“Economics creates the conditions — insecurity, a sense of decline, distrust of elites. But immigration (framed as cultural threat, not just economic competition) is what converts that grievance into a right-wing populist vote. The slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” famously explained Bill Clinton’s 1992 win. For right-wing populism, researchers are now saying almost the opposite: it’s the culture, not just the economy.”
Japan has a right-wing populist movement that is anti-immigrant, wary of foreigners, and wants to return to Japan’s great past. It has connections with right wing movements in Germany and the US.
Trump is moving the United States in an authoritarian direction and there is a real question as to whether authoritarianism will consolidate, or Democracy will survive.
There are post-truth authoritarian movements in the West, and it’s not clear which countries will survive as democracies.
Many politicians won’t act against Trump because they are afraid it will hurt their careers.
“The Tea Party that arose in 2009 seemed initially focused on bailouts, health care, and taxes. But new research suggests that concerns about cultural change and distrust of distant elites, the same themes that drove Trump supporters, were also central to the Tea Party—not just in the electorate but among activists and even for aligned Members of Congress.
What made the Tea Partiers in Congress different from your average Republican, the so-called establishment Republicans, was not their position on fiscal or economic matters. Instead, it was they had different positions on civil rights and social policies.
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In the book, Change They Can’t Believe In, Chris Parker and Matt Barreto had previously shown that the Tea Party’s mass supporters stood out for their racial concerns, not their economic views. Gervais and Morris finds that it was not just voters, but legislators who stood out mainly on cultural concerns
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In terms of the Tea Party organizations, I think they were absolutely interested in lots of fiscal conservatism, and this is really what their ultimate goals were, were to see fiscally conservative policy passed, but they saw in the Tea Party movement, or the feelings of resentment in the electorate as an opportunity, and I argue it was the same case with House leadership as well. Going into 2010, Paul Ryan, Eric Canter, Kevin McCarthy and John Boehner as well, saw an opportunity here, saw an energy that could be utilized to retake the House and perhaps pass fiscally conservative legislation. It’s sort of a means to an end, sort of this latent resentment here, is there to be mined and utilized, even if they don’t necessarily agree with the rhetoric or agree with the goals of the Tea Party in the electorate.
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the Tea Party wasn’t just a group of angry people wearing three quartered hats and waving flags. It was and is this sustained alternative energy within the Republican Party.”
“Trump does all the same things as the authoritarians Levitsky and Ziblatt studied: He has refused to accept electoral defeats; called political opponents criminals and tried to jail them even while backing his own violent supporters; and lashed out at opponents and the media as “enemies of the people” — a chilling phrase that echoes Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
But Trump’s authoritarianism also resembles that of dangerous populists who failed to kill democracy. Careful studies that never seem to get much press find that only about a fifth of dangerous populists actually kill democracy, including in different regions and across different time spans. If you’re serious about weighing the Trump threat, you should be asking what makes the difference between countries where democracy died and countries where it survives.”
“Aside from his norm-breaking appeal, Milei’s approach is far different than Trump’s. Milei vowed free-market reforms to overturn decades of populist Perónism—a statist ideology that infected Argentina’s politics since Juan Domingo Perón won the presidency in 1946. His authoritarian approach has dominated the country’s politics for 80 years, with Milei beating Perónist opponents.
By contrast, Trump is overturning America’s historical embrace of free markets and free trade. He sets himself up as an all-powerful charismatic leader, inserts the feds deeply into the economy, and expands the reach of police and military forces. Like Perón, he’s doing it in the name of the “working class.” The U.S. Department of State once described Perónism as a “vague concept of social justice in some ways more akin to a religion than a political movement,” which sounds eerily like MAGA.
Perónism is more avowedly leftist than Trumpism, but MAGA’s “right-wing” policies sometimes seem indistinguishable from left-wing ones. Argentina’s populist movement has been successful at one thing: turning one of the world’s wealthiest countries into an impoverished basket case. Americans think of Argentina as a benighted third-world nation. But as economist Dan Mitchell explains, it was the 10th wealthiest nation in the world when Perón took over. It was often viewed as a European nation that happened to be in Latin America.
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On an unrelated note, Milei isn’t smitten by overseas authoritarians, unlike our president. Overall, Milei is using his power to loosen the government’s grip, whereas Trump—although he occasionally reduces regulations—is centralizing government power. The two men have bad hair and unpredictable temperaments, but beyond that the similarities dissipate quickly.”
“Right-wing populism is a strange bird, an ideology that’s not grounded in any enduring economic or philosophical principles. It mainly entails using the government to address a variety of ill-formed social, nationalistic, and cultural grievances. Former British politician David Gauke was spot on when he says that populism amounts to little more than “a willingness by politicians to say what they think the public wants to hear.”
That’s why President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments reflect a mish-mash of conflicting opinions. Many conservatives were, for instance, shocked by his selection of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R–Ore.) as Labor Secretary given that her pro-union positions aren’t different from those advocated by President Joe Biden.”