Conservative populism is an enigma wrapped in a mystery served on a bed of lettuce. Democrats are the ones that supposedly have the populist bona fides while the Republicans are supposedly the country club wing of America. Of course, both parties do much for the 1% and the new populist Obama rings hollow for many. To say there are no Republicans willing to speak out against the plutocracy is to not have spoken to Buddy Roehmer, and while Ron Paul is an ideologue with a belief system that leads to concentration of power through inaction, I find it difficult to think of him as someone that wants to enable elitism for personal gain. I understand Democratic populism; government is the force in society that is in position to ameliorate abuses and can step in when the magic free market vending machine doesn't quite function properly. However, with the recent refusal on Republicans to lower taxes on the middle class using this idea that "tax cuts must be paid for" as their shield, laying out their hypocrisy like a garage sale, it has become so obvious who they work for. How then, could such a thing as conservative populism even exist? Who are the "masses" they are fighting for? How is Gingrich an outsider? How is the astroturf of the Tea Party only visible to the libertarian wing of that party, while even they stand silent? How can they rail against George Soros and unions, but turn a blind eye towards the Koch brothers?
Populism, as its marketed in the political arena, is a lashing out at elites and their cronies who use money and influence to enrich themselves at the expense of the 99%. There is a heavy element of, "If they operated on the same playing field as you, they wouldn't have gone so far, and you might be further than where you're at now." The hard right's boogeyman is the government and power corporations are t he enemy of the left. The classic fairy tale is some evil billionaire (or billionaire family) conspires against the masses in their dark tower somewhere off in the forest. They perfect the art of mind control through advertisements to get sympathetic idiots with personality deficiencies to flood the streets in droves with pre-made signs to scare their opposition into defeat and then push through their nefarious agenda, all the while sipping champagne in Vail, Colorado. The billionaires are super geniuses with deep, intense plots, and their minions are unable to think for themselves, rationalize, or even take charge of their god given self will. This structure almost never aligns with reality, but it's an age old story that has been told time and time again. Every group has their "billionaire" who is a hero if he agrees with you, even if only occasionally. Sorry, Buffet, but a few choice quotes here and there does not an ally make. We then bring out the wacky celebrities who call for rich people to be beheaded, or conversely, go into throngs of 20 somethings and tell them that Jesus was never about giving people handouts (the sermon on the Mount has been censored from the conservative Gospel). Circus? Complete.
I can see you getting your pointing finger ready to accuse me of false equivalencies, your eyes wild with preemptive rage. Put it down a sec. I'm just retelling the story; it's mostly bunk. Unions who are trying to salvage pensions and wages in an atmosphere where corporations are using the high unemployment rate to consolidate their power are not equivalent to the aforementioned corporations. Why isn't that clear to people? Many on this blog feel that their cause is so just, their logic so infallible, and that reality has become so stark that the sleepy middle must awaken from its Wal-Mart induced slumber or else it will be swallowed in a wave of theocratic fascism. I don't share this concern. The idea of an illuminati in some dark room somewhere insults my intelligence. However, many points that progressives make on this blog are stark and have gone a long way to grab a centrist such as myself by the scruff of my neck and pull me towards the left. It makes me wonder, though, how such a thing as conservative populism can exist when their team gets away with flagrant fouls?
Authoritarians have compartmentalized psyches, so it is easy to deduce that the "masses" within the conservative construct is an exclusive club that fits a set description even though it directly contradicts the much more inclusive 99% construct. The populace are the suburbanites, the farmers, and the "simple" folk of the rural areas where we see the starkest divide between blue and red. With this group of people, it is easy to lose citizenship in their eyes. For the authoritarians it must be easy to see Left Coast Californian liberals with great jobs in biotech and to think they are the evil rich people with whom class warfare must be waged. The rich people who pay for their rallies and receive the subsidies and tax breaks to fund their farms and mega businesses are within the "in" group, and their largesse is mostly ignored. How can this be pointed out so many times, yet summarily ignored?
However, we're seeing a more populist tone, but one that has been flung through a meat grinder; a beaten, broken form of progressive populism. Suddenly, conservatives are concerned with the plight of minorities and the poor, but express it in a horrifying manner fit for a shock jock. Minorities and groups that had previously been apart of the Democratic coalition are now being actively recruited to find political fault lines, and a new outreach program is happening, albeit in many ways conservatives operate on their litany of prejudices. We saw it when a group of radical Christians from "The Call" came to Detroit to proselytize to African Americans, a group the GOP has never been able to crack despite their best efforts. The fundamentalist Christian rock concert was an overt attempt to take Michigan and turn it into a red state by splitting up the Black vote that keeps this state in the blue. From the fundamentalist GOP strategist point of view, Blacks are social conservatives for the most part and consistently so according to polling, so having a rock concert where everyone in the audience apologizes for slavery (something I can tell you that most Black people nowadays don't really care all that much about) as a childish way to bridge a gap that has been burned down and torn asunder so many times there is not space in the blogosphere to recount them all, actually seemed like a good idea. We are starting to see awkward and inept attempts at an outreach, but with a conservative flavor where Utopia is where children sweep floors for ten cents an hour while assuming that their parents are craven drug dealers. Black people leaving blue states for the southern suburbs is seen as a refutation of the liberal model, never seeing that in fact, Black people saved and worked public sector jobs where they had clearer recourse against racism and could enjoy predictability on the job, then moved to areas where their relatives had been living. Moving south didn't make them turn into Republicans, let me tell you.
I simply cannot be satisfied with compartmentalization of the psyche as the main factor for the double speak so rampant on the right. It's too neat, too simple, and there are plenty of people on their side with great educations and good paying jobs for them to simply overlook the fact that they have populists who are angry at the Washington elites and their corporate cronies, yet in the same breath, think Newt Gingrich is an outsider and clap when he says that "corporations built America." Is it an emotional problem? I long to understand how a lifelong former Democrat who voted for Obama has jumped ship, joined the Tea Party, and will wholeheartedly put his vote behind Gingrich because he thinks Obama is an elitist in Washington. Of course we can grumble as to how this man ever thought he belonged in the party to begin with, but we have to stop and ask ourselves what this phenomenon is all about. I mean, if there was ever a man to show you the depth of what is wrong with Washington, it's Newt Gingrich, a man with no political soul.
The one conclusion I come to is that years of marginalization of a huge swathe of Americans has left them without a place in modernity. As Frank Schaeffer would say, "These people are on a hilltop waiting for the end." Their lives are filled with simulacrums for what sustains other human beings. Some have joined the movement for religious reasons or from what I like to call "faith based thinking," believing in the tried and true Republican strategy of dividing by inference. If there is a moral majority, then there is an immoral minority in parenthesis somewhere. If these people espouse immorality through the authority of the bible, then their opponents must be atheists through and through. Not being a Democrat is the only solution in this world view. You can hear it in the Herman Cain Tea Party anthem made famous by his creepy smiling ad. Conservative populism begins by first negating the "non-masses," devaluing them by use of some moral standard, highlighting who the "elites" are that are robbing "us" of our god given success, paint yourself as the victim of a society that wasn't made in your image, then stand up for those you stand with morally against a force that sets the undeserving above you. Add an apocalyptic showdown and you've got yourself some conservative grassroots.
God help us all.