The New Dirty Word: Populism

It is an odd thing really. As Latin Americans elect a wave of new political leaders from the left, voices on the right have begun to settle on a new line of attack against them. From Madrid to Washington a new alarm bell is being sounded – "Beware the Populists!"

In an interview covered today in the Bolivian daily La Razon, the former conservative president of Spain, José María Aznar, warned against the rising "populist tide" in Latin America. Specifically citing Bolivia, Aznar warned:

"I hope that this populist tide can be stopped. Someone has to stop it. Someone has to say that this isn't the way."

Earlier this month in Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said virtually the same thing in a speech before the National Press Club:

"We've seen some populist leadership appealing to masses of people in those countries. And elections like Evo Morales in Bolivia take place that clearly are worrisome."

"Populism" it seems, to some, has become a dirty word.

The on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia, defines the word "populism" this way:

Populism is a political philosophy or rhetorical style that holds that the common person's interests are oppressed or hindered by the elite in society, and that the instruments of the state need to be grasped from this self-serving elite and used for the benefit and advancement of the people as a whole.

I am Californian and in my home state being a "populist" is considered a good thing. A century ago it was the populists in my home state (Republicans, by the way) who took on the mighty railroads and championed political reforms such as the initiative process, to put power into the people's hands.

It was, of course, another Republican radical, Abraham Lincoln, who enshrined populism into US national theology: "government of the people, by the people and for the people." Tranalate that into Spanish and it sounds like Evo Morales on the stump.

So, if a government shouldn't be popular, what should it be? Unpopular?

Well, the Bush administration is certainly giving that a shot, currently breaking records for unpopularity. And Anzar's political party got tossed out by voters the last time it went to the polls in Spain. But I am not sure having unpopular governments is really the way to go either. Bolivia tried unpopular governments – a string of them – Hugo Banzer, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and others, administrations elected with less than a quarter of the popular vote. In Bolivia, unpopular didn’t work out so well. Maybe a government with a 2 to 1 victory deserves a chance.

The real alternative to populist governments is rule by the nation's elite. Governments of, by, and for the elite tend to have more formal education and dress tidier. Unfortunately, in Bolivia, they have also had a tendancy to hand over the keys to the house (water, gas, airlines, etc.) to foreign corporations. That makes the elites better off but not the people. In Bolivia, that has evertything to do with why the political parties that have served the political elite for half a century are now as dead as the stegsaurus.

Rumsfeld is the architect, and Anzar was a major backer, of a war supposedly being faught to promote democracy. Populism, it seems, is what some people call democracy when it doesn't turn out the way they'd hoped.