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☆ Opinion | Should Right-Wing Populists Despair?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Over the last few weeks Sohrab Ahmari, well known as a leading intellectual exponent of a combative Trumpian conservatism, has been making the rounds explaining why he’s giving up on right-wing populism. That’s a slight overstatement; his new book, “Tyranny, Inc.,” on the cruelties of corporate power in America, bears blurbs from leading populist Republicans like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio. But part of the reason that the “Tyranny, Inc.” author and his circle earned so much attention in the Trump era is that the age of populism really did unsettle economic orthodoxies on the right. The Trump administration often defaulted, as Ahmari laments, to warmed-over Reaganite policymaking. But Trump’s victorious campaign really did kill off, for a time at least, the Tea Party-era emphasis on entitlement reform and hard money.

Persons: Sohrab Ahmari, ”, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, it’s, Trump, Ahmari, Trump’s, Biden Organizations: Inc, Tea Party Locations: America

☆ The 6 Kinds of Republican Voters
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Nate Cohn | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

But if the Republican Party is no longer in Reagan’s image, it’s not necessarily a populist-conservative MAGA monolith, either. But if the Republican Party isn’t quite a MAGA monolith, what is it? The groups were defined by how Republican-leaning voters felt on the issues — not how they felt about Mr. Trump. In fact, Mr. Trump leads Mr. DeSantis among every group of Republican voters identified in the analysis. They’re the smallest group of Republicans today, but this group of relatively moderate but anti-woke voters might play an important role in the Republican Party in the years ahead.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Ronald Reagan’s, it’s, MAGA, Trump’s, Mr, They’re, ” They’re, it’s Mr, ”, —, Trump’s MAGA, don’t, Ron DeSantis, Susan Collins, Charlie Baker, Chris Sununu, Reagan, Bush, Biden, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, DeSantis, Rick Perry, Tim Scott, Rubio, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Romney, Liz Cheney, Roe, Wade, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich Trump, It’s, likeliest, Cruz, Rudy Giuliani, Paul LePage, Lou Barletta, Michael Grimm Trump, ” Reagan, Rand Paul, Jason Chaffetz, Dave Brat Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, President Biden, they’re, “ Organizations: Right, Libertarian Conservatives, Moderate, Republican Party, New York Times, Siena College, Republican, Times, Mr, Conservatives, Fox, Trump, Blue, Trump Republican Party, Freedom Caucus, Fox News, Trump —, Republicans, Radicals, ” Reagan Democrats, Obama, Trump voters, President Locations: Ukraine, Siena, America, New York City, It’s

Poland's government, which faces October elections, is even suing Brussels over climate policies. Britain has already quickly gone from being a leader on the world stage to looking quite weak on green policies, he said. CITIZENS, BUSINESSESEurope's green policies are still more credible than U.S. ones, given see-sawing between electoral cycles in the United States, some analysts said. Rows over green policies have propelled right-wing populist parties to second place in both Dutch and German polls. "Otherwise citizens might start to feel that climate policy is always financially overwhelming and bad, and that sentiment is then exploited by populists."

Persons: Timm Reichert, Virginijus Sinkevicius, Sinkevicius, Anna Moskwa, Nathalie Tocci, Mats Engström, GREEN, Bob Ward, Ward, Rishi Sunak, Rob Jetten, Nina Scheer, Simone Tagliapietra, Tagliapietra, Kate Abnett, Sarah Marsh, Gloria Dickie, Anthony Deutsch, Angelo Amante, Pawel, Susanna Twidale, William James, Alexnder Smith Organizations: REUTERS, European Union, Reuters, European People's Party, European Council, Foreign, United States, Grantham Research, London School of Economics, Political, Climate, Energy, Democrats, Thomson Locations: Gruenberg, Germany, EU, BERLIN, BRUSSELS, Netherlands, Brussels, Europe, United States, Grantham, India, China, Britain, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Rome, Warsaw

The findings come as support for Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition slumps and the AfD capitalises on voter insecurity. German inflation has been on a downward trend, but is still much higher than the European Union's 2% target. Low and middle income households have been generally hit harder by inflation, Florian Dorn, a researcher at Ifo told Reuters. Although higher energy import prices initially drove inflation in Europe and Germany, companies were also putting up prices beyond their cost inflation, WSI analysis showed. Companies' profit inflation rose by 7% in 2022 compared to an only 3.3% rise in labour costs.

