Comment by throwaway5752
1 day ago
You're finding somethere where nothing exists on the basis of semantics. Donald Trump is not a populist and he stated economic policy is simply "stated". Society just has become so trusting that someone can go about bald-faced lying about their beliefs and actions, while doing the opposite, without consequence.
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are on polar opposite ends of ideologies.
Bernie Sanders has a lifetime record of integrity, working to fairly distribute wealth, and good and transparent governance.
Donald Trump has a lifetime record of bankruptcies, fraud convictions, lying about his policies for the working while governing for the richest people, using government to enrich himself, and using government to hide his misdeeds and shield himself and his business partners from accountability. Donald Trump says he is many things he is not, and simply believing the words that come out of his mouth is being gullible.
I am not even a Bernie Sanders supporter.
Do you know what populism is, or do you think you know what populism is because you're inferring it from random social media posts?
Since you asked, I do.
There's a matter of debate as to what populism is. And on both ends of that debate are Trump and Sanders.
Sanders is the archetype of an ideological populist, related to socialism, and he believes in governing for the popular good, it is why he is an independent. He's a throwback to early 20th century social programs. It is relatively noble and good. He wants fair redistribution of wealth. He wants to remove wealth's influence from the democratic process. He has a lifetime of track record and governance as proof.
Trump is the archetype of the "thin center" populist. He has no real driving philosophy of governance, and demagogues under the banner of populism. He panders to the religious right even though he can't name a book of the Bible. He panders to the nationalists and bigots. He panders to patriots. And he sets up his opposition, regardless of truth, as the opposite of those things.
Trump is a populist in the way the Goebbels set Hitler up as a populist (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/making-a-l..., https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/1934-nazi-pa..., and https://museums.nuernberg.de/documentation-center/topics/nat...). That is to say, he is not one at all, he just lies about it to exploit division.
edit: we're just talking past each other. Bernie Sanders is a left wing populist. Ron Paul is a right wing populist. Massie is a right wing populist. My point is that Trump is simply a fake populist. He says populist things and doesn't believe or act on them for the most part. He's simply a kleptocrat with autocratic tendencies.
Since when was Thomas Massie a populist?
I think you're right. People have been fooled into thinking he's a populist. He uses some populist trappings but look, for example, what he's done about Epstein: he's running interference for billionaires, contradicting what he promised to do. His bombing of Iran is not populist, either.
No, there isn't really much debate, but definitely a lot of debate between left wing and right wing populism, which seems to be what you are stuck on.
It seems like I'm trying to tell you he is a populist, and you are trying to tell me his a bad person/bad leader. Which is true, but orthogonal to populism.
But if it helps, in my original comment I laid out many of Trump's populist policies. Ironically many of these are shared with Bernie, or if they had originated with Bernie, would have been celebrated.
Remember many Bernie bros went to trump in 2016, because Hilary's list of policies looks nothing like the one I laid out above.