On April 3rd, Viktor Orban, a “populist” leader, once again won election as the Prime Minister of Hungary. Orban, described as the most dangerous man in the European Union, is a supporter of Vlad the invader. In the flush of victory following his election he identified Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelinsky, who has been critical of Hungary’s support of Putin’s invasion, as one of his main opponents. We’re going to examine the career of Viktor Orban a little, but mostly we’re going to look at what a populist politician is, and what dangers do they pose for any country, especially ours.
Encyclopedia Britannica has a good description of how the term “populism” began and how it has evolved. It says, in part that populism began as a “political program or movement that champions, or claims to champion, the common person, usually by favourable contrast with a real or perceived elite or establishment…. In its most democratic form, populism seeks to defend the interests and maximize the power of ordinary citizens, through reform rather than revolution…. populist demand for direct democracy through popular initiatives and referenda.”
However, the article goes on to say that our understanding of populism has changed. “In its contemporary understanding, however, populism is most often associated with an authoritarian form of politics. Populist politics, following this definition, revolves around a charismatic leader who appeals to and claims to embody the will of the people in order to consolidate his own power. In this personalized form of politics, political parties lose their importance, and elections serve to confirm the leader’s authority rather than to reflect the different allegiances of the people. Some forms of authoritarian populism have been characterized by extreme nationalism, racism, conspiracy mongering, and scapegoating of marginalized groups, each of which served to consolidate the leader’s power, to distract public attention from the leader’s failures, or to conceal from the people the nature of the leader’s rule or the real causes of economic or social problems.”
An article in The Atlantic by Uri Friedman provides several valuable insights into how populists operate. “Populism is a “thin ideology” in that it “only speaks to a very small part of a political agenda,…. An ideology like fascism involves a holistic view of how politics, the economy, and society as a whole should be ordered. Populism doesn’t; it calls for kicking out the political establishment, but it doesn’t specify what should replace it…Populists are dividers, not uniters,… Populists only lose if ‘the silent majority’ has not had a chance to speak, or worse, has been prevented from expressing itself,” “Hence the frequent invocation of conspiracy theories by populists: something going on behind the scenes has to account for the fact that corrupt elites are still keeping the people down. … populists in power tend to undermine countervailing powers, which are courts, which are media, which are other parties,
If the people’s politician doesn’t win, there must be something wrong with the system.”
It is the latter form of populism, authoritarian populism, that concerns me.
Just prior to the Hungarian election in April 2018, Paul Lendvai wrote, in The Atlantic, an article entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in The European Union: The Metamorphosis of Viktor Orban”. In it, he described the journey Orban has taken to power, and the methods he uses to secure it. He describes watching a 26 year old Orban make a speech in 1989, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, in which he called for “free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.”
He was elected to the National Assembly as one of the most prominent members of Fidesz, the “party of youth. They advocated liberal economic, educational, and social policies, and were quick to condemn nationalist and anti-Semitic undertones in the government coalition parties.” Sounds good so far, right?
In 1994 the socialist residue of Hungary’s communist party won the elections, and, Lendvai writes, Orban moved his party to the right. “The populist nationalist option seemed to offer the only realistic chance for future success against the left…. Fidesz has gradually become the main political force in Hungary by exploiting the highly explosive “national question… the fate of ethnic Hungarians now living in bordering states, have filled generations with bitterness. Since his lurch to the right, Orbán’s rhetoric has been characterized by professions of faith in the nation, in the homeland, and in Christian values.”
Reviewing Orban’s latest victory, The Economist says “Hungary’s way of life is under attack, if you believe the ruling party. A Jewish billionaire plots to flood the country with a million Muslims. Perverts want to teach its children sexual deviance. The opposition are spoiling for war with Russia. The only way to stay safe is to back Viktor Orban, the prime minister. …On April 3rd his party, Fidesz, won roughly half the vote and, thanks to gerrymandering, two-thirds of seats in parliament…. Since Mr Orban took office in 2010 he has won control of nearly every significant media outlet. The opposition leader, Peter Marki-Zay, had only five minutes on public television during the campaign—barely enough to introduce himself, let alone dam a river of lies.
Hungary has shown once again how well fearmongering works. Voters are never more attentive than when hearing about threats, even phoney ones…. Even in a liberal democracy, as Hungary once was, a determined would-be strongman can chip away at independent institutions, such as the media or the courts, until his voice drowns out every other.”
That description of Orban’s path to power is a text-book example of how authoritarian populism works.
- “Speaks to a small part of the political agenda” – Orban exploits anti-immigrant nationalism, anti-muslim Christian values, and a “sexual exploitation of children” bogey-man that sounds a lot like the ridiculous QAnon conspiracy.
- Populists are dividers, not uniters.
- Populists in power tend to undermine countervailing powers like the media (note Orban’s total, almost personal control of Hungary’s media).
OK, so Hungary has problems with the quality of their democracy. Why should we care? We should care because democracy is under attack worldwide, and this populist approach of fearmongering, divisiveness, and conspiracy theories threatens to stifle responsible and rational debate of serious political issues. In a totally unrelated article on the declining popularity of France’s President Macron, the Economist suggested that “Mr Macron also faces a problem that responsible politicians always face when running against populists. He offers policies boringly grounded in reality. They say whatever will stir up voters, whether or not it is true.”