Persons: Fabian Bimmer, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Florian Dorn, Ulrich Schneider, Der, Riham, Alexandra Hudson Organizations: REUTERS, Kantar Public, Ifo, Reuters, Workers, Companies, Alexandra Hudson Our, Thomson Locations: Hamburg, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Europe's, Europe

☆ Opinion | From Jacobites to Populists
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-02 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

It’s not that today’s populists (a few intellectuals aside) favor the restoration of an absolute or Catholic monarchy. Rather, like the original Jacobites, they represent a hodgepodge of somewhat disparate causes, unified mostly by their oppositional and outsider status, their distance from and defiance of the Whiggish metropole. As Frank McLynn points out in his history of the Jacobites, whatever specific designs the Stuarts had in mind, their movement always included a variety of competing ideological and religious tendencies. There were English Jacobites who wanted to see the Stuarts enthroned over all the British Isles. There were also plenty of opportunists, familiar from the grifter politics of our own day — smugglers and privateers seeking relief from a centralizing British state, bankrupt gentry seeking relief for their accumulated debts.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Trump, Frank McLynn Organizations: European Union, London, Whig, Jacobite, Jacobites, Scottish Locations: England, United Kingdom, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Europe, Ulster, United States, Scottish, British, London

☆ Opinion | How Conservatives Went From Demonizing Muslims to Wooing Them
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our L.G.B.T.Q. At the time, this sort of rhetoric was common among Trump and his allies, who fashioned themselves in the mold of European right-wing populists, demonizing Muslims as a threat to hard-won Western sexual freedoms. Seven years later, as the battle against wokeness has supplanted the war on terror in the right-wing imagination, conservative sympathies are reversing. “Republicans are wooing Muslim voters by promising to protect them from L.G.B.T.Q. “The revolt against the radical L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ takeover of the U.S. won another battle this week,” the article crowed.

Persons: Donald Trump, ”, Trump, Geert Wilders, Lucian Wintrich, wokeness, ” David Weigel, Laura Ingraham, ” Ingraham, Kareem Monib Organizations: Republican, Republican National Convention, Trump, White House, Pundit, Fox News, Muslim City Council, U.S Locations: Orlando, MAGA, Semafor, Maryland, Hamtramck, Mich

☆ Opinion: Trump backers are going bonkers with dangerous threats
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( John Avlon | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

No one will be above the law.”That’s what then-candidate Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in August of 2016. Trump has reached for apocalyptic rhetoric, calling for his supporters to protest at the Florida courthouse when he is arraigned on Tuesday. The threats of violence reflect an authoritarian impulse completely at odds with the alleged principles of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Here’s the key difference: Trump was not charged for having the classified documents but for willfully trying to hide the documents after the feds enquired. When facts and reason no longer apply, desperate individuals resort to threats of violence.

