The Populists' Red Roots Are Showing

The umpteenth time I read some conservative columnist blaming excess immigration on “elites” who want cheap child care or discounts on dusky gardeners, I decided to actually think about what was meant.

Why is the most popular form of populist argument the attribution of motive, a nasty and dishonest practice beloved of demagogues? Nasty because it turns its opponents into grotesque and hateful parodies. Dishonest because it avoids engaging the arguments for a contrary position. The goal is not to persuade but to anger.

I began to consider more closely the urge to describe politics as a class struggle of “the elites” vs. “ordinary Americans” or “the middle class.” Why “elites”?

Goldsteins galore

“Elites” make excellent Goldsteins. Goldsteins are not argued with; they are raged at. For what? For being traitors. The elites have betrayed the middle class, the real Americans.

Above all “elites” excuses the populists from argument.

But there is another level here. I don’t remember from 1984 whether Goldstein actually existed, but the “elites” certainly do not. Oh, sure, there are millions of them, tens of millions, which itself renders “elites” dubious. But they are a motley crew, for the most part neither rich, nor powerful, nor able, nor conspicuously successful, nor even well educated. Some are influential but mostly in their own ranks.

Go through the list:

• Pathetic public-school teachers.

• College instructors, mostly mediocrities serving mediocre institutions and often paid less than factory workers.

• Journalists, trapped in a dying profession, waiting to be laid off while the real talent flees to Substack or other independent outlets, some to make millions.

• Government employees, their professional lives self-evidently meaningless.

• Some in the non-profit sector make an indecently good living yet typically earn a fraction of what their college classmates in private business do.

It’s true that some of these pathetic elites talk a great deal and write a great deal, but few listen or read or care. The rare exception is when one of them comes up with a phrase or argument politically useful to the left.

And here we get to the heart of the matter. These people are not elites. They are what they have always been, statists or socialists. They have given up on liberty and strive with lamentable success to redistribute the wealth created by their betters—elites?—to themselves and their allies.

No, I don’t attribute motive. I am happy to assume they do this out of the purest love for humanity. They still get the money.

But why do the populists characterize these folk in class terms rather than call them by their true names and contest their statist ideas?

I will remain on good behavior and not attribute motives. Yet it would be awkward if the populists did condemn these standard issue leftists for their statism, for the populists themselves appear to have given up on liberty.

Birds of a feather

The vast majority of chattering class MAGAs—commentators, journalists, politicians, think-tankers et al—are former conservative who have become statists. Their scorn for free markets as tools of “global elites” and “Wall Street” rivals that of any Red.

Consider this from The Association of Mature American Citizens, the MAGAphile AARP wannabe, (via Hot Air.) “Pay attention to who is melting down the most over the sweeping tariffs President Donald Trump implemented this week. It’s the same wealthy Wall Street elites and career politicians who have been exploiting American workers and pillaging the middle class for decades.” (Emphasis mine here and below)

I say “given up” on liberty, because the populists are, like all reds, pessimists to the core, at least about the present. Their dreams of a glorious future are all premised on themselves being in charge.

The aged MAGA folk continue: “There’s no denying that Trump’s tariffs have created market turmoil and raised concerns about a potential temporary recession. But the alternative was to continue down a path that would only accelerate the country’s slide into cultural and economic ruin.”

Economic ruin, really? The graph shows U.S. GDP, in constant dollars, from 1960 to date.

By ruin, the MAGAs usually mean falling behind China, or losing out to China. But China’s growth has not hurt the U.S. at all and probably helped:

No matter, the leader will stave off this imagined “ruin” because only he has the courage to make “the case that some short-term sacrifice is necessary for long-term prosperity,” a claim that goes back at least to Lenin.

It is this “political courage” that has “ensured his loyal following for a decade, despite unprecedented efforts to smear his name, impugn his character, and even imprison him.”

Take that Goldstein.

And never forget that the pain the leader imposes is for our own good. The leader acknowledges “that prices for some goods will temporarily rise due to these tariffs,” but as production shifts back to the U.S. “wages will increase, and more of every dollar Americans spend will stay in the U.S. economy rather than enriching foreign oligarchs and the c-suites of multinational corporations.”

The Soviets worked that excuse for decades. The MAGAs will not be so lucky. I would guess MAGA’s permanent implosion is no further off than November 2028. If someone offers you better odds for November 2026, take the bet.