Tag: Mexico

Of the populist, by the populist, and for the populist: The Global Rise of Populism

Of the populist, by the populist, and for the populist

Populism is on the rise. A proof of this is has been reported by The Guardian. According to their statistics*, populism is experiencing a recent surge of popularity. From only 300 articles published about it in 1998, it has more than tripled into 1,000 articles in 2015 and almost 2,000 articles in 2016.

According to this graph from Jordan Kyle and Limor Gultchin, there are more populists now than there were back in the 1990s:

Number of Countries with Populism in Power Graph.png

A few examples of current political leaders that are famous for being populists are Donald Trump of the United States, Marine Le Pen of France, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand.

But what exactly is a populist, and so what if populism is rising? Why should we be concerned about that? A populist, according to experts Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, believes that politics is an expression of the will of the people, and that the people should fight the elite that has corrupted government.

However, Mudde and Kaltwasser cleared up that a person is not automatically a populist just because he or she is against the corrupt elite. What labels a candidate as populist is how he or she markets himself or herself as the only possible representative of the people and that the “others” (other candidates) are not and whoever votes for them cannot be counted as “real people”.

Let us take Trump, for example. During his campaign rally, he proclaimed:

“The most important thing is the unification of the people – because the other people don’t mean anything.”*

Trump campaign.jpg

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey said the same thing, albeit in different words:

“We are the people,” and proceeded to ask his critics, “Who are you?”*

Image result for recep tayyip erdoğan

Another example is Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico. After losing the 2006 elections, he protested against the results:

“The victory of the right is morally impossible” and said that the “legitimate president of Mexico” could only be him.

Image result for andres manuel lopez obrador

To summarize it into a single sentence: populism has a noble belief (or it makes us believe that they have noble beliefs), however, its problem lies in its anti-pluralism and exclusionary politics.

This poses a problem for democracy because by saying such, they insert seeds of doubt into the minds of the citizens in the existing democratic institutions. They make citizens become discouraged to vote because why will they vote if elections are rigged anyway?

Sometimes, it is true that there is are corrupt elites who manipulate the political climate of a nation, and the populists are right in this regard: the corruption should stop. However, it is also possible that populism has only been used as a strategy to get the votes of the masses. As a consequence,  the problem is the same, only that the “populist” is now part of the corrupt elite, even more so because we cannot differentiate the authentic from the inauthentic because they both use the same words.

Instead of being “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” there is a risk that it will become “of the populist, by the populist, and for the populist.”

Notes

*These statistics only count the articles published by and on The Guardian.

*Example from Jan-Werner Müller’s book titled “The Rise and Rise of Populism”.

*Example from Jan-Werner Müller’s book titled “What is Populism?”

References

  • Gultchin, L. & Kyle, J. (2018). Populists in Power Around the World. In Institute for Global Change.
  • Mudde, C. & Kaltwasser, C.R. (2013). Exclusionary vs Inclusionary Populism: Comparing Contemporary Europe and Latin America. In Government and Opposition 48, no. 2: 147–174.
  • Müller, Jan-Werner. (2017). The Rise and Rise of Populism? In The Age of Perplexity. Rethinking The World we Knew. Madrid: BBVA.
  • Müller, J. W. (2017). What is populism?. UK: Penguin.

Bridges, not Borders: Should the US-Mexico Wall be Constructed?

Building border walls is not a new concept.  Walls have been around as early as 10th century BCE when the first city wall was built around Jericho. These walls were built as the first line of defense in protecting its citizens from foreign invaders.

Jericho Wall

(Photo from imgur.com)

There was also the Hadrian Wall in AD 122, built to close off Britain from barbarians.

Hadrian's Wall

(Photo from History.com)

Arguably the most famous of them all is the Great Wall of China. Started during the 7th century, it took more than 2,500 years to finish. That’s a fairly long time. Generations have come and gone without seeing the wall in its complete glory. It was also reported that around 1 million workers died during the construction process. It was for this reason that besides being considered as the longest wall, it has also been referred to as the “longest cemetery in the world”. 

Great Wall of China

(Photo from The Independent)

Then there was the infamous Berlin Wall, constructed on August 12, 1961. What makes it different from the previous three is that its aim was not to protect Berlin from foreigners, but to prevent citizens living in Soviet-controlled East Germany from defecting to West Germany. Even so, the wall did not stop everyone from trying to escape. Many still tried, some survived, but most have been gunned down — their bodies lay as reminders of what would happen if citizens defected.

Berlin Wall

(Photo from HowStuffWorks.com)

The southern border wall was planned by Trump to act as a barrier between Mexico and the United States. Using his own words, it will be built in order to stop “Invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.” With how the wall is marketed to the public, it would seem that it is a defensive move — to protect America from foreigners in the same way that the historical walls did.

Trump Singing National Emergency | Photo from Sara Sanders

(Photo from Sara Sanders)

However, the people he is trying to “protect” the United States from are not barbarians, not foreigners planning to invade the United States, and definitely not the armies of other countries. They are immigrants. Let’s face it, if they were planning to invade, it would be a suicide mission. Everybody knows that the military power of the US is the strongest of all countries. Nobody would want to invade America unless they had a death wish.

Trump’s wall is estimated to cost $8 billion. No matter which angle we look at it, that is a big amount of money. Since the US has that much money in the first place, why can’t it be used to improve healthcare and education? Eradicate poverty? When you eradicate poverty, you lessen the crime rate. That’s a win-win. Instead, it will be used to build a wall.

Another point to consider is that the wall will be bad for the economy. Not only the US economy, but also the economies of other countries who trade with the US  goods, but especially those who import cheap labor. Trump said the immigrants are hurting the economy, but statistics show that the US economy is actually growing. According to Citi Global Perspectives and Solutions, the immigrants are directly responsible for ⅔ of the economic growth. The migrants go to the US to find more job opportunities that pay better compared to the countries they were from. With Trump’s immigration policies, migrants will be afraid of moving to the US, and predictably, the economy will be hurt in the process.

Trump said that the wall can help improve the security of America and the safety of American citizens. However, data shows more Americans have been killed by right-wing extremists than by Islamist terrorists. The roadmap to peace is connection with others, not separation from them. That only evokes fear, which produces distrust, and paves the way for violence. The old adage still stands, after all. Instead of building walls, we should put more effort into building bridges.

To end this, I’ll leave you with three comic strips (thanks, Google) to contemplate on:

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Sources and Further Reading