Matthew Crosston Power Populism: The Battle between Putin, Trump, and the Liberal Elite
In traditional understandings of classical populism, power is commonly defined as being in need of devolving from the corridors of power and out to a more grassroots foundation. At its core, populism was usually seen as a belief in empowering regular people. ‘Regular people’ were typically defined as being disconnected, if not outright disenfranchised, from central power and outside the realm of the ‘elite’ (Acemoglu, Yegorov and Sonin, 2013, pp. 771-774). This paper investigates the modern phenomenon in Russia and America that turns these traditional concepts completely on their head. Rather than being a movement engineered against elite political insiders, populism in America and Russia currently seems to be occupied by very specific segments of elites in society. Ironically, these elites position themselves as the chosen representatives of the disenfranchised.
These strange bedfellows have arguably produced a new form of power populism: instead of being focused on removing power from the state, this populism is founded more upon strengthening the global position of the state while tacitly dismissing/attacking the perceived liberal intellectual elite of each society, where the true proponents of traditional populism tend to reside (Oliver, Rahn and Bartels, 2016, pp. 193-197). Dissecting this phenomenon (including an examination of how the phenomenon of ‘post-truth’ politics plays an important role in the geopolitical prediction of where this disturbing new form of populism may go) and concluding what trends may emerge from it will go a long way in predicting not just future trends in domestic politics but the very future of Russian-American relations on the global stage. Because if one thing seems to be clear, there is a distinction between traditional populism and this new power populism, namely their ultimate positions of focus: no longer enthralled with traditional populism’s concentration on improving and making a more just society and access to domestic governance, power populism is perhaps more obsessed with ensuring the success, strength, and prestige of the state on the international stage (Ding and Hlavac, 2017, pp. 441-444).
In some ways, it can even be argued that these leaders have somewhat coopted the classic Marxist critique of populism (that is basically a diversionary tactic of the bourgeoisie to deflect class anger away from real socialism and to focus instead on empty promises of false reform). The difference, of course, is in the end goal: rather than using the critique to push people towards a more genuine form of socialism, both leaders simply reinforce the dismissal of the liberal elite as justification for the people to believe more strongly and more faithfully in their segments of the elite. Since populism has always, in the end, tended to be very conservative in cultural terms, both Putin and Trump are therefore tapping into populist traditions that are quite ancient, even if many American media outlets portray their efforts to be quite the opposite. Thus, even if Trump and Putin are criticized for their supposedly innate desires to return to a 1950s white male world and a vigorous Soviet world of global respect/fear, respectively, as being wholly anti-populist by liberal elites in each society, the utilization of populism by leaders throughout time and space (William Jennings Bryan, Rodrigo Duterte, Ferdinand Marcos, and Anastasio Somoza just to name an extremely diverse few) has always been socially constructed and aimed for producing quite different political content.
In traditional understandings of classical populism, power is commonly defined as being in need of devolving from the corridors of power and out to a more grassroots foundation. At its core, populism was usually seen as a belief in empowering regular people. ‘Regular people’ were typically defined as being disconnected, if not outright disenfranchised, from central power and outside the realm of the ‘elite’ (Acemoglu, Yegorov and Sonin, 2013, pp. 771-774). This paper investigates the modern phenomenon in Russia and America that turns these traditional concepts completely on their head. Rather than being a movement engineered against elite political insiders, populism in America and Russia currently seems to be occupied by very specific segments of elites in society. Ironically, these elites position themselves as the chosen representatives of the disenfranchised.
These strange bedfellows have arguably produced a new form of power populism: instead of being focused on removing power from the state, this populism is founded more upon strengthening the global position of the state while tacitly dismissing/attacking the perceived liberal intellectual elite of each society, where the true proponents of traditional populism tend to reside (Oliver, Rahn and Bartels, 2016, pp. 193-197). Dissecting this phenomenon (including an examination of how the phenomenon of ‘post-truth’ politics plays an important role in the geopolitical prediction of where this disturbing new form of populism may go) and concluding what trends may emerge from it will go a long way in predicting not just future trends in domestic politics but the very future of Russian-American relations on the global stage. Because if one thing seems to be clear, there is a distinction between traditional populism and this new power populism, namely their ultimate positions of focus: no longer enthralled with traditional populism’s concentration on improving and making a more just society and access to domestic governance, power populism is perhaps more obsessed with ensuring the success, strength, and prestige of the state on the international stage (Ding and Hlavac, 2017, pp. 441-444).
In some ways, it can even be argued that these leaders have somewhat coopted the classic Marxist critique of populism (that is basically a diversionary tactic of the bourgeoisie to deflect class anger away from real socialism and to focus instead on empty promises of false reform). The difference, of course, is in the end goal: rather than using the critique to push people towards a more genuine form of socialism, both leaders simply reinforce the dismissal of the liberal elite as justification for the people to believe more strongly and more faithfully in their segments of the elite. Since populism has always, in the end, tended to be very conservative in cultural terms, both Putin and Trump are therefore tapping into populist traditions that are quite ancient, even if many American media outlets portray their efforts to be quite the opposite. Thus, even if Trump and Putin are criticized for their supposedly innate desires to return to a 1950s white male world and a vigorous Soviet world of global respect/fear, respectively, as being wholly anti-populist by liberal elites in each society, the utilization of populism by leaders throughout time and space (William Jennings Bryan, Rodrigo Duterte, Ferdinand Marcos, and Anastasio Somoza just to name an extremely diverse few) has always been socially constructed and aimed for producing quite different political content.
