking and choosing winners and losers all help to cultivate loyalty. Telegraph your messianic message everywhere. It’s one of several well-trodden paths that authoritarians take.
But there’s a hitch, of course. Populists discount the future. They sell the future down the river in order to get elected and stay in power in the present. Who’s going to pay for all this stuff? We’ll worry about that later. What if the climate is wrecked? Hey, we’re talking about jobs and housing and dignity today here.
Short-term thinking causes economic and political distortions. Eventually the bills start to pile up. But populists can’t accept that. They deepen the distortions and manipulate the rules of the game in order stay in power and keep on chugging. Think of Erdogan in Turkey or Chávez in Venezuela.
But eventually things unravel. Populist after populist has gone down when the tide of mismanagement piles up and becomes impossible to ignore.
The US isn’t a dictatorship. And the path to centralizing power isn’t easy. Opposition and checks will come from many quarters. But Trump will give it a try. The outcome isn’t going to be some sort of fascist Germany or Italy, as some democrats are fearing. It’s far more likely to be like Orban’s Hungary or Poland under the Peace and Justice Party if everything goes Trump’s way
Recovering from populism
How long could this possibly last, and what might it take to put Humpty Dumpty back together again once Trump is finally gone from the political stage? Lessons from other countries that have swallowed the populism pill show that we’re likely going to be saddled with populism and its aftermath for some time. Once democracy is damaged, it becomes harder to reconstruct it.
Populism sets into motion a winner-take-all type of politics. Barriers to the “will of the majority” – especially the courts and the media – are attacked, pressured, stacked with loyalists, and in some cases dismantled. Politics become polarized. Norms of restraint evaporate.
That can set off a spiraling dynamic of reprisals between an incumbent populist that wants to win and a vulnerable opposition that tries to remain in the game.
That contestation can drive a country into dictatorship in several ways. The incumbent could slowly win out, tilting the playing field to his advantage, making democracy wither slowly. I’ve written about this in Venezuela.
Or the opposition may decide that the only way to survive is to play foul. Say the right’s reaction in Chile to Salvador Allende – the Pinochet coup. In today’s world, though, direct military interventions are less common.
The slow slide into a “hybrid regime” or an “electoral authoritarian” regime can often last a long time. Think of how Turkey started out. Or where Hungary is at.
It can also result in a very polarized political environment in which, even if dictatorship is avoided, yields low-quality democracy where each political bloc uses the levers of the state to its advantage when in power and as a cudgel against opponents. Take Argentina in the decades of Peronism.
Most of these examples hint that it’s far easier to succumb to populism than to eliminate it. Poland is a good recent example. After 8 years of populist rule by the Law and Justice party, last year the opposition won and came back to power. But it is finding it difficult to rule in a remade political landscape where the legal system is in tatters and the media landscape has been severely damaged.
That makes it hard to govern effectively, which in turn could give more fuel to the populists over time. Against a favorable economic backdrop with more than one term in office, the new governing coalition could repair institutions enough and try to open up new axes of political competition. But that remains to be seen.
The lesson is clear: once a country starts down the populist road, it is difficult to turn back around quickly. For many reasons, I don’t anticipate the most dire consequences of populism in the US, not least because of its exceptional decentralization, professional military, and traditions of political opposition. But it’s easy to envision long-lasting ripple effects that will far outlive whatever happens in the next four years.