Why We Voted Down Right-Wing Populism

But we’re not done

There is a reason why we applied the brakes on Donald Trump in the election of 2020. At least 74,000,000 of us saw the warning signs. We decided that authoritarianism and populism ideologies are not what we want in our American DNA. These are not conducive to American freedom.

We never knew that our institutions could so easily be damaged by a president who ignores traditions, rules, and professional standards. We were surprised to see our government develop employment turnover worse than a fast-food restaurant, and as any program manager knows; turnover is never efficient, stable, or good.

Then, there was the development of a “deep state” theory. Traditionally, our government has people who work in government as a career. They develop expertise along the way, and they are protected by Civil Service Rules.

It’s a smart concept. You don’t have to match your political designation every time a new president gets elected. You can continue your engineering, accounting, medical, scientific work, or whatever field it may be…because it’s not pertinent to performing a good job.

We require continuity in government in order for it to work well. However, President Trump was working to destroy that professional independence; that separation from political pressure is important when delivering results.

The President has vilified some career officials as the “deep state” during his term and sought to rid the federal government of people he views as anti-Trump. Critics warn that the order would allow the President to fill the federal workforce with his cronies and reverts the country back to a spoils systems.

This is the action of a paranoid authoritarian. Fear and loyalty become more important than competence. Power corrupts. This type of employment will attract the worst of us to government service; not the best.

There are many reasons why so many do not want this man to lead our country; taking children from their parents at the border to deter them from coming to the border, the dog whistle of telling people he’s keeping Black people from the suburbs (it’s too late, we’re already there), the crude name-calling, the embrace of dictator strong-men throughout the world, the incompetent leadership of this country and the inability to focus on saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is more…

By ignoring the advice of the CDC, WHO, NIH, and embracing the infectious disease advice of a neuroradiologist, he’s shown that he’s attached to the tactic of herd immunity-no matter what. Meanwhile, American cases and deaths are mounting. We are in another surge.

He’s simply given up.

Before we go any further, we’ve already listed reasons that are enough to recognize that he is unfit.

Trumpian priorities

in 2016, we had no idea that we were capable of putting a head of state in the White House who could ignore science — or ignore any knowledge that doesn’t align with personal and limited beliefs. The only thing President Trump and the Republican Party seemed excited about was to give tax cuts to the rich (December 2017)— thereby enriching them with millions of dollars.

The middle class had mediocre mixed results. Most of the savings went to businesses and the rich and were supposed to pay for themselves. It didn’t happen. His trade war with China failed. Many of our farmers are on welfare which in no way replaces the Chinese grain sales lost to Canada, Brazil, and wait for it…Russia. Putin is still laughing over that one.

The rich got richer while the poor and the middle class received refunds or became poorer. And this was before COVID19.

“We’re going to be doing a major middle-income tax cut, if we take back the House,” Trump promised in November.(2019)

If they gave the middle-class such a good deal why is this even necessary?

The people who wrote the constitution worried that these shenanigans could happen:

When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny. — John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Is this what has been going on?

The Presidential Election of 2020

So we voted him out. Another word, though, has been bruited about on the airwaves…populism. For years, I thought populism was a good thing. This might be a person or party that’s popular with the population. Right? So we began with a search for its true meaning. Why are people calling President Trump a populist president? He is popular. After all, 71,000,000 people voted for him.

However, populism also has a narrower, more precise meaning. It denotes political parties and leaders that are anti-establishment and that divide society into two groups: self-serving elites and good, ordinary people.

Who are the self-serving elites? And who are the good, ordinary people? It depends on what side one is on. But it becomes more obvious when populism is married with right-wing. I touched on this previously when I was trying to understand the right-wing mindset.

The “right-wing,” if extreme, takes away from the “good” in the phrase “good, ordinary people.”

The term right-wing was originally applied to traditional conservatives, monarchists, and reactionaries; an extension, extreme right-wing, denotes fascism, Nazism, and racial supremacy.

The Republican Party makes room for all of these pathologies.

And who are the self-serving elites? Is this the Democrat Party? As someone who has always heard of a Democrat described as a Chevrolet or Ford hugging, blue-collar, vegetable planting, childbearing, factory worker, mail person, secretary, or nurse type person it was a surprise to see us thrown into the “elite” category. I could keep going, but thanks.

But seriously, right-wing populism, especially “extreme right-wing,” marries fascism, Nazism, racial supremacy, (one can’t forget White Nationalism) to ordinary people.

That can’t be good.

Racist Republican?

It sounds too simple to call the G.O.P. racist. Nor is populism necessarily racist. I found another definition for populism which we like: the fact that this is your land — whoever you may be.

