If I had an editor ,this would be their note. Apologies to the first ten readers, my spell check must have got demoralized and overwhelmed .Hopeful it is all fixed now. kg
New York Times columnist David Brooks says populism may represent a paradigm shift. Populism, he says , has the passion, liberals used to have. Brooks take is very cool. He delicately calls this the support for populist political parties as “people from somewhere.” They are people already in country, established former immigrants ,average American , ignored middle class and rust belt voters.
The “people from everywhere,”are migrants.
In Canada populism is on the fringe but media fears are often misplaced. It can be helpful to try and understand the fear. I am using a biblical parable about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Liberal/socialist governments tend to dip into the bag of loaves and fishes (the taxpayer pocket) and an endless supply of food comes out. The fringe in Canada and just over 60 million Trump voters are worried that there will be no more loaves and no more fishes when they need it.
Media focuses story angles focus on an easy racism subject. It maybe that it is not the migrant but the flood of migrants that is the problem and how that effected social systems in Eurpoean countries already in play. Welfare systems took along time to built and it is feared by voters a short time to dismantle. Voters do get to have a say.Welfare has infrastructure. A lot of people are paid to run it. The world may never be the same, populism is a wake up call for political parties.
People think the effects of climate change will be orderly and manageable. The side efects will occur in some organized order and be can handled in the same way. It's just money. I think we are seeing the thin edge of a giant wedge. War ,civil unrest , famine, poverty and migrations from the planets hottest areas and coastal shores are underway now. Globalism and the rise of the rest of the world is creating both wealth for a few and unrest forthe many.What is the plan?
Canadians have to bare in mind the Americans had millions of migrants walk across their southwestern borders from Mexico and central America. in the last thirty years with great cost to the social programs in border states. NAFTA was supposed to make Mexico richer and its population more secure. We also need to understand who the flood of migrants is effecting. Greece , Italy, France and Germany are in the cross hair of a mass migration that is only just getting started. What happens there will happen here in the next few years. Up rooted populations spill.
Canadians are new to this type of migration and our decades of liberal laws have no response. The RCMP just waves them in. Canada has no equivalent to the cities like a nearly abandoned Detroit. Brooks thinks this may break up the traditional two party system in the US.
Funny thing, Donald Trump chides Castro for thinning the Cuban population and sending them the to US. Trump is is doing the same with Haitians and Dreamers pushing them to Canada. Political policy is needed because the voters are getting uneasy.
History does not stay neatly in it's lane, it sweeps across many lanes at once. The narrative is too complicated for journalists the way they used to thinking. The optic is narrow when it should be wide. Arab countries are emptying out. Millions of people are moving to the west. If this was climatic it would be the biggest hurricane in history, if it was geological it would be a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. This is where the idea of paradigm shift comes in. Media is bad with recognizing these types of social phenomena. We must pass the racism stage.This may sound dramatic but look at a map of the world. Map the trouble spots ,and then look where the human spillage is migrating. Who is thriving and who is failing? What are the prospects for the future? Does it look like liberal democracies are doing fine? Add ballistic missiles from Iran in the hands of rebels in Yemen and atomic warheads in North Korea. Danger is moving faster and faster,to a nuclear convergence.
This also redefines what media has mistakenly and too easily defaulted to as racism when the fault lays in the aging and crumbling ideas of liberalism. Liberalism got too old , too tired ,too rich and too complacent. In Manitoba we talk of millionaire socialists. The Hollywood celebrities protest too much, NFL and it's kneeling millionaires. People are noticing. Brooks says the liberals in the US have forgotten about the purpose of liberalism and reform. He says “the right is stained” (by Trump) Brooks is very liberal and polite in his analysis. He could get honorary Canadian citizenship.
Political parties are looking hard at themselves in the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential election results. From both the defeated Democratic Party and the winning Republican Party (they don't feel like they won) are considering a rethink of party platforms. Both parties are considering the idea that both have good ideas and they need a more flexible approach to governance. Swamps, lobbyists and the senate maybe on their way out . Maybe it will the last we see of bricks of cash in freezers, frozen assets.
In Canada populism is on the fringe but media fears are often misplaced. It can be helpful to try and understand the fear. I am using a biblical parable about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. Liberal/socialist governments tend to dip into the bag of loaves and fishes (the taxpayer pocket) and an endless supply of food comes out. The fringe in Canada and just over 60 million Trump voters are worried that there will be no more loaves and no more fishes when they need it. The most liberal state of California's insolvency was due to civil service pension debt and has that Ottawa sunny ways feel. And there are people from “somewhere” who are feeling it and they cannot wait ten years for a political solution.
Liberalism may have now gone too far. Could it be “A Canadian,is a Canadian ,is an Canadian,” that sounds like three types of distinct Canadians. Ten million dollar court settlements ,the going rate, goes to the winner after decades of liberal laws have been exploited by sharp lawyers. All three Canadian categories the loser. Taxpayers shake their heads. Politics has evolved to a very strange and incomprehensible state in Canada, North America and around the world. A 'Crocodile” has just taken over from a dictator in Africa, and people are dancing in the streets.
