Condemning ‘populism’ indirectly delegitimizes popular sovereignty itself
Evidence
An even graver danger lurks inside the fascist frame, however. As should be clear, the word “populism” logically presupposes the notion of “the people”—the implicit subject of all our capitalist democracies. By proxy, the negative use of the word ends up draping the demos itself in suspicion: any popular movement voicing economic, cultural, or political grievances can henceforth be tainted with antidemocratic dispositions. Although almost every modern philosophical tradition places popular sovereignty at the core of democratic principles, citizens are now told that the main danger is the people running against democracy itself, jeopardizing “our freedom.” Since Marine Le Pen declares a love for “the people,” we must surely grow to hate that entity at all costs. Since Orbán styles himself a “democrat,” we must become wary of democracy itself. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 51
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that anti-populist discourse smuggles in suspicion of the demos, so that elites weaponize their opponents’ professions of popular love into reasons to distrust the people, is a genuinely dense rhetorical insight.
- XREF: connects to: Scholarship on populism splits between resigned retention and outright ban of the word — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 43; European elites deployed the word populist to discredit antiausterity movements — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 84; Overly minimal definitions of populism make the label apply to almost all modern politicians — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 49 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Moral condemnation has driven supposedly objective analyses of populism
#corroborates(0.80) — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 58 - Democracy and populism both depend on producing an empty signifier
#expands(0.75) — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 337