Persons: John Avlon, “, ”, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump, Andy Biggs, Kari Lake, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Joe Biden —, That’s, MAGA, Edmund Burke’s, Lincoln, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson –, –, It’s, Mike Pence, Jonathan Turley, Andrew McCarthy, Bill Barr, Barr, don’t Organizations: CNN, John Avlon CNN, Democratic, Trump, Arizona Republican, Capitol, Arizona GOP, Georgia Republican, NRA, Republican Party, Trump’s Republican, South Carolina Gov, GOP, DOJ, Twitter, Facebook, Washington Post Locations: “ Lincoln, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, Mar, France, Italy, Israel, United States

☆ Jerry Springer, American Ringmaster
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( James Poniewozik | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There is a point there: Springer, especially in the early years of his show, seemed to engage with his guests, however outrageous. Even trash TV operates on moral assumptions — “The Jerry Springer Show” accepts that being a candidate for “The Jerry Springer Show” is not a badge of honor — but programs like Springer’s gave the audience permission to enjoy the grotesquerie. But his show also demonstrated that TV populists, like all populists, aren’t just reflecting broad, unmediated reality. Springer didn’t invent the trashification of TV and pop culture. (The early, issues-oriented incarnation of “Springer” didn’t do well in the ratings.)

☆ Senate GOP populists push Republican colleagues to back railway regulations, arguing 'their voters' are the most affected by disasters
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Vance, Hawley, and Rubio are touting a bill to enact new regulations on the rail industry. They're trying out a new argument for their Republican colleagues: these are your voters. Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Marco Rubio of Florida, are touting the Railway Safety Act of 2023. "When derailments occur, it is predominantly Republican voters—their voters—who bear the brunt and who rush to put out the fires." "Look, I think if the vote were held today, we'd get 65 votes in the Senate," he told Insider.

☆ Analysis: Macron wins Pyrrhic victory on pension bill, risks fuelling anger
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Michel Rose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

By using special constitutional powers instead of risking lawmakers rejecting the reform, Macron has given ammunition to the opposition and to trade union leaders who cast the reform as undemocratic. LE PEN AMBUSHTo be sure, claims of authoritarianism by the pension bill's critics are far-fetched. Political observers say Le Pen played her hand well. "Mrs Le Pen is ready for the ambush," Laurent Berger, the head of the moderate CFDT union said on Thursday, hours before the vote. But the end of debates in parliament may do little to quell anger on the streets.

☆ Guerrilla Gardeners Meet Billionaire Doomsayer. Hurly-Burly Ensues.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Dwight Garner | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Catton resembles one of those teachers who can take a student’s simple-minded question and, without condescending, shape it into an ingenious one. The bullets really fly in “Birnam Wood.” The big explosion will probably go off. The Birnam Wood collective makes sure its apolitical Facebook page is sunny and welcoming. Birnam Wood has this cockeyed, D.I.Y. She’s aching to leave the collective, and she may not be as sensible as we think she is.

This grassroots protest movement has been driven largely by ordinary farmers like Luiten and their supporters, but it has another element: the far-right. As conspiracy-driven Telegram groups, right-wing commentators and some lawmakers would baselessly put it, Dutch farms are being shut down to make space for asylum-seekers. Right-wing populists around the world have offered their support for the farmers’ stand, including former President Donald Trump, France’s Marine Le Pen and Poland’s far-right populist government. But, in reality, many Dutch farmers are just trying to make a living. Supporters stand on highway bridges every night waving the inverted tricolor as a symbol of defiance against an unpopular government and to call for an end to the nitrogen plan.

☆ Brian Eno Reveals the Hidden Purpose of All Art
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +19 min

I think I’m still answering it. I’m absolutely fascinated by this question, because I think I have an answer, and I don’t think it has ever been well answered. Since we’re talking about how things work: How do you want your new album to work for people? You have to take that on board as being one of the things that’s happening in culture and quite different from the story that we’re generally hearing. I don’t think many people take that as seriously as I do.

This standoff will shift the terrain only by inches, even if it does help change which party has technical control of Congress. As for resolving the larger argument, that’s still a decision that the country makes during presidential elections, not midterms. For Republicans, a populist questionNeither party is currently prepared for the coming 2024 fight because both have unresolved internal issues that the midterm results may put into sharper focus. But the fact of the matter is, they are losing on the crime issue — not by a little, but a lot. But just because the fight is public and ugly, doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary and eventually helpful ahead of 2024.

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