The News Rundown

A History of Populism by Western Context

Populism History + Intro

We begin this week's show by having a look at the word populism, what it means, what it has come to define, and how it has evolved since its very beginnings.
Populism, quite simply, is a political stance that emphasizes the idea of the common people as a morally good force, and especially in a way of boosting the people against the elite, or another powerful group. As such, it can be applied in many different ways to many different people and many different movements.
The word populism has been contested, mistranslated and used in reference to a diverse variety of movements and beliefs. UK Political scientist Will Brett characterised it as "a classic example of a stretched concept, pulled out of shape by overuse and misuse", while political scientist Paul Taggart has said of populism that it is "one of the most widely used but poorly understood political concepts of our time".
Our goal here today is to show that populism is very easy to understand, that it exists all across the left-right political spectrum and that it has a long and successful history in helping the common people, especially to the point we are at today.
The biggest issue with the term populism is that although it started off being a term of self-designation in the United States, it has since become widely misused as a pejorative. This comes down to people in economics, social sciences, and politics all using the term differently.
An approach associated with the Argentine political scientist Ernesto Laclau presents populism as an emancipatory social force through which marginalised groups challenge dominant power structures. Some economists have used the term in reference to governments which engage in substantial public spending financed by foreign loans, resulting in hyperinflation and emergency measures.
Mainly due to its origins, in modern North American discourse, it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy, to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in a highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politicians who seek to please voters without rational consideration as to the best course of action.
Part of the reason it has become such a dirty word to describe a particular political figure or movement is because of the elites, or people in power, not wanting anything or anyone challenging their stranglehold on society. That's why in corporate-owned media, the term populism has often been conflated with other concepts like demagoguery, and generally presented as something to be feared and discredited. It has often been applied to movements that are considered to be outside the political mainstream or a threat to democracy.
Populism is often combined with other ideologies, such as nationalism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus, populists can be found at different locations along the left–right political spectrum, and there exist both left-wing populism and right-wing populism. Some of those who have repeatedly been referred to as "populists" in a pejorative sense have subsequently embraced the term while seeking to shed it of negative connotations.
For example, on being founded in 2003, the centre-left Lithuanian Labour Party declared: "we are and will be called populists." And on the right, The French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was often accused of populism and eventually responded by stating that "Populism precisely is taking into account the people's opinion. Have people the right, in a democracy, to hold an opinion? If that is the case, then yes, I am a populist."
The ideologies with which populism can be paired can be contradictory, resulting in different forms of populism that can oppose each other.For instance, in Latin America during the 1990s, populism was often associated with politicians like Peru's Alberto Fujimori who promoted neoliberal economics, while in the 2000s it was instead associated with those like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez who promoted socialist programs.
Following 2016, the year which saw the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union—both events linked to populism—the word populism became one of the most widely used terms by international political commentators. In 2017, the Cambridge Dictionary declared it the Word of the Year.
And yet, most of a decade after the fact, the term is still misused. Hopefully after our show today we will demonstrate that populism in itself is not a bad thing, and that whenever the media uses the term to describe someone, we need to ask ourselves why they would do that, and if it is accurate, or if it is just being used as a pejorative.
Supplementals:

