Don’t fall for populism’s false promises
It never ceases to amaze me how much smarter and perceptive politicians are before and after their time in office, but never during. Case in point: Stephen Harper’s new book, Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption, which looks interesting. But I have to quibble.
I don’t believe the future belongs to populism. Harper is right about his main observation, that: “A large proportion of Americans, including many American conservatives, voted for Trump because they are really not doing very well. In short, the world of globalization is not working for many of our own people.”
True, as far as that goes. Whether Trump supporters could tell you exactly what might have happened to the standards of living of everyone including themselves if North America had remained at 1970s levels of technological lack of advancement while the rest of the world adopted just-in-time delivery, automation and all the other fun stuff we can no longer live without would be an interesting question to ask them, but fortunately for them nobody ever does that.
Harper says we have a choice between trying to convince Trumpians “that they misunderstand their own lives, or we can try to understand what they are saying. Then we can decide what to do about it.”
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