Type 5: "Populist"

Every now and then a movement/leader bursts onto the scene determined to wake us from our slumber and shake us from the prevailing consensus. We feel momentarily enfranchized by the unsettling effect this has on the corrupt/complacent ruling party and status quo. Some of us become appalled by the demagoguery or mesmerized by the populist rhetoric in the name of "justice" or "freedom" for "the people" against "the elites" during this time of "hope" for "change". Most of us probably don't believe the blarney, but at least we are finally being offered the opportunity to dispose of the greedy incumbents.

Mindset: "I have always felt disempowered and want a say. If folks vote for big Gummint and Kleptocratic welfare statism, folks should get big Gummint and Kleptocratic welfare statism, so long as it’s ratified by the majority and we get to look over the cooked books once in a while."

Resulting Government: Tyranny of the Majority. Read The Menace of the Herd by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn.

Manifestations/Practitioners: The classic populism of Sparticus; the imperialist glory of Napoleon; the jingoism of Theodore Roosevelt; the 'Every Man a King' campaign of Huey Long; the 'New Deal' populism of F.D.R.; the Prairie populism of John Diefenbaker; the telegenic charisma of John Kennedy, John Edwards and Barack Obama; the Gaullism of Charles de Gaulle, the Peronism of Juan Perón, the Trudeaumania of Pierre Trudeau and Thatcherism of Margaret Thatcher; the Charlatanism of Tony Blair and Blarney of Brian Mulroney (biggest majority in Canadian history); John Howard's Aussie battlers ('Howard's battlers'); Jean Chretien, the 'Little Guy from Shawinigan'; the economic populism of New Zealand prime minister, Sir Robert Muldoon; the reformist populism of Ross Perot, Preston Manning and Newt Gingrich; the 'Common Sense Revolution' of Mike Harris in Ontario; the 'Quite Revolution' nationalism of René Lévesque/separatist demagoguery of Lucien Buchard in Quebec; the far right-wing/left-wing populism of David Duke/Hugo Chávez; the ultranationalism of Jean Marie Le Pen of France or Vladimir Zhirinovsky of Russia.

Recent Quote: "It is a paradox of democracy that sometimes leaders must make decisions that a majority of the electorate either disagrees with, or would disagree with if it had the chance to express an opinion. The public didn’t vote to reduce tariffs, float the dollar, or sell the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. If the public had been given a say on any of these policies they would have been rejected." - John Roskam of the Melbourne Institute of Public Affairs (The Perils of Populism by Roger Kerr)

Better Quote: "We are the change we've been waiting for." - Barack Obama.

Not Included: The fearmongering, hatemongering, demonization, intimidation, scapegoating and 'Big Lie' propaganda of Adolf Hitler probably fits more in the realm of mass hysteria than populism in my view.

Comments: Populism can be an opportunity or a threat. It is by definition impossible to arrive at an ideal result in government through populist appeal, where all of the democratic interests of the people must be taken into account. Given the diversity of interests and groups in a polyglot society, any movement that appeals to all of the "people's interest" will by definition be so general as to be useless or bequeath a government so large as to be burdensome. The key is to remove the people's interest in government altogether, which brings me to type 6...