#populism

The folk-socialist may be well educated, even in Marxism. He can argue along Marxist lines that the proletariat, which inhabits a bourgeois world and whose ideas derive from that world, cannot generate the values required for a socialist culture. But he offers no argument besides his hunch that the future socialist world is embodied already in today’s aesthetic-aristocratic outsiders. Even if it is impossible to prefigure socialist culture, particular values do arise from the conditions of the socialist struggle, a struggle which the proletarian masses are waging. Here we find the true spirit of solidarity in its contemporary guise; here we sense a will to freedom that is no longer merely “liberal”; here we witness the fight for human emancipation as it really takes place. Socialism will not be brought about by artistic loners who somehow de-proletarianise the world. The proletariat will transform itself by transforming society. The task of fighting for socialism does not belong to the working class alone. The most conscious and active socialists from all classes may join the socialist movement. But the movement’s main force must be the working class. In its fight, it needs not only allies but also intellectual experts of all sorts in its ranks. It needs them to help realise its role as leader of the socialist movement. But it does not need intellectuals who deny that role. Löwenthal, R. [1936] (2025) ‘Folk-Socialism, a Left Populist Disorder’, Historical Materialism , 15 October. Translated from German by T. Renaud. Available at: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/article/folk-socialism-a-left-populist-disorder/ (Accessed: 15 June 2026).

Latin America Goes Populist Peter St. Onge; 6/5/26 Latin America is going based as Colombia’s populist Abelardo de la Espriella – nicknamed El Tigre, The Tiger – won the first round of the presidential election. Putting him at 80% odds of winning the presidency in 3 weeks according to prediction market kalshi. This is interesting because Tiger’s an open admirer of Najib Bukele, El Salvador’s populist leader – and Trump ally – who famously cut the murder rate by 98%. Taking Salvador from literally the most violent country in the world – worse than Haiti – to safer than New Hampshire. his earning Bukele approval ratings in the 90’s according to independent pollin g. Salvadoran children can now play in the streets – unlike, say, Chicago. Grandmas can nap at the park. Young women can go out at night. I was actually in El Salvador 2 years ago for Bukele’s inauguration and every working-class Salvadoreno I talked to beamed with pride. In the night-club district middle-class women in miniskirts were getting pupusas at 2am with no care in the world. The Spread of Latin American Populism Salvador-style safety would be a welcome change for Colombia, which has a left-wing government friendly to cartels and street crime alike. The murder rate hovers around Baltimore levels – 15 times Salvador. More important for Latin America, it’s not just Colombia. Bukelismo is spreading across the continent, scoring 70 to 80% support region-wide. Bukele is by far the most popular leader among across all Latin American countries, scoring a 6.8/10 according to regional poller Latinobarometro versus an average of 3.7 for the rest of the leaders. Where the parade goes, the leaders are close behind. Chile’s new president is an open admirer of Bukele, as is Ecuador’s. Argentina’s Javier Milei is close to Bukele and they’ve been trading ideas. Honduras already implemented Bukele reforms, and Costa Rica just jumped on the bandwagon. There’s even pressure on Mexico’s left-wing government after 20 years of carnage that’s finally turning the corner thanks to Trump’s border. Why the Left Fights Populism The danger to populism is that lower crime’s just one part of populism, whether Bukele or Trump. It’s also smaller government, less corruption, cutting red tape to boost job creation. Handing economic power to small business instead of back-room cronies. And that’s where the trouble starts. Because even if you convince the voters, you hit the wall of ideological judges and legislatures who are tools of the incumbent power structure. Bukele himself was blocked by judges – which may sound familiar to Americans. And by a hostile Congress – which may also sound familiar. He solved it by winning a landslide in Congress and using it to replace left-wing judges. It was similar for Milei in Argentina, who still doesn’t have enough of Congress to over-ride left-wing judges who’ve blocked some of his major reforms. And Brazil, where left-wing judges effectively mounted a coup, stealing the election then sentencing populist Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for saying nice things about Jan 6 style stop the steal protests. Put it together and Latin America is turning populist, led by crime and corruption. But even where the populists do win – like in the United States – they’re up against a gauntlet of left-wing judges. Meaning Latin populists – like American populists – need to win bigly to fix it. What’s Next The genius of democracy is it’s a pressure value. But when it’s blocked by censorship or ideological judges the pressure builds. The people get angrier. Best case elections are fair enough that populists win supermajorities to remove the judges – like El Salvador. Worst case the judges keep blocking until Presidents just start ignoring them. At which point the people will welcome Caesar.

