Populism, political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the common person, usually by favourable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment. Populism usually combines elements of the left and the right, opposing large business and financial interests but also frequently being hostile to established liberal, socialist, and labour parties.

At least, unlike the other political and social shitstorms of recent years, this is not a new battle but one that has been repeated many times over the last few hundred years in Western democracies, with occasional coded shout-outs from non-Western revolutionaries as they appealed to The People for support.

As an example of where populism can be shallow, useless and even self-defeating, look no further than our own Winston Peters, who has spent his entire political career jumping from one issue to the next – with the metronomic, three-year regularity of our election cycle – only to gain power and effectively do nothing about the issue.

But when populism begins to attack fundamental beliefs and structures and even institutions in our society, ones defended by TPTB, then the stage is set for things to change in large, meaningful and permanent ways. In the last 120 years that populism has largely rewarded the Left, with ideas bubbling up from unions, places like the Fabian Societies, and of course, tiny political parties, that eventually turned into large pieces of law and state institutions that we live with to this day.

Rogernomics was a huge reversal of much of this in the 1980’s (the Far Left deem it “reactionary”), but we continue to live with state institutions that are showing their age and a lot of cracks, all of which will grow worse as our populations age and then even start to shrink later in the 21st century. Pay-as-you-go pension systems and healthcare will be very much on the chopping block.

And if our public education system continues to churn out kids who make great political activists but struggle to get well-paid jobs because they’re not educationally equipped for them, then that could go first.

The latest battle occurred the other day in the famous Oxford Union as a debate was held on the proposition that “Populism is a threat to democracy.”

Leading the proposition was none other than Nancy Pelosi, the former American Speaker of the House, famous for getting stuff done for her side with huge pieces of legislation like Obamacare and the hilariously agit-prop-named Inflation Reduction Act, and being a hyper-partisan as she repeatedly crushed spineless GOP efforts while they sniveled about bi-partisanship.

The opposition was lead by one Winston Marshall. If that name sounds vaguely familiar, he’s the musician who was forced out of the semi-popular band Mumford and Sons for saying something incredibly inoffensive, being a vaguely positive comment about Andy Ngo’s book on the terrorist organisation Antifa.

So a musician versus a politician. Should have been no-contest victory for the latter, no? Even if she is showing her age with occasional word salads. But in fact…

Heh. By that standard Trump also “accepted” the 2020 result, which is why he left the Whitehouse on Jan 20, 2021. It would be delicious if Trump wins the 2024 election and then used the Department of “Justice” to go after election deniers like Hillary and her Democrat activist friends. I’m sure there are lawyers eager to craft arguments out of obscure legislation and then prosecute Pelosi and company. I doubt Pelosi would lose, let alone see fines of jail time, but just watching her squirm in court would be good enough.

It would also be very bad for democracy. And in any case, as he showed in 2017 after all the “Lock her Up” chants, Trump actually doesn’t seem to do revenge on losing opponents. Pity!

Here’s the key part of Pelosi’s argument, captured by Marshall himself, where she claims that people like her have to intervene in elections, because voters don’t get the correct information. She then calls voters“poor souls”, who are “looking for some answers,” and says “We’ve given them to them” but they’re “blocked” from receiving the Democratic Truth due to their minds being “clouded” by “God, gays, and guns.”

It’s as if she’s still living in her formative political years of the 1980’s, facing Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority. She’s also convinced that she can be a devout Catholic and an extreme supporter of abortion, because that shit used to fly with her liberal Catholic California voters. She is utterly incapable of understanding the forces opposed to her and her ideas today (including the dying liberalism of her Roman Catholic church) – which of course is why “Populism” erupts from time-to-time.

BTW, the Oxford Union voted in favour of the proposition, but they also likely don’t realise the deep and very meaningful irony of that.

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Full arguments below. First from Pelosi and then Marshall.