Populism: United States

The story of American populism begins in the 1800s. Movements in the US by-in-large fit with the definition of populism in that people or political leaders are standing up against the government or organizations.
Our delve into American populism will cover Andrew Jackson’s presidency and election, the Populist Party, and more recently the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
As we’ve mentioned in our introduction of populism, populism can form on the left or right of the political spectrum. It’s not something uniquely left or right wing.
We start with President Andrew Jackson, the 7th president from 1829 to 1837. Before looking at his tenure we need to accept that his election was probably the most divisive American election campaign until 2016 and 2020 and Donald Trump came onto the scene.
The campaign delved into personal attacks related to Jackson’s marriage for whom Rachel Jackson died before Andrew Jackson would become President. The allegation, damning for the day, was that Andrew and Rachel lived together before he became President.
In response Jackson’s campaign accused John Quincy Adams of procuring a prostitute for Russian Emperor Alexander I.
Andrew Jackson’s administration was the first populist Presidency.
His administration began investigations into all executive departments which led to laws on embezzlement, reducing tax evasion, and better government accounting.
One of Jackson’s signature policies that was incredibly popular at the time was the Indian Removal Act which freed up land for colonization and led to the Trail of Tears, a movement of American Indians away from their ancestral lands. His administration negotiated about 70 treaties and removed all Native Americans east of the Mississippi and south of Lake Michigan.
He also took action against the Second Bank of the United States culminating in something now called “The Bank War”.
Many were suspicious of the bank because they distributed paper money issued by them and because banks controlled credit and loans, so with that, a Bank of the United States was the worst idea.
In 1832 Senator Henry Clay, Jackson’s opponent in the Presidential election of that year, proposed rechartering the Bank early. This bill passed Congress, but Jackson vetoed it, declaring that the Bank was "unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people." After his reelection, Jackson announced that the Government would no longer deposit Federal funds with the Bank.
All of Jackson’s ideas seem radical today and they also seemed radical then but we can’t deny their popularity in that Jackson won decisive landslide victories in 1828 and 1832.
In the late 19th century there was the Populist Party, a largely western based agrarian movement. The party would never elect a President but is America’s closest analogy to the UFA and CCF in Canada.
The party ran candidates in 1892 and 1896 but the movement never took off.
Throughout there were numerous other populists who tried to run but failed including George Wallace who campaigned on a return to segregation and Ross Perot who wanted more direct citizen decision making.
In the 21st century we come to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
First for Bernie Sanders, he made headlines and galvanized a youth movement during the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent occupy wall street movements.
His crusade is one geared against the rich, wall street, and elites. His calls to rally against the 1% became one of the defining features of his presidential campaigns.
Aside from the clear push against the rich and wall street, Bernie Sanders also repeatedly touted in his campaigns the number of small individual donors his campaign received. Small individual donations are a rarity in American politics.
It is in part because of the populist movements on the left that the trajectory of Obama’s presidency changed and following that, both of Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 runs influenced the field greatly and subsequent elected congressional delegations.
Bernie Sanders as a Senator and Presidential candidate set a standard for what the modern American left aspires to.
Then came Donald Trump: the first populist President elected since Andrew Jackson.
Donald Trump has many populist policy planks including the border wall, tearing up NAFTA, pledges to bring back manufacturing to the rust belt and defying the conventional wisdom of the media, political, and institutional elites.
It always came down and comes down to what the institution of the US government is doing to its citizens.
This culminated in main calls to drain the swamp including snake poetry readings culminating in his slogan to Make America Great Again.
Make America Great Again became simultaneously one of the most successful and divisive campaign slogans.
Donald Trump in many ways has set the modern stamp of populism leading to an erroneous belief that populism is right leaning and any modern right leaning politician must be a populist.
Donald Trump’s battle still goes on today as we head towards the 2024 election.
Conclusion:
Who was more successful? Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders? Donald Trump was fought at every instance. Bernie Sanders’ ideas and movement has gained a bit more traction but hasn’t elected a president.
Is populism right or left wing? It’s neither.
Supplementals:

