The rise of populism may be Obamas legacy
The American political
landscape is manipulated
by huge
corporations
and wealthy
individuals with vast lobbying power
Alan Philps
In his final address to the United Nations, United States president Barack Obama warned the assembled leaders that the liberal world order was under threat from what he called crude populism. In words which could apply equally to Donald Trump, the Republican candidate to succeed him as president, and Russias Vladimir Putin, Obama said that some were arguing that the future favours the strong man. History shows that strong men are then left with two paths: permanent crackdown, which sparks strife at home, or scapegoating enemies abroad, which can lead to war.
In some ways Obama is ending his two terms in the White House in the same way he began. He set out to open a new page in the Middle East, reversing the Bush eras imperial expansion, and with a view to make peace with Iran and reset relations with Russia. So joyous was the mood in Europe at that time that the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on the basis of his fine words.
He would be shocked to learn that the legacy of his administration may turn out to be something quite other than what he set out to do the rise of populism around the world.
The high point of globalisation has come and gone. Now voters all over the democratic world are more concerned by things they have lost independent national decision-making, for example than the benefits cited by economists and other experts of free trade and movement of people. The free trade deals with Europe and the Pacific nations championed by the Obama administration now seem a lost cause.
These tectonic shifts are clearly seen in the British vote on June to leave the European Union, a decision which is bound in the words of financial commentator Martin Wolf to make the country meaner and poorer. And in the rise of Trump, whose victory in the presidential election in November is now a real possibility, although it still will be harder for him than for Hillary Clinton.
Trumps ascendance raises questions about what populism is. All politicians seek the popular vote, so what is new? And in US presidential elections it is traditional for every candidate to promise to ride into Washington like a western gunslinger and clean up the mess. This is one of the weaknesses of Clintons campaign: in no way can she claim to be an outsider. Her establishment credentials are painfully apparent when the super-rich gather for meetings of the Clinton Global Initiative, her familys charitable foundation.
In a forthcoming book, What Is Populism?, politics professor Jan-Werner Muller argues that not all attackers of the status quo are populists. Real populists are the likes of Trump, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the British Eurosceptic Nigel Farage who claim that they, and only they, represent the people. They tend to talk in terms of my people or real people while their opponents are dupes or traitors, and the country is better off without them, as shown by the thousands of educated people leaving Russia unmourned by Putin.
Being convinced of their rightness, real populists cannot accept defeat in elections it must be due to fraud or conspiracy, a topic often raised by Trump when he has appeared to be in danger of losing. In the case of Erdogan, his mindset has been reinforced by the reality of the military coup that failed to topple him.
Populists are just different elites who try to grab power with the help of a collective fantasy of political purity, Muller has written.
This is not to say their arguments are without merit. The American political landscape is manipulated by huge corporations and wealthy individuals with vast lobbying power. Clintons candidacy looks like a case of the elite within the Democratic Party deciding it was Hillarys turn, an assessment confirmed by hacked emails which proved that the supposedly neutral Democratic National Convention favoured her over her rival, Bernie Sanders.
There is no doubt that wealth is concentrated in ever fewer hands, while the titans of Silicon Valley disrupt the old economy and the jobs it provided until they create their own cosy oligopoly which is proof against disruption.
All these are valid criticisms which have been picked up by Trump and turned into a combustible mixture with the addition of his trademark lies, boasts and racist and misogynistic provocations.
No one knows if Trump can with the presidency it is a distinct possibility but it is clear that the Trump insurgency will leave its mark on politics in the US and around the world even if he loses. As the economy becomes more globalised, politics is becoming more local, a process hastened by the rise of social media and the decline of the old media gatekeepers in newspapers and television.
Trump has brought nation, race and religion to the forefront of politics and this will have to be acknowledged by future Republican candidates. All this is a long way from the post-racial America predicted after Obamas election.
The writer is a commentator on global affairs
