One of the dangers (and draws) of populism is the grievance and Us vs Them mindset that results from the core belief that a group of outsiders has stolen the country (or democracy) from The People.
I used to think the difference between left- and right-wing populism was that the left defined The People as, roughly, the 99%, while the right defined The People as white Christians with “traditional family values”, with some anti-fat cat window dressing.
Now I don’t think the difference is quite so black and white.
Well, I still think that about right-wing populism. You can sum up Trumpism as “the Other stole this country from Real Americans, and we’re going to steal it back - and punish the people who betrayed us.”
Well, I still think that about right-wing populism. You can sum up Trumpism as “the Other stole this country from Real Americans, and we’re going to steal it back - and punish the people who betrayed us.”
But I’m less oblivious to the ways white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia affect the left - both by shaping the psychologies of privileged people on the left, and by shaping party dynamics.
This is particularly clear in the anti-Democrat strain of left-wing populism. Instead of “THEY stole OUR country from us”, it’s “THEY stole OUR party”. (Or “OUR left”.) And that’s a problem…
The biggest change in the Democratic Party over the last several decades has been white male flight to the GOP, driven by the Southern Strategy. Which left the Democratic Party more black, more female, and less bigoted than it had been.
So if you say They stole the party from Us, who exactly are the They and the Us? Corporate fat cats – or black people, women and other targets of bigotry? Like it or not, the culture war is baked in when you use this framing.
You can see this on the anti-Dem left when they use bothsides lines like “the two parties just sell the same corporate pizza with different toppings”.
Civil rights aren’t pizza toppings.
Civil rights aren’t pizza toppings.
You can also see it when progressives hold up Franklin Internment Camps Roosevelt as the figurehead of a lost, pure Golden Age of Righteous Democrats, as another president builds internment camps.
You can hear it in the way some white men talk about how we’d get better Dems if only black people and pro-choice women were less “vote blue no matter who” – but the same men make economic anxiety excuses for the “white working class”.
So now what I think of left-wing populism? Now I see it as a double edged sword. There’s certainly a more noble strain. I think of the Rev. William Barber. But I also see a toxic mix of privilege and grievance that all too often has the same targets as right-wing populism.
And a left-wing populist movement can (or will) have both elements, not unlike how peaceful protests can attract young men who just want to throw rocks through windows. And that intertwining can really complicate discussions about the movement.
It can be hard to praise that kind of movement without being accused of bigotry, or critique it without being accused of being a corporate centrist sellout.
That's the nature of being on the left in a country steeped in white male supremacy. It’s pervasive, in ways privileged people tend to be oblivious of.
Nowhere is this more clear to me than the way “The Left” and “progressive” tend to be defined in this country. It’s completely straight white male supremacist. Thread-
One last related thread on a left-wing populism that explicitly acknowledges the non-partisan nature of white male supremacy, and rejects it.
