Huge Win for Biden Today

[Cultellus]

Great. Go ahead and introduce yourself, and tell us why you decided to use Marcus as your sock puppet.

Lol. You talk so much about yourself that you can't remember the topic?

What was the topic?

[honorentheos]

It's better said that it is, by definition, a binary view that divides the good common people from corrupt elites. I didn't make that up, it's the best definition available for understanding it as a thin centered ideology.

Given I've been quite consistent with my support of pluralism over the years I don't think it should be a surprise I view this as a viable internal threat to liberal western democracies including our own.

It exists, as populism, as an oppositional identity rather than a positive one. It has to attach itself to host ideologies that are more fully formed and coherent to have direction. I suspect many people think of populism, not as it is alone, but as the parasite-host combination when they envision it as benign given it is nice to see sweater wearing Bernie as a Democratic Socialist first and Trump as a Fascist when weighing the matter. But those are populism. When one sees the radicalized Bernie Bros or what happened on January 6th, one is seeing how populism primes the individual in similar ways even when they may hold quite different host ideological views.

I understand your point. I am not trying to dissuade you. I get it. You think that the Bernie followers were radicalized and that the events of Jan 6th represent quotidian populism. I get it. I do not see it that binary, you do. No big deal. Wave your flag and scream it from the rafters if you are so convinced. I just do not see it that way.

So to be clear you will be erasing the posts earlier in the thread regarding the vast numbers of good common folk and the terrible nasty elites, and the comments noting that opposition to populism is being against people who are fed up with elites?

Or do you have a definition of binary you'd like to share that illuminates how you actually square that circle? I'm guessing you just don't like being called out for being extreme or holding a binary view and are in denial about it but let's see for sure.

[Cultellus]

I understand your point. I am not trying to dissuade you. I get it. You think that the Bernie followers were radicalized and that the events of Jan 6th represent quotidian populism. I get it. I do not see it that binary, you do. No big deal. Wave your flag and scream it from the rafters if you are so convinced. I just do not see it that way.

So to be clear you will be erasing the posts earlier in the thread regarding the vast numbers of good common folk and the terrible nasty elites, and the comments noting that opposition to populism is being against people who are fed up with elites?

Or do you have a definition of binary you'd like to share that illuminates how you actually square that circle? I'm guessing you just don't like being called out for being extreme or holding a binary view and are in denial about it but let's see for sure.

Jesus damned Christ.

No. I am not deleting a goddamn thing. I do not hold this binary view that you hold. I support populism, and do not find every example of it as extreme like you do. What the “F” is wrong with you?

I do NOT see all forms of populism as extreme. I do not think it is a binary extreme like you do. Own your own crap.

[honorentheos]

So to be clear you will be erasing the posts earlier in the thread regarding the vast numbers of good common folk and the terrible nasty elites, and the comments noting that opposition to populism is being against people who are fed up with elites?

Or do you have a definition of binary you'd like to share that illuminates how you actually square that circle? I'm guessing you just don't like being called out for being extreme or holding a binary view and are in denial about it but let's see for sure.

Jesus damned Christ.

No. I am not deleting a goddamn thing. I do not hold this binary view that you hold. I support populism, and do not find every example of it as extreme like you do. What the “F” is wrong with you?

I do NOT see all forms of populism as extreme. I do not think it is a binary extreme like you do. Own your own crap.

Being a populist is not politically oppositional, it is oppositional to the elites.

I will give you one point, perhaps I needed to clarify that the opposition to the elites' (minority) control is not exclusively political. The opposition is not directed exclusively at a political party, as you are wont to believe and hope and insist. It is not anti-party, except where idiots draw a line in the sand and declare it as such.

Populism favors the people. People are passionate for their families, jobs, homes, economies, countries and liberties - and many other things.

You have lost your goddamn mind, honor. The people are good. The people will be good. They will also fight like hell when people like you call them names, misrepresent them, malign them, and take away their stuff. They are good like that.

