Populism is a cure worse than the disease, but the disease needs to be cured

Scleroticism isn't the answer to arson

On Thursday, RFK was confirmed to be the country’s top health official. Congratulations to the measles lobby on a resounding victory. After decades of being ignored and looked down on by coastal elites, the disease community has had enough and is fighting back. Not to be outdone on the federal level, Louisiana is no longer going to promote mass vaccination. That’ll teach those latte drinking, EV driving, Whole Foods shopping limousine liberals!

I wrote two weeks ago that people are going to have to learn the hard way about the consequences of electing a mad king. I didn’t mention vaccines, but that is an area where we’re going to have to go through some needless suffering for people to snap out of it. I wish it was different, but the anti-vaxxer genie is out of the bottle.

People like RFK are no longer fringe. Ideas like vaccines are dangerous and cause autism are now mainstream. The bipartisan consensus that mass vaccination is good is over. Anti-vaccine sentiment and fears about vaccines are more widespread than they have ever been. It’s no longer just fringe activists who are promoting those ideas, elected officials, including, by my count, at least five senators, are now doing it.¹

The only way the anti-vaxxer movement is going to be discredited is enough people have to follow its advice. There is currently a measles outbreak in Texas that has hospitalized more than a dozen people. That is going to have to happen many more times across the country before people pull their heads out of their asses.

There are two big ironies that shouldn’t be overlooked when looking at anti-vaccine sentiment and the consequences of it. One is sad and the other is funny in a macabre sort of way. The sad irony is that vaccines have become victims of their own success. Because vaccines have been so effective at eradicating diseases, very few people today remember what it was like when measles, pertussis and polio were big problems. It’s easy to say vaccines are worthless when you’ve been vaccinated and have never had to live in a world without them.

The sort of funny irony is when disease outbreaks happen it won’t be woke liberals who suffer. They’re all vaccinated and will vaccinate their kids. It will be the kids of Trump supporters who get sick. That’s classic Trump for you. He screws over the most those who put their trust in him.

The only bit of good news is I’m confident that enough disease outbreaks will crush the anti-vaxxer movement. Hating vaccines and experts in the abstract is one thing, but it’s a different story when you or someone you love is in the hospital. With enough people having suffered needlessly, the anti-vaccine cause is going to be discredited faster than you can say measles.

The populist con

The rise and mainstreaming of the anti-vaxxer movement is a good segue into the broader discussion of what populism is and is not and why it always goes off the rails even if it starts off as a response to legitimate problems. During the last week, David French and David Brooks both wrote columns discussing populism from different angles. French gives us some history of it and discusses what really drives those kinds of movements. Brooks goes over many serious problems the country has and laments that Trump is doing nothing about it.

Populism is not a new thing. It’s been around in the US since at least the early 1800s. Very few movements or individuals refer to themselves as populists, but that label is frequently given to them based on some characteristics. What drives populism more than anything else is rage at some kind of elite(s). Populism can be left-wing or right-wing, but the latter has long been much more effective at using it. For a contemporary example of that, just look at how much more successful Trump has been than Bernie Sanders.

While populism exists in the US, it’s not a uniquely American phenomenon. Europe has long had a populist strain, which we’re seeing now in almost every country there. As in the US, right-wing populists have proven to be vastly more effective than their left-wing counterparts.

Populism at its best can be good for identifying problems. Brooks cites several alarming statistics about the differences between college educated and non-college educated people. Those who are college educated tend to live much longer, have stable families and more friends and have much greater social capital. There are many parts of the country that were once thriving but are now down on their luck and have seen big population declines.

Those are legitimate problems that should be addressed. The problem is it’s not obvious what the solutions are and efforts to find solutions will inevitably involve major tradeoffs. Populism may be good for making people living in those areas heard, but it has nothing in the way of solutions. At best, it just offers hatred of abstract monsters and promises to wave a magic wand and make everything perfect. Otherwise, it offers ideas like economic protectionism and nostalgia that won’t help struggling places, but will make things worse.

At its core, populism is about culture, not economics. The best example of that is anti-immigration sentiment, which has long been a feature of populist movements. Fear of immigrants is often discussed as being about economic anxiety, but that’s not really what’s going on. What is going on is a fear of change. No, I’m not saying you’re racist if you don’t favor open borders.² I don’t favor open borders. But if you make being anti-immigration your entire thing, you’re going to wind up in bed with people who are racist even if you don’t become racist yourself.

How can we be sure fear of job loss isn’t what’s driving anti-immigration sentiment? Just look at where the unemployment rate has been for the last few years. People have jobs. Or you can look at wide swaths of the country where unemployment is low and the immigrant population is almost non-existent, but anti-immigration sentiment is sky high. You can’t explain that by pointing to economic anxiety.

French mentions several historical examples of populist figures who based their brand on hatred of “others,” often black people. Trump likes to play off of peoples’ fears of immigrants and blames trade deals for every problem faced by formerly prosperous areas. Populism is an appeal to emotion and passions, not reason and nuance.

