Counterpunch, Topic: Two Populisms, Not One - Paul Street

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I feel indebted to Paul Street for his 2007 essays' debunking the faux progressivism of conservative shyster Barack Obama.

 On this occasion I didn't read any further than the excerpt below, feeling that Paul should spend more time reading and analyzing rather than prolifically regurgitating what appears to amount to half-baked gatekeeper tropes.

 It maybe that a surprise is lurking deeper within this piece. I doubt it.

 For my part I find Alan Woods' Marxist analysis of the balance of forces  The Digger: In Defense of Marxism, Topic: The French elections: a collapse of the status quo far more compelling.


 Excerpt:
"Two very different “populisms” that have arisen in response to neoliberal capitalism in the West.
A left-leaning social-democratic “progressive populism” targets the capitalist concentration of wealth and power and the unbridled pursuit of private profit as enemies of the people and the common good.  This populism is egalitarian and radically democratic.  It tends towards socialism.  Its attractive policy agenda, supported by working-class majorities, includes the downward distribution of wealth, the expansion of the social safety net, university quality health care, increased minimum wages and union power, public jobs programs, and the protection of livable ecology (a Green New Deal).  Its diverse political figureheads include Jeremy Corbyn (leader of the British Labour Party), Jean-Luc Melenchon (head of La France Insoumie)[sic], Yanis Varourfakis (leader of the new Progressive International), and even Bernie Sanders.
Then there’s the reactionary anti-cosmopolitan nationalist “populism” of the right. This unattractive and backwards-looking populism shares some of left populism’s disdain for giant globalist corporations and financial institutions.  Still, its ire is aimed primarily at immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities and their perceived liberal and multi-cultural champions in the globalist “elite.”  This white-nationalist “populism” (some would say faux-populism) carries no small whiff of fascism. It aligns with noxious politicians like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen (France), Alexander Gauland (Germany), Matteo Savlini (Italy), Nigel Farage (England), Viktor Orban (Hungary), Geert Wilders (Netherlands), and Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil)"
Continue reading: Two Populisms, Not One

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