Insofar as they borrow their ideology from Strasser, the folk-socialists seek to renew socialism from the same sources out of which fascism drew its strength. But socialism can only renew itself by returning to its own sources of strength. Löwenthal, R. [1936] (2025) ‘Folk-Socialism, a Left Populist Disorder’, Historical Materialism , 15 October. Translated from German by T. Renaud. Available at: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/article/folk-socialism-a-left-populist-disorder/ (Accessed: 15 June 2026).

Greece is paying the price of severe population decline Longdated driver: debt crisis in the last decade causing many Greeks to flee overseas. Most of them never return. Current hindrance: hard-line right wing political party only prefers Greeks to be born or return because they can’t put down ethnic pride and prejudice. The populistic rhetorics around immigration is ‘only’ Greek is better for maintaining the Hellenization heritage and culture. Current limitations: Greece makes up of many islands that are paradise to visit as tourists but hell to live as locals. These offshore islands are cut off from the Mainland. The current oil crisis means a normal everyday trip to and from Mainland becomes expensive. Even for the most popular tourism islands, the local ferries are not frequent. Lack of schools, severely lack of promising employment opportunities and absence of essential critical services don’t make these islands livable for settlement purpose. How can young people live on shepherding goats, throwing fishing nets and ride on donkeys for life on the islands in 21st century? In addition, there are geographical threats. During emergency, such as the earthquakes that shook Santorini last year forced 11000 to evacuate, living on the islands became nightmares. Current reality: even few young people choose to return, they only stick to Athens. They can’t re-populate the entire country that is dying from population lost. Question is how long Greece can survive before political bias and pride breaks the donkey’s neck?

Labour in crisis: whoever is prime minister, voters expect politicians to use the language of populism Beyond the high drama surrounding the Makerfield by-election and the contest to be the UK prime minister lies a more fundamental battle. It is the struggle between the incremental pragmatism of mainstream politics and the magical thinking of populism. The great catchword of recent UK politics has been “change”. Brexit, it was said, would change the country’s declining position in the world. Boris Johnson said after his landslide electoral victory in 2019 that he was going to take on “the problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before”. Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, entitled “Change”, declared that a Starmer-led government would “stop the chaos, turn the page, and start to rebuild our country”. But people have different ideas of what change means and how fast it can happen. In a world full of entrenched, unequal social structures and complex, intractable global problems, change is inevitably a long-term project. But voters tend not to be in the business of long-term evaluation. Similarly, they are not impressed by graphs showing that the UK economy is currently the fastest-growing in the G7 or that waiting times for NHS treatment in England are at their lowest level in more than three years. There are undoubtedly better ways of communicating long-term change and identifying quick wins than the current government has adopted. However, the real battle is not between rival tellers of the mainstream narrative, but between two completely different conceptions of change. Remembering this will be crucial for Andy Burnham when he takes on Reform UK in the Makerfield by-election in his bid to return to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour party and his job as prime minister. continue reading

What is Populism Scholarly and policy research suggests that populism can, in certain cases, contribute to the weakening of democratic institutions and protections for minority groups (e.g., analyses from the Center for a New American Security). Populist movements often claim to represent ‘the people,’ but some analyses suggest that this framing may, at times, work against that goal. Populism is often described… What is Populism

POPULISM 101: You have to be popular for populism to work. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/trump-approval-slips-polls-midterms

Opinion | The Populism Numbers Game Doesn’t Work The redefinition of free enterprise as federal micromanagement is troubling. Source link Opinion | The Populism Numbers Game Doesn’t Work

listening to an audiobook about populism, semi-fascism and fascism, and the narrator really goes all out with the impression every time trump is quoted lol

Asemănări între ce se întâmplă acum, tendinţa de fapt globală de alunecare către extrema dreaptă şi discursul populist (aici discutat cazul României), şi ce s-a întâmplat în Grecia Antică în a doua parte a Războiului Peloponesiac (Răzb.P. = 431-404 îHr.) după o epidemie de ciumă cu efecte psihologice comparabile cu cele ale pandemiei de Covid (info de aici ).

