Populists
Why do people keep referring to whoever they don’t like as “populists”? Basically that term is used like this:
Populism: democracy that I don’t like
Democracy: democracy that I like.
So typically when someone tars someone with the populist brush they are basically saying “I don’t like them”. This typically isn’t a surprise. It tends to be fairly obvious that the author doesn’t like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson but “I don’t like them” isn’t particularly convincing. Both those gentlemen have enacted utterly idiotic policies but these can be addressed directly. Falling back on calling them populists isn’t doing anyone any good. Maybe people who also didn’t like them thinks that “populist” is a very clever accusation to level against them but I don’t see how it is important to curry favor with that demographic.
Some argue that they use “populist” in a very clear way, though exactly which way tends to differ from people to people. A popular(if you pardon the pun) definition is that “populism is about Us and Them.” I challenge you to name a party that doesn’t argue that they are environmentally sound and oppose all those polluters out there, or that they represent the hard-working people opposed to those who rely on welfare etc etc. Just because you don’t like how party X chooses which demographic to placate doesn’t make their choice of some demographic to placate radically different.
Maybe “populism” is to propose things that sound good but will turn out poorly? Pandering to some demographic. But that’s just how democracy works. Politicians propose things and some say “Yeah, that sounds good” and some say “No, that’ll never work”. There’s no guarantee that whatever gets the most votes is the better alternative. Democracy is about the majority vote getting their way whether they are right or wrong.
How about demonising the Establishment? This is slightly better because in the most literal interpretation it creates a clear delineation unlike other definitions. But while a small group might literally propose that they are opposed to the Establishment, a lot of parties make the same argument but try to dress it up in different clothes. It’s not the Establishment, it’s the Media… It not the Establishment, it’s Industry.
If you are referring to the old Russian narodniki party then OK, the most accurate translation will have to be “the populists” basically. But trying to leverage the same term to criticise political opponents? That does more harm than good and there are usually actual policies that are ripe for criticism on a more constructive plane.
The Rule of Law
“The rule of law” has been a great way for people to criticize political opponents. For instance France’s criticism against Poland dismissing judges because the Polish state introduced the same age-requirement that already exists in France. Typically people use the phrase “the Rule of Law” to mean “keep things the way I like them”. But at the end of the day someone has to appoint judges. This could be handled entirely within the judiciary but that has obvious democratic problems. There’s no guarantee that the judiciary is in step with the people since there’s no link between electoral outcomes and the judiciary.
I think a semi-reasonable interpretation is that “the Rule of Law” lets the legislature draw up laws and their interpretation but that the executive branch of government can’t directly overrule any verdicts. Note that some would object to the legislature having authority to decide on how laws should be interpreted – and that’s not entirely unreasonable – but it’s a little bit too easy to just plain ignore what the law says if the judiciary is free to interpret things as they wish.
I have long criticized Roe v. Wade because the 14’th amendment doesn’t protect the right to abortion and the Supreme Court was right to overturn it recently. The Supreme Court was if anything several decades late. Abortion rights should have been enshrined in law because it was patently obvious that the 14’th amendment gave no such protection but it was much too easy to hide behind the Supreme Court. In case your wondering, I don’t think abortion rights should be enshrined in the constitution because the constitution of any country is about fundamental rights. Defining that abortion is legal up to week 26 is not suitable for the constitution. A blanket ban or a complete legalisation is more in line with what a constitution defines but even the people on the pro-choice side of the argument don’t think that abortion should be legal in the 7’th month. So it is best expressed in a law that can be updated as it becomes appropriate.
How does this relate to “the Rule of Law”? Well, typically the people who are most opposed to the Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade are people who are adament that they are protectors of the Rule of Law while there are others – frequently populists! – who seek to undermine it. But when the Supreme Court rules against them the Rule of Law takes on a different interpretation. We see this in Poland where the new prime minister is trying to reverse what the previous regime introduced but those changes were inshrined in law so any direct dissolution of the state broadcaster for instance isn’t coherent with the Rule of Law.
My point is that the Rule of Law is a lot more complicated than “I like that policy” or “I don’t like that government”. At it’s heart we have to decide how the judicary relates to the government. Should judges be appointed by courts? If so, how do we deal with a judiciary that is at odds with the legislature or the executive branch? Plenty of commenters are keen to rally to defend the judiciary when they are trying to stop changes that have been voted for in a democratic election but that the commenter doesn’t like. We can’t decide the method by which the judiciary is appointed or dismissed based on whether we like change A or change B. We have to decide on how to do this based on more fundamental principles or accountability and then we have to stand up for that decades later. This is the opposite seen among the people who argued that the Supreme Court was right by definition for the past few decades but argued that the Supreme Court was just plain wrong when they overturned Roe v. Wade.
How about the legislature appoints the Supreme Court in the middle of the legislature’s term in office? And then the Supreme Court appoints judges for other “lower” courts? Oh, the US system of Supreme Court justices being appointed for life has to go. I don’t know what they were thinking with that one… The Supreme Court can have a mandate that is as long as that of the legislature, but as mentioned before offset by say two years. And we can stop pretending that somehow “public access television” or “border protection” is immutable and any attempts at changing them is to undermine the Rule of Law? That seems more in line with how grown ups handle these matters.