In a previous article on “preparing for the apocalypse”, I suggested that we need to be wary of excessive trade reliance on the United States, and sadly that is because that self-described “shining light of democracy” is perilously close to being brought down by an ego-maniacal populist leader in Donald Trump. All the hallmarks of populism are reflected in the actions of Trump and his Republican followers. Authoritarian? Look at the onslaught of anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ laws in state and municipal level jurisdictions. Conspiracy theories? Hello QAnon and Hunter Biden theories. We’re protecting our children from the bogey-man? How about Florida’s “can’t say gay” law, or the jurisdictions that are trying to pass laws that would force schools to teach creationism. Divisiveness? The divisiveness is so entrenched that Mike Pence’s brother voted against a motion to hold Trump staffers in contempt of Congress for their refusal to testify before the Jan 6th investigation committee. Better, in his opinion, to support people who advocated hanging his brother than to align with the Democrats.
Can the American sickness spread up here? Are we vulnerable to populist politics? Of course we are. The whole stinking Freedom Convoy thing was an exercise in populist conspiracy theorizing. It makes my blood boil to recall signs suggesting that people were fighting for freedom in Canada, which is recognized in an annual democracy index rating as being (if I recall correctly) something like 11th out of some 169 nations for the quality of our democracy.
The Conservative party leadership race will be fascinating. Early support of the Freedom Convoy by Pierre Polievre and Candace Bergen (before it became evident that public opinion was swinging against the Convoy) marks them as developing populists. Polievre’s rhetoric in addressing the leadership race (“I’m fighting for freedom for Canadians”) has a populist tinge to it. I think Jean Charest and Patrick Brown are seeking to create a more central, dare I say it, Progressive, Conservative party. Watch for the kind of issues that surface in the leadership race. Is it a discussion to define a party platform, or is it a series of hot button quotes designed to capture specific voter groups without a serious exploration of a vision of Canada?
What can we do about countering a growth in Populist politics? Here are a few crazy ideas that no government will ever go for, but they might help us support and sustain our democracy.
First, I was horrified by the description of how Viktor Orban controlled the media and prevented his opponent from getting airtime. Elections Canada has rules about how much free broadcast time must be allocated to political parties in an election campaign. The good part is that we have some rules. The bad part is that “The time must be provided to the parties in proportion to the allocation of paid broadcasting time.” That sounds to me like there is no free media time, but some sort of a mandated cost discounting system. I think we should ensure that serious free time is provided for serious political parties. There are a lot of parties that got some minimal amount of free time (the Rhinocerous Party, Christian Heritage party, Stop Climate Change) that we shouldn’t be catering to. You are not, in my opinion, a serious political party because you register as one. If you get some substantial fraction of popular vote, or if you elect a certain number of members, you get tv time. If your developing political party hasn’t made any progress yet – keep trying or join the mainstream party that best meets your needs.
Second, I would like to see a real, significantly low limit on the amount parties may spend on political advertising. One of the problems in the political cess-pool south of the border is that politicians are raising and spending billions on getting elected. The Amaarrrican dream where anyone can be president is no longer. If you’re not filthy rich, and you don’t have contacts among the filthy rich, you stand no chance. So I would like to see us establish real hard sensible limits on how much we allow for election spending. Let’s face it – that 30 second attack ad is designed to push your buttons. It isn’t designed to really inform the public and so, we really don’t need a lot of that.
Third, I think that political parties should get equal election funding directly from the public purse and there should be some ridiculously low limit on how much a person or a corporation can donate to a political party. We want to eliminate the practice of buying an election by overwhelming election spending and we want to eliminate the practice of lobbying with your wallet. It’s in the electorate’s interests to ensure there is a fulsome discussion of issues, so let’s pay a bit to ensure that all parties have the chance to inform us of what they stand for. And if that increase’s the costs of an election for the taxpayer, maybe that will prevent a politician (named Trudeau for example) calling an election each time the polls say he might win a majority.
Fourth, I think we should pass election rules that require each party to formally post a party platform. We should be able to nominate a committee, perhaps of Senators, who will select a dozen key issues on which parties MUST post a position before they are eligible for free TV time. Wouldn’t it be nice to see answers to:
- What is your party’s climate action plan?
- Do you plan to ever balance the budget?
- What is your plan for Defence Spending?
- How will you address trade issues with China and Russia?
- What actions will you take to protect Canada’s waterways?
- What is your plan for Canadian electric vehicle infrastructure?
And so on.
In short, we need to force politicians to discuss boring policy issues, not spend their time discovering what your insecurities are so they can poke your buttons.
Fifth – the last article I wrote advanced the cause of secularism in Canada. I think that is important for the pushback against populism too. The reason is that there is clear linkage between authoritarian regimes and religion. Vlad the invader has the Russian Orthodox Church online for the invasion of Ukraine. Orban is campaigning as a right wing Christian nationalist. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s popularity has been supported by “a predominantly conservative society with a fast-growing fundamentalist Pentecostal population.” Republicans in the States, and Donald Trump in particular, received more than $200M is support from the right wing Christian churches. We cannot, unfortunately, erase the whole concept of religion from the collective mind of humanity. But if we establish ourselves as a country where human rules and laws are what matters, we might avoid some really unreasonable and silly discussions. The best-qualified and most intelligent politician in the world could doom himself to failure in some United States districts simply by saying “No, I don’t go to church.” If we take that button away, the populist can’t poke it, and that would be good.
One response to “The Perils of Populism”
This comment was received by private email:
BTW enjoyed your blog on ‘Populism’ and would support all the notions of what ‘needs to be done’.
I find it a poorly understood concept in general by people and even less appreciation for the impact on democracy. (ref. ‘Facism’ – Madeleine Albright).