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How to Deal with Populism

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Re: How to Deal with Populism

#31

Post by bryanlarsen »

alva wrote: post #6

How about addressing the widespread concerns that cause "populism" even if it means setting back your own ulterior agenda? Brexit and immigration is a good example of this. Blair decided mass immigration was a good idea for a number of reasons. At some point they surely realised that although it would provide an economic boost, some people would lose out financially and most did not want significant cultural change i…

Immigration is a great example to pick of technocrat vs populist.

Left technocrats see immigration as a human rights issue. Freedom of movement is a well-recognized fundamental human right; your ability to move from Gloucester to London is enshrined in Britain's unwritten constitution. Left technocrats do not see the movement from Paris to London to be any different than the movement from Gloucester to London.

Right technocrats see immigration as a free market issue. One cannot have a truly free market in goods and services unless service providers can freely travel.

So compromising on immigration means compromising on principles. Sometimes it's expedient to do so, but I vote for my representatives based on their principles and how closely they appear to adhere to them.

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#32

Post by ctdonath »

tptacek wrote: post #10
canadian_voter wrote: post #7

Your organizing principle is simple: don’t feed polarization, disarm it. This is so important. Samantha Bee can't stop making piss jokes about Trump. That's not going to win anyone over. Nina Donovan's poem, recited by Ashley Judd at the Women's March, is brave and powerful. It is also polarizing. There is a line: "I’m not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust." That's not going to win anyone over…

It does not need to be Samantha Bee's job to win everybody over.

It's not her job to win everybody over. But if she wants to contribute to what she'd consider progress, she can stop injecting so much noise into the signal. People only have so much exposure to "the message", and are likely to dismiss it quickly given too many scatalogical & other insults.

There's a difference between "winning everybody over" vs "do your part to contribute to polite discourse" vs "make your side sound dominated by insult-spewing jerks". Parent wasn't asking for total perfect solution, only to stop contributing to needless antagonism.

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#33

Post by schnable »

debt wrote: post #5

Populism was dealt with by way of the electoral college.

Huge point. Beyond the electoral college, the founders of the US had many mechanisms to prevent this kind of thing, but we've degraded them in favor of the idea that everyone's voice counts equally.

Senators used to be appointed. Party candidates used to be selected by party officials, not the public. This last one in particular would have prevented a Trump presidency.

Andrew Sullivan explains all this very well here: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny...

The summary is that too much democracy leads to tyranny.

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#34

Post by badlucklottery »

tdkl wrote: post #21
zoner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same thinking as mine. And what the liberals are doing? Whining more racism and continuing the same agenda.

They're also irresponsible and blame others (Russian hackers). Like children who grew up being sheltered, then came to college and saw protesting (blaming others) is the answer.

That's obviously a big slice of caricature, don't you think?

Why feed the polarization like that? What do you gain from it?

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#35

Post by alva »

rwmj wrote: post #28
alva wrote: post #6

How about addressing the widespread concerns that cause "populism" even if it means setting back your own ulterior agenda? Brexit and immigration is a good example of this. Blair decided mass immigration was a good idea for a number of reasons. At some point they surely realised that although it would provide an economic boost, some people would lose out financially and most did not want significant cultural change i…

Gordon Brown (PM after Blair) introduced the Migrant Impact Fund precisely to spread the benefits of migration to those who would normally lose out. The Tory/Lib Dem coalition cancelled the project 4 months after they got into power (in August 2010 to be precise). Then austerity was piled on top, and now we've arrived at where we are today.

But if the primary concern of the electorate are cultural changes this is an irrelevant gesture. Now some might say it is racist or xenophobic to want to maintain the culture of your local community. I don't believe it is.

It is a good example of how the constituents wishes (preserve culture of local community ) is at complete odds with the governments wishes. They can keep on throwing money at them, but it will never address this issue that many people find very important.

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#36

Post by mattmanser »

pjc50 wrote: post #23
alva wrote: post #6

How about addressing the widespread concerns that cause "populism" even if it means setting back your own ulterior agenda? Brexit and immigration is a good example of this. Blair decided mass immigration was a good idea for a number of reasons. At some point they surely realised that although it would provide an economic boost, some people would lose out financially and most did not want significant cultural change i…

I refer people to my previous comments on the politics of immigration, where people pretty much admit that it's not about immigration status (which you can't see) but ethnicity (which you can). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13470571 There are real economic problems, and the press have been quite effective at blaming them on immigration when really they're more due to inequality. > Trump succeeds and does a goo…

Having joined in that discussion where it became clear that you didn't even know the meaning of the word immigrant, you didn't listen to what we said and now you're projecting your own prejudices on other people.

And falling back on calling everyone a racist again.

Which is precisely what this article says doesn't work.

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#37

Post by javajosh »

While it's true that you can reach out and have a meal, share a laugh, with a Trump supporter, I don't think that will do anything lasting or good. Trump supporters are, in my personal experience, willfully ignorant. They make general statements (particularly about the poor state of the US and Obama's failure) and cannot back them up with supporting facts. They get indignant and threatened when asked for facts. They ignore evidence of his lack of personal values.

Yet the doom that faces America is very real, and this is really the cause of their emotions. Intuitively they know we can't consume so much without producing it. If we offshore production, we must eventually offshore consumption. Chinese workers earning $5 a day, Chinese factories paying no attention to the environment or workers rights, this is really the ONLY problem we need to address. And the liberal elites don't care, because they don't make money making things, and never did.

Are you a liberal elite wanting to heal the divide? Build a factory in the USA. A real, physical factory that builds real, physical things. And if you do the math and realize you can't do that and compete with China, then fight like hell to punish Chinese producers for playing the game by unfair rules (e.g. impose tariffs to at least bring the price up to what it would be if they paid their people a living wage, benefits, and protected the environment).

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#38

Post by [deleted] »

tdkl wrote: post #21
zoner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the same thinking as mine. And what the liberals are doing? Whining more racism and continuing the same agenda.

They're also irresponsible and blame others (Russian hackers). Like children who grew up being sheltered, then came to college and saw protesting (blaming others) is the answer.

[deleted]

Re: How to Deal with Populism

#39

Post by 1_2__3 »

mattmanser wrote: post #36
pjc50 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refer people to my previous comments on the politics of immigration, where people pretty much admit that it's not about immigration status (which you can't see) but ethnicity (which you can). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13470571 There are real economic problems, and the press have been quite effective at blaming them on immigration when really they're more due to inequality. > Trump succeeds and does a goo…

Having joined in that discussion where it became clear that you didn't even know the meaning of the word immigrant, you didn't listen to what we said and now you're projecting your own prejudices on other people. And falling back on calling everyone a racist again. Which is precisely what this article says doesn't work.

Yeah, his whole argument can be boiled down to, "No but seriously they're racist you should ignore them."
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