Both the Netherlands and France had second place finishes in the first round voting by right wing populist parties ,Austria's center right may join in coalition anti immigration party Freedom Party (the Economist Oct21 2017), and New Zealand has a populist party,so does the US and England.
These countries in Europe are multicultural countries who's occpants know many languages ,as is Canada and the US. Mass migrations of millions of people from Arab civil wars are pushing democratic countries to the right. The Arab conflict is between two Arab sects and an extreme Arab terror group. The civil wars are nearly over and I am sure an army of twenty or thirty thousand refugees could go back to their home oil producing countries and self fiance the reconstruction of independent CITY STATES that could include the Kurds in Iraq and Syria. This would be a monumental but worthwhile task for the United Nations.
Mass migrations will bankrupt declining Western globalized weakened economies. AND, Non democratic regimes will benefit.
Change is needed. Big ideas are needed,or it will all be chaos, just look at the map of the Middle East.Add
Just look at voting patterns in Canada, socialist (Liberal or NDP) spend their to way deficits and defeat,with Conservatives cost cutting their own way to defeat. The not so hidden agenda can only be getting in and out of debt. This leaves stagnation and,deep , deep , long standing social problems in limbo and those in government get richer off the backs of failing ministries. This unfortunately is Canada's pattern.
Journalist are short sighted ,biased and complicit. Good on the CBC to make some big changes in their pattern.
The US they maybe looking at hybrid party because “the people from some where” are angry and they are a big number.( Trumps big numbers come mostly from the 60% of those making an average salary $71,00 US), victims of globalism, and small groups from the far right,this makes the classification “people from somewhere,”very intriguing. This may not be as simple as being in the center. The center has no passion , and cannot innovate ,it is stuck on a perpetual fence of averageness.
Maybe passion,virtue,attention to voters and cash flow to problem areas could be a founding principle for a new party.
This old guy might even question the authority to rule by election results when almost fifty percent of voters fail to show up. Winning parties may only have actual support of 25% of all edible voters , maybe they should govern as if this meant something. The non-voters party should have a trustee as many eligible voters maybe too old,disabled or cheated out of their vote by those states that have restrictive eligibility. This could be the ultimate liberal move that could never be made.
Most election victories should be considered minority government and parties need to act more civil.This is incentive to attract and register the large percentage of non voting persons.This would be incentive in a new paradym. Same problems with different results may occur.
The second big worry is the move toward authoritarianism because both China and Russian leaders can now point to glaring weaknesses in the democratic leadership. Leadership in the West is a joke to the East. People around the world want to fight for democracy but this brand is now damaged. It must crushing. Democracy in North America has become a joke that dictators can point to. Leadership has gone mad. The fragility of the one person one vote system that can be manipulated in the last weeks by dirty tricks. The average Russian and Chinese,like past generations in Canada and the US are willing to suffer so a better day can come in the future. North Americans are no longer willing to suffer,they have achieved wealth and now they are seeing it slip away through a liberalism that got too old and too expensive. Maybe they were counting too much on changing pot laws for extra income and a hazy, bleary public to vote red (Canada) in the next election.
I give Justin Trudeau credit with his initial policy toward an unconventional Trump. Trump gave permission for every country to look after itself first and Trudeau is taking him up on it by going to China. Canada needs to be tougher,the world is getting meaner.
China is actively trying to come up with a new brand of socialism and they have already seen the effects of a misguided Cultural Revolution. It seems to be repressive social welfare based centralized system with a dab of capitalism ,just like the Canadian system. (little joke) There is also a Confusian element. The Cultural Revolution, China's spiritual Great Depression that marked current generations. They maybe moving toward a Trump-less , selfie-less, beauty pageant -less , California Dreaming-less governance. North Americans have forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression although we have been told we dodged a modern GD event with the credit crisis.
This is not a call for socialism, but a all to political parties to cleanup their act, and for voters to get serious about the countries they want to live in. Liberal and socialist parties might take note.
Shockingly liberalism maybe getting old. The digital revolution has given everyone a voice and everyone is talking at the same time. This is turning out not to be a good thing for democracy. We may become like India with too much democracy and little gets done. Remind anyone of “somewhere.” Everyone yelling at the same time. On CNN it is the sound of desperate liberals yelling down out numbered conservatives. This is proving to be the most disturbing. The yelling is fearful not passionate. The same in the college environment. Stop yelling and get off my lawn the old guy says. Take a breath ,check spelling , do big things without breaking everything.No more fishes for you. Opinion by Ken Gigliotti
*The yelling Generation X's is a product of a generation brought up during the highest incidence of marriage break up in history ,so says National Geographic doc on Gen X.
Topic: Populism a Pardigm Shift -No more loaves no more Fishes (Read 938 times)