French believes populism is always guaranteed to end poorly. Brooks is more hopeful about its potential. He argues that Trump is not a true populist, but just plays one on the campaign trail. As soon as he’s in charge, he proceeds to fight culture war battles and engage in corruption for his own benefit. That’s true, but there’s more to it.

What were Trump’s signature legislative endeavors during his first term? Was it an infrastructure bill or some kind of effort to improve the lives of working-class people? No. First, he attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have disproportionately hurt working-class people. After that failed, he successfully pushed for tax cuts that did very little for working-class people, but did plenty for those who were already thriving.

Over the week, House Republicans passed their budget resolution out of committee, which begins the process of trying to enact their fiscal agenda. What’s in it? Mostly, it consists of extending the tax cuts passed in 2017, but it also includes up to $2 trillion in spending cuts. Where would those cuts come from? Heavily from Medicaid and food stamps, which will hurt almost entirely working-class people.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that this is Trump’s agenda. Brooks is right that Trump doesn’t care about working-class people, but no populist ever does. There is no such thing as a true populist as he envisions it. French is right in arguing that populism isn’t about any kind of substantive policy. Just about every populist movement has wound up centering around a single person. That’s why even though populism can start off as a response to real problems, it always winds up devolving into a racket.

Trump isn’t the first populist figure to be corrupt (see Huey Long and Edwin Edwards), but none of his predecessors are in the same universe as him. For a list of the corrupt things he did on Monday, yes, literally, just on one day, see here. That happened before several US attorneys resigned rather than drop the case against Eric Adams.³ If you haven’t yet read the resignation letters from two of those who stepped down, you can read them here. They’re well worth your time.

Trump cares about Trump. Believing he cares about anything other than himself requires microwaving your brain. I find myself almost dying of asphyxiation from laughing so hard when I hear his more sophisticated supporters claim he cares about the country and is patriotic. If mental gymnastics was a sport they would win gold, silver and bronze in every category. I guess they have to live with themselves somehow, but I’m sure whatever drop of a conscience they have left will be gone soon enough.

French doesn’t directly address it, but one major feature of populism is it makes people stupid. It convinces its followers that there is only black-and-white. It tells them they’re victims, that all of their problems are caused by some far away villains and that all the problems in the world are easy to solve. The only thing standing in the way are evil elites.

Populist figures like to tell their followers that they have magic powers. Trump famously declared that he alone can fix it. There’s an easy answer for everything that somehow everyone else in politics or any area of expertise has missed. In their telling, tradeoffs don’t exist, their solutions have no costs or downsides and they can take us back to some mythical past, which never actually existed, but they promise will be perfect.

That’s one reason why populist movements don’t last. It’s easy to campaign on fantasy ideas and to point fingers at scary monsters. You can get elected that way, but then you have to govern and that’s when the rubber hits the road. Ideas rooted in fantasy are going to crash and burn the second you try to act on them.

One of Trump’s big ideas is using tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs. If he acts on it that won’t happen. What will happen is prices will go up and he will be very unpopular for it. His other big idea is deporting everyone here illegally. If he does anything like that, a good chunk of the workforce will be gone and it won’t be replaced by Americans. Prices will go up, service will be slow and it will make him very unpopular, likely discrediting him and populism.

You tell me it’s the institution, well, you know…

There are legitimate issues that gave rise to Trump. As French says, elites have messed up a lot during this century. The war in Iraq is one example. The financial crisis and the aftermath of it is another. The handling of the pandemic by the public health establishment is yet another example and something I wrote about plenty in 2021 and 2022.

Despite the failings of elites in many areas, the response to it should not be to put arsonists in charge. I have heard many people, usually those on the right, cite excessive pandemic restrictions as a justification for people distrusting those institutions and throwing their lot in with the likes of RFK. Sorry, but that’s a load of shit.

As I have been writing about for years, we all have agency. It’s perfectly rational to be mad at institutions like the CDC and the FDA and at the catastrophic decisions by many blue states to close schools for as long as they did. You can feel that way without letting it melt your brain and becoming a crank. There are many public health and elected officials who, in an ideal world, would have to answer for their horrible judgment. But the right response is to fix the institutions we have, not to throw our lot in with arsonists who want to burn it all down.

Anyone who tells you the only options are to defend all institutions no matter what or to destroy everything is talking out of their ass. Anyone who takes either of those positions is doing so by choice. Nobody has to say the response to the pandemic was perfect and nobody has to be an arsonist. We need institutions and expertise, but we can and should have high standards for those in charge and hold them accountable when they mess up.

Although the pandemic response is a good example of institutional failures, there are plenty of others out there. In general, I would describe myself as being pro-institution and pro-establishment. I believe the institutions we have, both public and private, are good and are things we can’t live without. I also believe institutions are only as good as the people running them and that has lately left a lot to be desired.

I don’t want to blindly defend institutions against arsonists. As much as I hate the Trumps and RFKs of the world, the response can’t be to say everything is awesome. It certainly can’t be to reflexively defend every last thing every governmental entity does.

