Posted on 03/17/2016 6:47:15 PM PDT by MLL
On Thursday night, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin took on the rising tide of "populist nationalism" with a history lesson.
Populism, Levin explained, is really just progressivism. The populist movement in America was the forerunner of the progressive movement, and both populism and progressivism share the same disdain for constitutionalism that conservatives reject.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativereview.com ...
You know what’s really funny?
One thing that the founders singled out for condemnation was “faction”, their term for political parties.
Yet we don’t hear Levin and his comrades condemning political parties. Instead they are attacking the “populism” that is doing a yeoman’s job of breaking the stranglehold that elites have put on our electoral process.
It’s not the first time that elites have howled in anger at “populists”- Andrew Jackson and his supporters were accused of the very same thing.
There you go. Who knew?
I saw “Conservative Review” and got the picture right away.
If this is populism, we need an injection of it on a regular basis and for a very long time. (Which is why the VP choice matters.)
“Trade protectionism is marxism, yes.”
Is actual bi-lateral fair, free trade Marxism?
I say no. I say what we have now is closer to Marxism, which is asymmetrical trade aggreements - favoring actual Marxists.
So if I oppose that, and I am labeled a “protectionist” and a marxist, you and I should not ever meet, because if we do, I will instruct you into the proper way of thinking. Your present understanding is faulty and you should never post again until you understand how the world works.
History has moved on and Mark doesn’t understand what is happening.
I respect that opinion, but I don’t agree. I support Trump because he knows the monster he faces first hand, I respect his patriotism. There’s no going back for him.
“Why Populism is Really Statism”
Yeah, Mark. And up is down, black is white, day is night, left is right, water is dry, dust is wet, and socialism is capitalism. Got it.
Very true (and very wise on their part).
What "populists" ignore is that Hamilton (and Washington) also believed in federal supremacy, implied powers, and created the First Bank of the United States (a central bank which most "populists" regard as part of a "Judaeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy"). Some "right wing populists" even advocate total nationalization of the entire financial sector.
You're right, though, that traditional Federalist/Whig/Republican policy is the protective tariff. Why so many Republicans today forget that is as troubling as populists' forgetting that the Federalists were pro-bank.
Thanks for the perspective. There seems to not be the "big tent" anymore. Just promises that are never kept.
It really is. The article that Peggy Noonan wrote for the WSJ a couple of weeks ago talked about how Trump followers felt that they were “unprotected” while other people on the left were “protected.”
That’s probably true in people’s minds, but the reality is that the only protection a citizen needs from the central government is military protection and perhaps the safety net. But now everybody wants the European model of an all-encompassing central state that makes all their decisions for them. The populist strongman promises to do this, put “protection” on their side, and that’s why they go for him.
The realization that he never does anything and is actually only interested in himself comes way too late. And then you end up like the unfortunate Chavez voters in VZ, who followed the siren song of a populist and went from a country that was one of the most prosperous and successful in Latin America to a place where people are fighting over who gets to buy a roll of toilet paper.
Levin has gone as nutty as Beck...go back to sleep Levin!
Thank you, SueRae. It angers me too. All I know is we are getting shafted now, and have for at least 35 years.
People have tried to consider a Third Party, but decided it is best to take over from within our own party. We saw that was taking too long, every two years, picking off this one and that one.
We prayed for a leader.
By the grace of God comes TRUMP, willing to kick the doors in.
I like it.
But no matter if President Sanders packs the SCOTUS with Ginzbergs, we can still read the plain English of the BOR, and any attempts to forcibly interrupt the first amd will be checked by the 2nd. No cabal of black-robed tyrants is going to define me out of my God-given freedom. I can read the Constitution without interpretation, when it comes to large issues like speech and guns.
The way it SHOULD work, Congress would be supreme, but they have abdicated.
“Trade protectionism is marxism, yes.”
The founders used tariffs to almost entirely fund the government. Tariffs were the biggest source of government funding until 1912.
I was not aware the founders were Marxists./s
And you are aware that Marx and Engels were very much in favor of free trade? They correctly judged that it destroyed the idea of nations and would hasten the proletarian revolution.
“If it was truly “free trade”, then there is no need for negotiation or even treatise for that matter”
Oh my, a VERY inconvenient question indeed! lol
So you agree with Marx and Engels.
“Actually the whole structure of the Constitution was designed to frustrate populism which the framers thought of as mob rule.
Originally, the only direct voice of the people was to be had in the House of Representatives, the Senate being elected by state legislatures. The Supreme Court was not elected at all and the President of the United States was not directly elected either but electors were elected who under the Constitution were expected to exercise their judgment in passing on the populist will.
It is the genius of the Constitution to recognize the popular will but to confine its scope by a system of checks and balances and separation of powers which were frankly designed to frustrate the popular will. That is why we call it a Republic and not a democracy.
I don’t will think you believe in the absolute power of the populist will. Are you ready to surrender your Second Amendment rights to bear arms to the Democrats when they gain a majority? I am not willing to surrender my First Amendment rights to Donald Trump if he should have populist wind at his back.”
The problem with this line of thought, however, is in this.....what if the threat to liberty doesn’t come from “the mob”, but instead it comes from a group of oligarchs? So far we’ve seen federally-mandated health insurance and gay-marriage imposed - not by popular will- but by 5-out-of-9 Supreme Court Justices.
It seems that the threat to liberty can come from both ends, namely too much democracy AND too much insulation from democracy.
One thing the fedgov is mandated to do, they are not doing: protect us from invasion.
Breach of contract. They are leaving us unprotected, to use Noonan, while they are well protected in gated communities.
If the elite Rats and GOPes don’t mind the invasion, (cheap labor for one branch of the Uniparty, cheap labor for the other), we do mind it, a lot. We don’t want so see our nation turned into a vast Calcutta, even if it means more votes and more profits for our elite bosses.
That is what is bringing people to Trump: he is the only one promising (at least) to stop the invasion and throw out the invaders.
The rest of them are Quislings R and Quislings D, and they can both rot in hell as far as I am concerned.
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