Populists don’t much care for ‘ordinary’ people

Have you noticed that populist politicians keep a careful distance from their supporters.

US President Donald Trump has been caught on tape reveling in the dumbness of his supporters. They were nowhere to be seen at his recent inauguration in a room packed with billionaires and other luminaries. You would be even harder pressed to have found them at the fancy balls which followed, all of which were reeking of money, and the haute couture that the average MEGA baseball cap wearer could not even contemplate buying let alone wearing.

The Donald sure loves the rich and will be using his presidency to make them even richer. To ensure that the interests of the seriously rich are protected he has even installed an unprecedented number of billionaires into his administration.

In Planet Populist, stretching well beyond America, the rich are expected to look after their leaders who show a remarkable ability to emerge from their spells in power as billionaires in their own right.

Britain’s Poundshop Trump, Nigel Farage is no position to install anyone into positions of power but he is doing an impressive job of revving up his Reform Party, largely targeting working class supporters.

After many attempts at being elected to Parliament he has finally persuaded the electors of Clacton to propel him over to Westminster. Clacton is notably a low income zone and it’s a safe bet to assume that the majority of those voting for Mr. Farage were people with very little cash.

Their new MP rarely visits his depressed constituency and even made a pathetic attempt to dispense with the elementary job of setting up a local surgery to deal with constituents. He has shown no such reluctance in cultivating the seriously rich and entertaining them at a fancy Mayfair private members club, hardly the sort of place that would deign to open its doors to the doyens of Clacton.

Messers Trump and Farage share much in common with other populist politicians who keep a careful social distance between themselves and their supporters, except at election time and when mobilization of the Great Unwashed is considered to be necessary.

Harder to explain is why their most enthusiastic supporters so readily accept their isolation from their revered leaders.

But it is explicable when considering the essential concept of populist leadership. The leader is seen as a God-like figure who stands above the masses and is invested with special qualities that set them apart from ordinary mortals. They are therefore not expected to mix with the masses or even share the lives of ordinary folk.

Donald Trump is an interesting study in this respect because he often refers to himself as having been chosen by God for a special mission to save the American people. He says that he was saved from an assassin’s bullet by divine intervention and has even gone so far as to produce his own signature version of the bible indicating a special relationship with the Almighty, albeit of a rather corporate variety.

Like most populists Mr. Trump is adroit at using religion for his own purposes even though he is not particularly religious himself. He firmly believes in his own supernatural powers and it is an open question whether they were bestowed by a celestial entity.

The important thing for populists is to create a cult of personality, so, personal branding is always important. What is nowadays referred to as merch has always been a big thing with populist leaders whose image is stamped on all manner of products and, of course, reinforced by countless portraits bursting out all over the place.

The mistake usually made by the populist’s opponents, is to decry their followers for stupidity, a response which tends to engender even greater loyalty to the leader.

The more wily anti-populists keep well away from personal attacks and focus on the outcome of what their opponents are doing. In other words they steer clear of the theatrics which are a big part of populism and concentrate on consequences, consequences that are clear and readily identifiable to people who see that for all the flag waving and noise the quality of their lives is rarely improved, certainly not to the extent of the rewards bestowed on those close to the leaders.

Because populists promise so much and deliver so little, their fall, when it comes, is precipitous and tends to be brutal. The populist regimes that survive can only do so by imposing a reign of terror which ultimately leads to resistance and downfall.

That, at any rate, is what passes for optimism in these troubled times.