A topic I write about with some regularity is the failings of blue state governance. Mostly, I write about the many regulations in place in blue states and cities that make housing illegal to build. That is an example of institutions failing. I’m not going to defend any of that and nobody should. As a committed Democrat, it infuriates me when I see places where Democrats are fully in control being run so horribly. More than anything else, it’s an institutional failure on the part of local governments, but the state government is a close second.

DC, New York and California are great places. People want to live there, but they can’t afford to. The response from anyone in a position of authority there should be to change that. By deferring to the wishes of NIMBYs who have made it illegal to build housing, Democrats are telling people who want to live there to stay out. It makes a mockery of everything they claim to believe in and nobody should defend it.

One institutional failing that is so enraging to me is the botched effort to build high speed rail in California. It’s an example of just about everything that can go wrong when a state government refuses to set any priorities. The entire process has been a clusterfuck since money was first approved for HSR in 2008. It’s something nobody who cares about building anything should consider acceptable.

I’ve cited Ezra Klein many times and I love the phrase “everything bagel liberalism.” So many institutional failings at all levels of government where Democrats are or have been in control can be traced to that mindset. But the institutional failings are not just of the government. They are of those in the Democratic Party, too.

Of all the things I would like to see elected Democrats at all levels of government do differently, it is to wrap their heads around some core truths. We live in a world of tradeoffs. Governments, including the federal government, are limited in what they can do. You have to set priorities. You can’t please everybody and you’re going to have to be willing to upset people in your coalition.

What happened with HSR in California is the result of refusing to do that. As originally envisioned, the goal of HSR was to go from LA to San Francisco and vice-versa with no stops in between. Democrats are fully in control of the state government and could have allocated money for it to do just that and for it to follow the most efficient route. That’s not what happened. What did happen was the legislature, in an effort to please everyone, made one concession after another to individuals and groups. What was supposed to be a straightforward project became mind-numbingly complex and its cost exploded.

Democrats in California can’t decide what they want to do. The goal of HSR should be to get people from Point A to Point B in a timely manner. Building HSR (or anything) should involve trying to figure out how to build it in the quickest time at the lowest cost. Everything Democrats in California have done with HSR reflects a mindset that is just the opposite.

There are many in Democratic Party circles, including elected officials, who are obsessed with process and paperwork. Whatever the stated goal is, procedures must be followed, lawyers must be consulted, endless meetings must be held, community input must be sought, all concerns from all stakeholders must be heard and everyone must be given a say. Actual, concrete results like building things that make peoples’ lives better are one of many secondary concerns. I don’t think many people consciously believe process is better than progress, but their actions have proven that is what matters the most to them.

The origins of the failings of blue states go back many decades before they were blue states. But it’s mostly the failure of the Democrats in charge there now that is keeping those bad things in place. Democrats in blue states can’t ignore tradeoffs. They have to decide whether they want their states to be places people move to and thrive in or whether they want to keep trying everything bagels.

Democrats have to not just favor building things, but to see it as a means to an end, not an end to itself. Using HSR as an example, the end goal is to get people from one place to another as fast and conveniently as possible. All other goals are secondary. HSR is not a jobs programs. Building it will employ people, which is fine, but it’s incidental. Treating it as a jobs program guarantees it will be extremely expensive and take vastly longer to get built if it gets built at all.

The goal of building more housing is to make cities affordable to live in while building infrastructure is supposed to be about making it easier for people and goods to move around. Neither are about promoting child care, small/women/minority owned businesses or marginalized groups. Those are all worthy goals, but housing and infrastructure are not the places to pursue them.

Abandoning everything bagels is going to require Democrats at all levels of government to be willing to say no to many of their supporters. When spending money to build infrastructure, for example, there will be all kinds of coalition members who will want something out of it. Unions will want the work to go to their members. Social justice-oriented groups will want it to prioritize certain communities. Domestic businesses will want to get priority in contracts and some will want Buy American requirements. Environmental groups will oppose any effort to cut back on environmental reviews and other red tape. All of those groups will have to be told no.

Democrats at all levels of government have to get a lot more serious about governing, especially in places where they’re firmly in control. What happened with HSR is unacceptable, but debacles like that will continue to happen as long as they keep craving everything bagels. Populism is not the answer to our problems, but neither is acting like everything is fine and must always be defended.

1. Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville, Jim Banks, Markwayne Mullin and Rand Paul

2. Non-white people can be anti-immigration just as much as white people. Immigrants can be just as anti-immigration as native born people. Immigrants hating other immigrants is a tale as old as time. Gangs of New York is a good movie for many reasons, but it illustrates well the hostility different immigrant groups can have towards each other.

3. Accountability time: I liked Adams when he was running for mayor. I touted him and cited him as an example of someone woke white liberals should look to as opposed to professional activists. That has clearly aged poorly. It’s too bad because I liked his swagger and thought maybe, just maybe, he could be the one to break the NIMBY stranglehold on housing policy. Leaving aside his corruption, he just doesn’t have any interest in the job.