Tag Archives: Populism

Economic, social and health decline in the industrial Midwest may have been a major factor in the 2016 US presidential election, Monnat and Brown’s INET research finds, with people living in distressed areas swinging behind Trump in greater numbers. Trump performed well within these landscapes of despair – places that have borne the brunt of declines in manufacturing, mining, and related industries since the 1970s and are now struggling with opioids, disability, poor health, and family...

Press reports indicate that later this week President Trump will “decertify” the nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), relying on a clause in the relevant review legislation that permits the president to make such a declaration even if Iran is fully complying with the accord. That Trump has decided on this course has nothing to do with the terms of the JCPOA, with Iran, or with Iranian actions. He has not advanced a convincing case, or even a coherent...

Former White House strategist and current Breitbart News executive chairman Steve Bannon has teamed up with conservative donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer to promote insurgent candidates to challenge the GOP establishment and create an organizational apparatus to advance the populist and economic nationalist policies championed by those candidates.... Breitbart News The Long Game: Bannon Creates Political Coalition to Advance Populist Economic Nationalist Agenda and Smash the Establishment...

Populism versus elitism in the UK, with implications for elsewhere. Links to other reviews at the end.It's anecdotal rather than based on sociological and poli sci studies, but it's worth a look anyway.There are parallels in other countries and not necessarily close ones since the differences are large.For example, the liberal Western elite projects its values not only on fellow countrymen, which is turning out to be disproven at the polls, but other countries with very different cultures....

Many pieces have been written recently on the situation in Venezuela, including some on the left, that are very critical of the Maduro government (see for example this Jacobin piece that has been widely cited). Interestingly, during the sleepy months of the summer in which I almost didn’t write anything here, this old post on Venezuela has become the most read on the blog (as we approach almost 3 million hits).Let me first say that I am for democracy and against violence, irrespective of...

Still grading, so slow posting for a while. Just a brief note on the whole firing of Comey scandal that is still unfolding, and the incredible degree of anxiety on the left, which somehow thinks this means that there is a 'pee' tape and that Trump will be eventually impeached (here, for example; too many of these). This is at least the second event compared to Nixon's firing of the Attorney General, the infamous Saturday night massacre. The other being the firing the Acting Attorney...

By Thomas Palley (Guest blogger)2016 was supposed to have been the year of Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clinton: the year when the established Bush dynasty confronted the upstart rival Clinton Dynasty. But the year of the insider has turned into the year of the outsider. On both sides, voters have unexpectedly given vent to thirty years of accumulated anger with neoliberalism which has downsized their incomes and hopes.Though the Republican rebellion has been more clear-cut in its dismissal of...