This Land is Your Land — as written by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, and this land is my land From the California, to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me

The verse celebrated the beauty and grandeur of America while the chorus drove home the populist sentiment that the nation belonged to all the people, not merely the rich and powerful.

It is what I remember as populism, but we’re learning that there are many types.

I want to stress that I have friends who are Republicans and yet, I know they are good people. And, even more importantly, they are of all races. How can this be? I also watched videos of Trump fans at his rallies. Some of them I liked. And I felt true pain when I saw their faces as they anticipated a Trump loss. I hate to see people suffer, even if they’re not necessarily friendlike to me.

However, we have to admit that President Trump’s actions (denigrating our voting process) hurt our democracy.

We know that 71,000,000 people voted for President Trump. Nobody likes to lose. But 74,000,000 more real Americans voted for President-Elect Joe Biden. Ironically, overall, the Republican House candidates did well. This meant that millions of Republicans (and some Democrats) did not vote a straight ticket. They voted, say, for a local Republican Representative and/or Senator-but not for Trump-specifically. So he lost. Does this make sense?

Here are more reasons:

We are not open to authoritarianism.

We want a peaceful, professional, experienced president.

We reject uncivilized name-calling, insults, crazy tweets, and unprofessionalism.

We want our science back.

There are more than enough valid reasons why we voted him out, so we did what we needed to do.

We voted.

We are not done

It is up to us to work to merge our county into one. There are some similarities to the American Civil War (1861–1865). To simplify, we can say that one section wanted to expand slavery. The other section said, “No.”

That about sums it up.

This time, Trumpism threatens our country. The allegiance of millions to one man was not enough; because President Trump repelled millions more — almost five million more and counting at this time.

But we have to be honest with one another — the removal of Trump from the White House is scheduled for January 20, 2021, but Trumpism will probably remain.

Trumpism: a political ideology, style of governance, political movement, and set of mechanisms for acquiring and keeping power associated with United States President Donald Trump.

This means that when he leaves office, he leaves with power. Power is derived from people. Much like a movie star gains fans, so do politicians, and damage can be deployed if in the wrong hands.

We can see that the president has no compunction in causing havoc to the United States, and so we must mitigate the destruction by reaching out to his 71,000,000 voters and do our best to bring them into the fold over the next four years. Is it possible? We have no choice.

Radical Love in Turkey

F. Michael Wuthrich (Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas) and Melvyn Ingleby (Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at the University of Aix-Marseille) issued a paper called The Pushback Against Populism: Running on “Radical Love” with a tale of how one can integrate competing ideologies; that is, to bring them together.

It is a method one can use to weaken a populist candidate.

Turkey is an authoritarian country run by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; he is a man much admired by President Trump.

Erdoğan has been able to consolidate power by presenting the opposition party as one of the “elites,” who looked down on the people and their true leader. He also gained control of the press and the state institutions-cutting off the true state of affairs from the people. In other words, a true authoritarian. (This looks like the authoritarian playbook.)

Ekrem İmamoğlu ran for the Mayor of Istanbul in April 2019, but he was not the favored candidate of Erdogan. So when he won by half a percentage point even in a rigged election (a recount still did not change the results); the ruling party of Erdoğan (AKP) alleged electoral fraud and irregularities in the election and used the Supreme Electoral Council to remove İmamoğlu in his third week in office. He responded by accusing the AKP of being “bad losers.”

İmamoğlu told his voters to be patient. He ran again for election and went on the road with a message of inclusiveness and respect for his opponent's supporters. He found issues that both sides could agree on in order to unite the voters.

He ultimately won again on June 23, 2019— this time with 54% of the vote, while his opponent won 45%. This time, President Erdoğan congratulated him on his win.

İmamoğlu called it “Radical Love.”

Can this be accomplished in the United States? Can President-Elect Biden unite the Democrats (they need uniting too!) and enough Republicans to give America a semblance of unity?

It may be the only way to get things done. In either case, action must be taken over the next four years. Or, it’s sad to say, an authoritarian rule may return, with Trump or a new leader, determined to move the country even more to the right than ever, causing a restriction of freedoms and liberty.

We’ve got a lot of work to do if we don’t want to become an authoritarian country. The outpouring of relief after the election was a symbol of the stress that millions were carrying, aware that this may have been the most important election in our lives.

Even more importantly, authoritarian countries do not seem to produce a high standard of living-not for businesses or families, because they are unstable, subject to the whims of their leader and his associates. And it would be depressing to recognize that our best days are behind us. So instead of going even deeper to the right, we made a left turn; not to socialism or communism, but to Americanism. It’s still alive.

It may be the only way to save America, the country that we love.

*Wuthrich, F. Michael, and Melvyn Ingleby. “The Pushback Against Populism: Running on ‘Radical Love’ in Turkey.” Journal of Democracy 31, no. 2 (2020): 24–40.