Populism in Canada

Just like how populism can be used to describe many different ideologies, so too is it varied and applied to many different figures in movements in Canada.
Examples of populism can be found all across the country, from the United Farmers of Alberta, an agricultural supply cooperative that formed the government of Alberta from 1921 to 1935, to BC Social Credit Party most successfully led by WAC Bennett, the Union Nationale in Quebec under Maurice Duplessis (leader from 1935 to 1959); the early Diefenbaker Progressive Conservatives, the federal NDP under Tommy Douglas, and its progenitor the CCF.
Multiple important populist political movements were formed throughout Canada in the 20th century. Western Canada and the Canadian Prairies in particular were the source of origin of a number of Canada's populist movements in the 20th century.
In particular, both Liberals and Conservatives lost to the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) in the 1921 provincial election. UFA was formed by Prairie farmers that rejected party-dominated parliamentary representation and advocated a syndicalist approach to politics - i.e. forced unionization and with the eventual goal of social ownership of all corporations. To some extent, the UFA were the original precursors to many forms of left wing populist ideologies that still exist today.
The Social Credit populist political parties won provincial elections in three provinces—the 1935 Alberta general election under William Aberhart—Bible Bill—the 1952 British Columbia general election under W.A.C. Bennett , and in Québec in the 1961 election under Réal Caouette, who later formed his own party, the Creditistes. Aberhart promoted the principles of social credit economics alongside a right-wing populist agenda and the party governed Alberta from 1935 to 1971.
In BC, WAC Bennett's social credit party took a more moderate approach than Aberhart, and combined populist positions with an overwhelming tone of economic conservatism and social liberalism, something that still persists in the psyche of BC politics today.
Ernest Manning took over the Alberta Social Credit party and office of Premier of Alberta from Aberhart and led the Alberta Social Credit party along a right-wing populist agenda that criticized both the social welfare programs and centralizing tendencies of the federal government of Canada.
Meanwhile, In 1932, in response to the hardships of the Great Depression, a coalition of labour, socialists, and progressives in Calgary founded the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Tommy Douglas, who became a social activist at the onset of the Depression, joined the new CCF and was elected as MP in the 1935 federal election. The CCF has often been used as an example of left wing populism.
In his 1978 Canadian Journal of Political Science journal article, "Populism in the United States, Russia, and Canada: Explaining the Roots of Canada's Third Parties", John Conway said that CCF and Alberta's Social Credit were, to some extent, "populist formations." Conway said that the CCF is an example of a populist party that transitioned successfully into a democratic party—the New Democratic Party. He said that the NDP, which was formed in 1961, was modelled on European social democratic parties and Britain's and Australia's Labour parties.
As we can see, in many forms of Canadian history, there have been many successful leftwing and right wing populists. How does that stack up today?
Conservative leader Stephen Harper was in power from 2006-2015, and was largely elected based on his campaigning against the decades long Liberal Party's rule. In setting himself against the Liberal establishment he was successful in crafting a newer Canadian conservative policy that combined the ideals of previous Western Canadian right wing populism, with a more modern approach.
Current Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, has been described as populist by some journalists, and has compared Poilievre to American Republican populists such as Ted Cruz, while many journalists have dismissed these comparisons due to Poilievre's pro-choice, and pro-immigration positions, along with progressive views on LGBTQ issues.
Poilievre's critics calling him populist are using it in the pejorative sense. For more on that, we'll continue with a real example today of the word populist being thrown around willy nilly.
Supplementals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism_in_Canada

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Firing Line

Poilievre's Conservative party embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories

This past weekend the Canadian Press, a wire service that publishes news to many Canadian news publications published a story regarding Pierre Poilivere and the Conservatives and their stance on conspiracy theories.
The headlines in general read: Poilievre's Conservative party embracing language of mainstream conspiracy theories.
There are a number of reasons why this is troubling and we’ll get through them. But wire services in the past have generally aimed to provide unbiased news rather than opinion.
Delving into this story we see that first, it’s one so-called conspiracy theory.
What the articles take issue with is the Conservative party’s stance on getting cozy with the World Economic Forum.
The World Economic Forum is a regular meeting out of Davos Switzerland that aims to bring together leaders of developed countries to discuss the issues of the day.
The World Economic Forum under George Soros pushed what could be described as a centre-left agenda focused on social issues and climate change.
Right leaning and populist governments of recent years have all taken the same tone against the WEF. The only ones that have not are centrists (I.e. Progressive Conservatives) or conservative governments defined strictly by their economic policy (I.e. Dutch PM Mark Rutte).
The “conspiracies” as told by the Canadian Press suggest that the Conservatives are suggesting that the WEF is out to control western governments.
We’ve debunked that before here on the podcast and what it comes down to is the World Economic Forum bringing together like minded governments on similar issues.
The article also delves into Conservative Party membership emails that ask who they believe Prime Minister Trudeau is working for, Canadians or the WEF?
Those emails are aimed at partisan supporters, party members, and donors. They are designed to raise a response from party members and have also seemingly triggered the mainstream media.
Policy wise Poilievre has been consistent in that he won’t permit his cabinet members to attend the WEF when he is Prime Minister and that there will be no digital ID (another WEF policy idea) in Canada.
The second major problem is that to the layperson it looks like the media is tagging in together against the Conservatives.
Wire services existed before the digital age to let newspapers share stories and get the basics of information to write their daily columns on.
Today wire services have morphed into news organizations of their own. Most of the international and American based wire services are generally unbiased in their reporting and focus on facts.
The Canadian Press would do itself a favour if it were to focus on just the information rather than writing headlines that are going to be considered subjective by a portion of the population.
That brings us to the third issue, the articles don’t exactly explain what is going on.
First and foremost the framing of the story initially alienates anyone who is a Conservative supporter and they will in all likelihood believe the opposite of what the story says.
Secondly, no one actually ever talks about the World Economic Forum’s goals, specifically stated on their website!
They are an international non-governmental lobbying organization for multinational companies.
At its core, the WEF is a lobbying organization, a political body.
Lobbying one way or another is a political activity and the stances it has taken have been centre-left or left leaning.
From that it is only logical to assume that Conservatives, populists, and otherwise right leaning folks would stand against the World Economic Forum.
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is chairman of the IDU or International Democrat Union, an organization that seeks to bring together right leaning governments.
If the WEF does want to expand beyond lobbying and serve as a home for left leaning governments to come together, they should be transparent about it in the same way the IDU is transparent about their goals.
As pointed out by Carson Jerema in the National Post NDP MP Charlie Angus who tweeted criticism of the Conservatives this week also in 2018 criticized Justin Trudeau for attending the WEF in Davos.
And in 2012, current Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freehand wrote a book entitled “Plutocrats” which also criticized governments attending closed door meetings at places like Davos.
But at the end of the day, conspiracy theories in the plural, suggests that the conservatives have tacked far out of the range of what would be acceptable today in Canada.
In responding to the Canadian Press piece, Pierre Poilievre criticized the media and said, “Today, CBC’s news service CP wrote a hit piece on me because I dared criticize the World Economic Forum—a group of multinational CEOs and powerful politicians that push their interests. I work for our people in this country and will bring home our democracy—without apology.”
Policy wise though we see a Conservative party speaking to the concerns of the majority today, to the point where if polls are to be believed, would form a majority government if an election were held now.
It’s this juxtaposition between what the mainstream media says and what Canadians are feeling that give us second thoughts about this story and underscore the need to verify the media’s reporting.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“Today, CBC’s news service CP wrote a hit piece on me because I dared criticize the World Economic Forum—a group of multinational CEOs and powerful politicians that push their interests. I work for our people in this country and will bring home our democracy—without apology.” – Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on the Canadian Press becoming political.

Word of the Week

Populism - support for the rights and power of ordinary people in their struggle against a privileged elite. “it is clear that populism identifies with the folks on the bottom of the ladder”

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Show Data

Episode Title: For the People

Teaser: We look at the history of populism, what it means, and how it applies to both the left and right. We delve into both the US and Canada’s very successful populist movements. Also, Pierre Poilievre’s populist ideals are shunned by the mainstream media.

Recorded Date: August 16, 2023

Release Date: August 20, 2023

Duration: 57:26

Edit Notes: Break point before FL

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX