Re: The Left Is Demonizing Populists - For Pushing What the Left Once Believed

[Fred J McCall]

In article <u53noa$1rk5b$1...@dont-email.me>
governo...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Democrats are hypocrits and they don't deny it.
>

Earlier this year, British comedian-turned podcaster Russell
Brand interviewed Thomas Frank, the long-standing liberal
defender of American populism. For a man who has spent several
decades imploring liberals to listen to what working-class and
rural America are saying, in this instance, he failed to heed
his own advice. When asked by Brand about the contemporary
American populist movement, as represented by Steve Bannon,
Frank replied,

"In my opinion, there is no such thing as right-wing populism,
there are people who mimic it, and Steve Bannon, Donald Trump,
would be people I would list. But populism is the Jeffersonian
tradition in American life. It is a democratic, left-wing
movement. It's about building a mass movement, a transracial
mass movement of working class people for economic democracy.
That's what it is, that's what it's always been."

With that one statement, Frank brushed off the closest thing our
current moment has to a democratic, transracial, mass movement
of working-class people. He dismissed the only the only serious
counterweight to woke corporate hegemony. He denigrated
contemporary working-class movements that are far closer to the
Wobblies of the early 20th century labor battles than they are
to the Black- or Brownshirts of the dark days of European
fascism.

Sadly, Frank is not an aberration but an exemplar par excellence
of a type of thinking that's taken hold of the Left, namely,
conflating being Left-wing with moral goodness, to the extent
that anything not Left-wing is a moral evil. Thanks to this line
of thinking, the Left has taken to seeing the actual populist
movements rising up across the globe as a threat—though these
Right-wing populist movements embody a broad coalition of non-
elites advocating for themselves against powerful governments
and corporations—in other words, the very thing that the Left is
supposed to itself embody.

Confronted with Right-inspired populist movements like parents
showing up at school board meetings in Virginia, truckers
protesting in Canada, and Brexit voters in the north of
England—people of all races who simply do not want their basic,
fundamental values transgressed—the Left sees only white
supremacists, fascists, and racists. Even the word "populism" is
more often than not preceded adjectives like "far right" and
"extremist" in mainstream liberal media.

The result is a truly tragic missed opportunity for solidarity
between Left and Right. But it's also proof of how far the Left
has fallen from its mission.

After all, what is a populist if not someone who stands for
fairness for the little guy: a level economic playing field,
financial reform, a scaling back of excessive government power,
and a rejection of absolutist ideologies. These were once Left-
wing values; now, the Left systematically portrays the
grassroots populist movements springing up across the world to
address these issues as white supremacist, far right actors.

This broad brush character assassination has reached the highest
levels of power, as evidenced by President Joe Biden's speech
last week denouncing MAGA Republicans in Philadelphia. The most
chilling thing the President said was not the accusation of
fascism against his political opposition, but rather, his
revealing statement that he can only work with "mainstream
Republicans." Biden wants you to think that he is cutting out
the "semi-fascist" MAGA wing, as he called them a few weeks ago,
but what he's actually doing is cutting out the populist wing.
Biden was essentially saying to any American looking for real
reform: You are my enemy.

That should have alarmed the liberal Left as much as it did the
Right. Yet the Left mostly embraced the speech. Like Thomas
Frank, if you're not Left, you can't possibly be on the side of
the good. Ergo, the thinking goes, you're on the side of
fascists.

They let themselves get away with this because they don't know
how to listen. Former Bernie Sanders spokesperson Briahna Joy
Gray acknowledged this a few weeks ago, as she patiently tried
to explain in an interview with progressive journalist Cenk
Uygur at The Young Turks that it might be wise for the Left to
recognize a difference between a sworn political adversary—she
mentioned Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green—and the ordinary
men and women who support Green, in case the Left might be able
to win them over. In response, Uygur spent most of the interview
berating Gray, calling her and others like her who are willing
to speak to people on the other side "fake Leftists."

Self-described progressive Uygur and his Young Turks show are
the Left-wing equivalent of the populist Bannon's War Room, a
popular podcast that reaches millions. But Uygur is far less
smart and less effective, in part because unlike Bannon, he has
no cross over appeal. He can barely have a civil discussion with
his own side. Meanwhile, Bannon welcomes onto his show with open
arms prominent left-wing figures like Naomi Wolf.

For the many who feel besieged by insane political rhetoric and
personal attacks, any genuine cross-party discussion feels like
sanity. But now Bannon is facing a host of charges over a border-
wall fundraising scam that Trump pardoned him for—something he
has cast as an attempt to silence him.

Whatever the legal technicalities of this case turn out to be,
for it to come from the same political culture that overlooked
the evidence of Hunter Biden's corruption means that Bannon's
prosecution will simply provide further proof to his fellow
populists that the state is intent on making an enemy out of
them.

It's a pretty amazing thing to see those who dare point out the
uni-party, who hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible
for policies that benefit the only the rich and corporations, be
attacked not by the Right but by the Left.

This tactic prevents a serious, effective, non-partisan, people-
led opposition. And who benefits from that?

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter.
Visit her Substack here.

https://www.newsweek.com/left-demonizing-populists-pushing-what-
left-used-believe-opinion-1741529