Liberal democracy
I don’t necessarily object to the phrase “liberal democracy”, but whenever people use it in place of “democracy” it’s kind of bad. Typically the argument is that who goes on over there is illiberal democracy, by populists who undermine the Rule of Law… I argue that whenever we referred to democracy historically, we should keep referring to democracy. For people to suddenly want to do a bait-and-switch in which their interpretation of democracy is liberal democracy with a great many number of preconditions is a detriment to democracy. Because we need to defend democracy as a concept even if people vote for something we consider illiberal. This isn’t some humanitarian élan, it’s just a recognition that we don’t really have a better way of running things than letting the majority decide who runs things and how. Even if they elect Viktor Orbàn that isn’t undemocratic nor is it viable to impose a minority position on the majority.
It’s been much too popular of late to elevate the claims of some group because they have brought a city to a standstill with lots of protesters. Do they command an electoral majority? No, I guess that’s why the people they don’t like are in government. So are we going to let the minority rule because of the protesters they have brought out? What happens when their political opponents bring out just as many protesters are bring the same city to a standstill? Are we going to switch government everty six months?
Let’s affirm that free and fair elections are the hallmark of democracy and people can choose whatever the hell they like, even if we personally might disagree. Similarly sham elections like those in Russia need to be recognized to be blatantly undemocratic independently of what the government calls them. It’s not illiberal democracy, it not democracry, liberal or otherwise.
So let’s stop hiding behind bitesized phrases. “Don’t vote for them, they’re populists!” Or “This government is bad, they aren’t respecting Rule of Law by laying down rules on how the judiciary is staffed”. “We should only accept liberal democracies now!” This isn’t convincing anyone and we’re not addressing the very real issues at hand with these poor attempts at simplification.
Addendum 2024-07-05:
So the US Supreme Court ruled that US presidents have immunity for “presidential acts” but not private ones. The White House denounced it for undermining the rule of law. If the White House had said that they thought that ruling was a bad idea, people would undoubtedly have argued that the White House undermined the rule of law. I argue that they would not have. While it’s something of a gray area, the executive branch are entitled to comment on decisions by the judicial branch. Only if they say that the will do the opposite of what the Supreme Courts says “and they can’t do anything about it”, then the rule of law is undermined.
But for the executive branch of government to criticize the judicial branch for a rendered verdict on the grounds that it undermines the rule of law, that’s an infinite loop of irony! Now I understand the Biden administration’s plight. Donald Trump rejects the results of democratic elections if he loses and he will probably be entirely OK with approving results from undemocratic elections if he wins(if he were to participate in any such elections). Yet Trump is flying high in the opinion polls so openly rejecting democracy – not the highfalutin democratic principles like freedom of speech, just the purely mechanical issue of how elections should be held – does not disqualify you with the voting public. But shooting yourself in the leg like this isn’t helping…
I can’t help but wonder if the White House would have said the same of this verdict if President Biden were under criminal prosecution. Any such prosecution would lack proper substance or justification but I think we all know that prosecutions of presidents past and present don’t need to be legally sound. The Republican party has been trying its best since the last election to prosecute the current president for whatever they can think of.
At the end of the day US presidents and governors of US states have had the power to pardon crimes in their respective jurisdictions since long ago so the old American principle that no one is above the law has been under severe strain for some time.
Addendum 2024-07-29:
The White House wants to impose term limits on Supreme Court Justices. A fine idea! No one should be appointed for life in a democracy. But, this is many decades overdue and launched by a liberal president in regards to a conservative Supreme Court. It would not look like you were undertaking a partisan move to limit the powers of “the other side” if a liberal president tries to impose term limit on a liberal supreme court and vice versa.
The idea of removing immunity from past presidents seems somewhat flawed. I like the approach though, this is how things are supposed to work. If something isn’t to your liking, ask the legislative assembly to fix it, don’t just say that the court is wrong. What is being proposed has approximately 0% chance of passing since it requires all state legislatures to approve it but that’s how the constitution works. It can’t be changed easily. Note that so far this doesn’t seem to infringe on a president’s ability to pardon people:
This No One Is Above the Law Amendment will state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President.
Also, why is this in regards to previously serving as President and not also to serving presidents? Maybe this is a type-o, indeed it wouldn’t be the first on that page:
President Biden believesthat
There should be a another space in there.
Still, all in all this indicates a better grasp of legislative reform. Even when changes aren’t approved at least you have made your position clear and opponents have had to make their positions clear. The only other way to create new rights or obligations is via the Supreme Court who for a long time have been finding things hidden between the lines of existing amendments by “interpreting the constitution in a modern light” as has been euphemistically said. Whether we go back to the Dred Scott case or Roe v. Wade some startling conclusions have been reached by the court on the basis of constitutionality. Neither conservatives nor liberals can rest easy with the Supreme Court wielding the power that they do but seem content to leave things as they are as long as they stand to gain. Somewhat short-sighted…
Progressives
It’s quite the coup to make your political ideology go by the name “progressivism”. But I think it’s pretty clear that you are trying to make whatever you want seem like “progress”. But we don’t know what progress looks like. That’s not a dig at progressivism per se, it’s just an aspect of the human condition that we can only really talk of progress in hindsight, knowing how things worked out. The people in favour of prohibition in the US probably thought they were very progressive but prohibition lasted only a few years. So we can hardly see prohibition as progress. How about Roe v. Wade? Was that progressive? It just got overturned so I fail to see how Roe v. Wade was progress.
Did you like a particular reform? That’s fine! But whether or not it was “progress” is not related to whether or not you liked it. Calling yourself “progressive” does more harm than good because you seem to be laying claim to “progress” as a concept and that you see the future more clearly than other people. Argue for your case but don’t call your standpoint “progressive”.