You are wrong about the people. You are wrong to consider them extreme. You are wrong to dismiss them. But, you retain the right to be wrong. Keep on with it if you wish.

It seems the real problem is you are hung up on the D/R binary and don't recognize any other one even as you declare the populist divide of good common folk from corrupt elites to be the organizing framework that matters.

Oh well.

[canpakes]

Honor, what do US populists want, in your opinion?

ETA: How does populism define who ‘the elites’ are?

[Cultellus]

Jesus damned Christ.

No. I am not deleting a goddamn thing. I do not hold this binary view that you hold. I support populism, and do not find every example of it as extreme like you do. What the “F” is wrong with you?

I do NOT see all forms of populism as extreme. I do not think it is a binary extreme like you do. Own your own crap.

Being a populist is not politically oppositional, it is oppositional to the elites.

I will give you one point, perhaps I needed to clarify that the opposition to the elites' (minority) control is not exclusively political. The opposition is not directed exclusively at a political party, as you are wont to believe and hope and insist. It is not anti-party, except where idiots draw a line in the sand and declare it as such.

Populism favors the people. People are passionate for their families, jobs, homes, economies, countries and liberties - and many other things.

You have lost your goddamn mind, honor. The people are good. The people will be good. They will also fight like hell when people like you call them names, misrepresent them, malign them, and take away their stuff. They are good like that.

You are wrong about the people. You are wrong to consider them extreme. You are wrong to dismiss them. But, you retain the right to be wrong. Keep on with it if you wish.

It seems the real problem is you are hung up on the D/R binary and don't recognize any other one even as you declare the populist divide of good common folk from corrupt elites to be the organizing framework that matters.

Oh well.

Nothing here contradicts my point. Populism is not exclusively extreme. Populism is not unique to the right, left or center. Nor does it exclusively view elites as liberal or progressive. I have made many arguments stating this. I have given examples. I can't help you more, honor. You seem to believe something that I have neither said nor believe.

The elites do not have to be corrupt, they can also just have selfish interests. Your extreme view that they are only corrupt, or viewed exclusively as corrupt, or not worthy of resistance unless they are corrupt, is another binary interpretation that YOU have, not me. The populists have their limits. When pushed or cajoled, they will resist. That is the point. That does not make them extreme. They can resist within a system, including a democracy and a republic. They can, and have, resisted elitism by voting - or not. Your view of them as exclusively extremists is unfounded and not shared by me.

[honorentheos]

Nothing here contradicts my point. Populism is not exclusively extreme. Populism is not unique to the right, left or center. Nor does it exclusively view elites as liberal or progressive. I have made many arguments stating this. I have given examples. I can't help you more, honor. You seem to believe something that I have neither said nor believe.

The elites do not have to be corrupt, they can also just have selfish interests. Your extreme view that they are only corrupt, or viewed exclusively as corrupt, or not worthy of resistance unless they are corrupt, is another binary interpretation that YOU have, not me. The populists have their limits. When pushed or cajoled, they will resist. That is the point. That does not make them extreme. They can resist within a system, including a democracy and a republic. They can, and have, resisted elitism by voting - or not. Your view of them as exclusively extremists is unfounded and not shared by me.

It's interesting to see you set up the binary framework yet again and then insist it is not that by overlaying political positions on the side of the good people, and also proposing varied degrees of corruption for the elite as if this proved populism was not what it is because it is "other" than the political divide.

Yet it is the reliance on the binary framework of good people vs. corrupt elites, and embracing this label of populist that it represents, that is radicalizing. It doesn't matter that you refuse to accept that even as you yet again excuse the pump of violence being primed.

[honorentheos]

Honor, what do US populists want, in your opinion?

ETA: How does populism define who ‘the elites’ are?

