{"id":4528,"date":"2004-08-23T15:30:34","date_gmt":"2004-08-23T15:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4528"},"modified":"2004-08-23T15:30:34","modified_gmt":"2004-08-23T15:30:34","slug":"sentimental-populism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4528","title":{"rendered":"sentimental populism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently came across a critique of Ralph Nader<\/a> that Harry Boyte wrote several years ago. This is the best paragraph:<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the problem with Nader-style populism is that it asks very little of citizens. It is based on a fairy land account of our nation’s problems in which the people are innocents, the corporations are villains and democracy will come when we break them up. Instead of a populism of grievance and victimhood, we need a civic populism that teaches people how to work across lines of difference, how to understand problems in many-sided ways, how to listen to others with whom they disagree, how to think strategically and practically, not simply in emotive or righteous ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think the criticism is accurate; and it applied even thirty years ago when Nader was a crusading lawyer instead of a presidential candidate. It also describes people like Venezuelan President Hector Chavez, media scholar Robert McChesney, and Michael Moore. I’m much more attracted to populism that has two important features: it recognizes that ordinary people are already <\/i>creating and wielding power all around us (they are not just victims); and it recognizes the ways that popular attitudes, skills, and values could be improved. Corporations and governments are not the only things standing in the way of popular rule; sometimes people are uninterested in governing. But that’s not an argument against populism. It’s a challenge that makes you think hard about civic education, community organizing, and institution-building.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, Ned Crosby has posted a very useful long comment <\/a>about the Jefferson Center and its Citizens’ Juries on this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently came across a critique of Ralph Nader that Harry Boyte wrote several years ago. This is the best paragraph: Ultimately, the problem with Nader-style populism is that it asks very little of citizens. It is based on a fairy land account of our nation’s problems in which the people are innocents, the corporations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-populism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}