In traditional understandings of classical populism, power is commonly defined as being in need of devolving from the corridors of power and out to a more grassroots foundation. At its core, populism was usually seen as a belief in empowering regular people. ‘Regular people’ were typically defined as being disconnected, if not outright disenfranchised, from central power and outside the realm of the ‘elite’ (Acemoglu, Yegorov and Sonin, 2013, pp. 771-774). This paper investigates the modern phenomenon in Russia and America that turns these traditional concepts completely on their head. Rather than being a movement engineered against elite political insiders, populism in America and Russia currently seems to be occupied by very specific segments of elites in society. Ironically, these elites position themselves as the chosen representatives of the disenfranchised.
These strange bedfellows have arguably produced a new form of power populism: instead of being focused on removing power from the state, this populism is founded more upon strengthening the global position of the state while tacitly dismissing/attacking the perceived liberal intellectual elite of each society, where the true proponents of traditional populism tend to reside (Oliver, Rahn and Bartels, 2016, pp. 193-197). Dissecting this phenomenon (including an examination of how the phenomenon of ‘post-truth’ politics plays an important role in the geopolitical prediction of where this disturbing new form of populism may go) and concluding what trends may emerge from it will go a long way in predicting not just future trends in domestic politics but the very future of Russian-American relations on the global stage. Because if one thing seems to be clear, there is a distinction between traditional populism and this new power populism, namely their ultimate positions of focus: no longer enthralled with traditional populism’s concentration on improving and making a more just society and access to domestic governance, power populism is perhaps more obsessed with ensuring the success, strength, and prestige of the state on the international stage (Ding and Hlavac, 2017, pp. 441-444).
In some ways, it can even be argued that these leaders have somewhat coopted the classic Marxist critique of populism (that is basically a diversionary tactic of the bourgeoisie to deflect class anger away from real socialism and to focus instead on empty promises of false reform). The difference, of course, is in the end goal: rather than using the critique to push people towards a more genuine form of socialism, both leaders simply reinforce the dismissal of the liberal elite as justification for the people to believe more strongly and more faithfully in their segments of the elite. Since populism has always, in the end, tended to be very conservative in cultural terms, both Putin and Trump are therefore tapping into populist traditions that are quite ancient, even if many American media outlets portray their efforts to be quite the opposite. Thus, even if Trump and Putin are criticized for their supposedly innate desires to return to a 1950s white male world and a vigorous Soviet world of global respect/fear, respectively, as being wholly anti-populist by liberal elites in each society, the utilization of populism by leaders throughout time and space (William Jennings Bryan, Rodrigo Duterte, Ferdinand Marcos, and Anastasio Somoza just to name an extremely diverse few) has always been socially constructed and aimed for producing quite different political content.
In traditional understandings of classical populism, power is commonly defined as being in need of devolving from the corridors of power and out to a more grassroots foundation. At its core, populism was usually seen as a belief in empowering regular people. ‘Regular people’ were typically defined as being disconnected, if not outright disenfranchised, from central power and outside the realm of the ‘elite’ (Acemoglu, Yegorov and Sonin, 2013, pp. 771-774). This paper investigates the modern phenomenon in Russia and America that turns these traditional concepts completely on their head. Rather than being a movement engineered against elite political insiders, populism in America and Russia currently seems to be occupied by very specific segments of elites in society. Ironically, these elites position themselves as the chosen representatives of the disenfranchised.
These strange bedfellows have arguably produced a new form of power populism: instead of being focused on removing power from the state, this populism is founded more upon strengthening the global position of the state while tacitly dismissing/attacking the perceived liberal intellectual elite of each society, where the true proponents of traditional populism tend to reside (Oliver, Rahn and Bartels, 2016, pp. 193-197). Dissecting this phenomenon (including an examination of how the phenomenon of ‘post-truth’ politics plays an important role in the geopolitical prediction of where this disturbing new form of populism may go) and concluding what trends may emerge from it will go a long way in predicting not just future trends in domestic politics but the very future of Russian-American relations on the global stage. Because if one thing seems to be clear, there is a distinction between traditional populism and this new power populism, namely their ultimate positions of focus: no longer enthralled with traditional populism’s concentration on improving and making a more just society and access to domestic governance, power populism is perhaps more obsessed with ensuring the success, strength, and prestige of the state on the international stage (Ding and Hlavac, 2017, pp. 441-444).
In some ways, it can even be argued that these leaders have somewhat coopted the classic Marxist critique of populism (that is basically a diversionary tactic of the bourgeoisie to deflect class anger away from real socialism and to focus instead on empty promises of false reform). The difference, of course, is in the end goal: rather than using the critique to push people towards a more genuine form of socialism, both leaders simply reinforce the dismissal of the liberal elite as justification for the people to believe more strongly and more faithfully in their segments of the elite. Since populism has always, in the end, tended to be very conservative in cultural terms, both Putin and Trump are therefore tapping into populist traditions that are quite ancient, even if many American media outlets portray their efforts to be quite the opposite. Thus, even if Trump and Putin are criticized for their supposedly innate desires to return to a 1950s white male world and a vigorous Soviet world of global respect/fear, respectively, as being wholly anti-populist by liberal elites in each society, the utilization of populism by leaders throughout time and space (William Jennings Bryan, Rodrigo Duterte, Ferdinand Marcos, and Anastasio Somoza just to name an extremely diverse few) has always been socially constructed and aimed for producing quite different political content.