Populism is extremely poorly defined as an ideology. It lacks an Adam Smith, James Madison, or Karl Marx. Noam Chompsky rejected the use of the label as not applicable to class struggle taking place in the U.S. Sociology had debates if it is even a thing given the loose use of the term could, theoretically, make it apply to anyone or anything when used carelessly. In the early 2010s, Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser published a short attempt to consolidate the term into a consistent definition that captured it's meaning and use while being functional and allowing for study. That being the definition I use in the thread that it is limited to being an approach of dividing people into two non-overlapping groups of the corrupted elite and the good people. It then gets attached to more robust ideologies such as socialism.

When you ask what populists want this is the challenge sociologists and political scientists are faced with by the term. Inevitably the easy answers don't come from the populist inflection but instead the host ideology the populist has adopted. Cultellus did that very thing himself in this thread by adopting the aims of socialism as the motivation of his ideological views even while expressing disgust towards socialism. That does leave the door open for nationalism but why set fire to the thread before we made it at least this far, right?

Populism, detached from the host ideology, functions as a strategic tool. It incites and inflames as it makes the divide in society more stark and proceeds to torque on this division. Conservatives used it to manipulate people citing liberal elites as the enemy for their go to move over the last few decades. Folks like cultellus revolt against their Republican handlers, not because they discovered the manipulation, but because the manipulation never bore fruit.

It seems that what populism, detached, wants is control. It is used to instill a belief that the spiralling complex world outside of ones control can be brought back to heel if we could just stop those damned elites from...whatever the ideology of choice has leveraged.

Choosing to be a populist by name and label, expressing the core of the inflection as binary divide, is to be radicalized. The world is really simple, the boogie man has a name and faces, the leader knows the way, the people are too good to be foiled for long...

[honorentheos]

I forgot to answer another part of your question: who are the elite for populists in the US? The answer varies depending on the host ideology but with overlap. To the Sanders populist, the elite are billionaires. It used to be millionaires and billionaires but then Bernie got his million and that suddenly didn't work as well. To conservatives using populism it is liberal elites. They include political and intellectual elites. On the ground populists across the political spectrum include big tech elites but diverge when it comes to corporate elites depending on ideological slicing.

I don't think of Elizabeth Warren as a populist because while she targets banks and income disparity, she doesn't lean into the corruption as a means for control and motivation for the masses. Her approach is that of central control. Enough smart people in a room working hard at a problem will find a solution.

[Cultellus]

Nothing here contradicts my point. Populism is not exclusively extreme. Populism is not unique to the right, left or center. Nor does it exclusively view elites as liberal or progressive. I have made many arguments stating this. I have given examples. I can't help you more, honor. You seem to believe something that I have neither said nor believe.

The elites do not have to be corrupt, they can also just have selfish interests. Your extreme view that they are only corrupt, or viewed exclusively as corrupt, or not worthy of resistance unless they are corrupt, is another binary interpretation that YOU have, not me. The populists have their limits. When pushed or cajoled, they will resist. That is the point. That does not make them extreme. They can resist within a system, including a democracy and a republic. They can, and have, resisted elitism by voting - or not. Your view of them as exclusively extremists is unfounded and not shared by me.

It's interesting to see you set up the binary framework yet again and then insist it is not that by overlaying political positions on the side of the good people, and also proposing varied degrees of corruption for the elite as if this proved populism was not what it is because it is "other" than the political divide.

Yet it is the reliance on the binary framework of good people vs. corrupt elites, and embracing this label of populist that it represents, that is radicalizing. It doesn't matter that you refuse to accept that even as you yet again excuse the pump of violence being primed.

No honor. That is not what I said. That is not what I believe. What in the “F” is wrong with you? How hard is it for you to read what I said and understand it and not misquote it?

What in the actual name of an unactual God is wrong with you, your reading comprehension and your soul? Why don’t you tell us what you think the populists say and do and stop imagining what I think they say and do.

I have not once said the populists were good or that the elites were bad. What is wrong with your brain that makes you think I said that?

I have not assigned corruption. You have.

I have not pumped or primed violence. What is wrong with you, honor? Jesus.