We agree with folk-socialists that after the experiences of the last twenty years, a fundamental reorientation of European socialism is necessary. But we draw opposite conclusions from those experiences. We stand by our conviction that socialism in Germany can be achieved only under the leadership of an independent, unified, and tightly organised workers’ movement in alliance with all the forces of international socialism. We must therefore come to grips with folk-socialism as a forced entry into our ranks by an enemy ideology. Löwenthal, R. [1936] (2025) ‘Folk-Socialism, a Left Populist Disorder’, Historical Materialism , 15 October. Translated from German by T. Renaud. Available at: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/article/folk-socialism-a-left-populist-disorder/ (Accessed: 15 June 2026).

BBC Audio | Crossing Continents | Driving Against Net Zero Is defence of the petrol car and liberated motoring becoming the new battleground for Europe’s populist parties? Chris Bowlby visits one of the homes of German car culture and a populist stronghold, Zwickau, to see how motoring is rising up the German agenda. Is Zwickau a foretaste of something affecting all of Germany – a car-loving, car-manufacturing powerhouse in the past, now wondering anxiously what the future holds against the emergence of Chinese electric cars. And less than a hundred miles from Zwickau, just across the border in the Czech Republic, a new coalition government has recently taken power, including ministers from a populist party called Motorists for Themselves – muscular defenders of the old petrol car.

When people tell you to not trust scientists and journalists they are telling you that an entire class of people who’s job it is to spread information contains not a single trustworthy person, yet somehow the person telling you this is way more trustworthy than that ‘clique’. I think that should tell you that person has something to gain out of you not obtaining any other information.

How do people fall for the “tough on crime” bit every single time. All it takes is one “I will solve crime in 4 years by simply Locking Everyone Up” to get half of the votes and win. Then it obviously fails, like every other time. And then the opposition leader says the same thing and wins the next election. Rinse and repeat for eternity. How tf are people this gullible.

Boomer Populism Scott Greer Nov 18, 2025 “Schools will be particularly hard hit by these cuts. That’s the goal for many Republicans advocating for scrapping property taxes. One of the ballot initiatives that passed overwhelmingly in Texas earlier this month would exempt more homeowners from paying property taxes to fund public schools. Abbott is campaigning on eliminating school property taxes altogether. The plan is to make up for this lost revenue through increasing the sales tax. This will likely hurt the state’s economy as ordinary people spend less on consumer goods due to increased prices, which also means less revenue from the sales tax. Schools will probably lose a significant amount of funding with a property tax ban. […] It’s terrible to punish the young to further reward the elderly. As a society, we would declare we do not care about creating and educating another generation. Our priority is to enrich old people who refuse to make any sacrifices for the common good. Their right to have Medicare, Social Security, and not pay property taxes is far more important than America having good schools and roads. This is the essence of boomer populism.”

Operation Dudula: South Africa’s anti-migrant movement

Economic Populism Is Not Just For The Left Anymore Todd Beeton at The Big Picture: Last year, against all odds, Zohran Mamdani rode a wave of economic populism to win the New York City mayor’s race. In so doing, he laid the foundation for what has become a central theme of Democratic campaigns, both in last year’s off-year elections and now heading into the midterms this November. Mamdani launched his campaign in October of 2024 laser-focused on the issue of affordability. Days after the 2024 election, he went to areas of Queens and the Bronx that flipped the hardest toward Trump, and he asked residents why they supported the then president-elect. The consensus was simple: It was the economy, stupid. As one New Yorker after another told Mamdani what it would take to get them to vote for Democrats again moving forward, they responded: [“Being able to pay attention to regular Americans and their economic needs.” “They should make economics the forefront of their campaign.” “The people were not really feeling it in their pocket.”] Over the following year, Mamdani ran a campaign that fulfilled those demands, taking it all the way to Gracie Mansion. But it wasn’t just his famous campaign pledges of “fast and free buses,” “freeze the rent” and “childcare for all” that drove his populist campaign message. It was also an indictment of the status quo, which saw both parties as far too beholden to the interests of millionaires and billionaires. Throughout his campaign, Mamdani pledged to pay for his ambitious plans with a 2% wealth tax on those making $1 million or more; and just days after winning the primary against Cuomo, whom he persistently and ruthlessly slammed as being backed by billionaires—including the president, he told Kristen Welker of Meet The Press , “I don’t think we should have billionaires.” But Mamdani wasn’t simply laying out his own campaign theme, he was also offering a blueprint to other Democratic campaigns across the country. As Mamdani said in his victory speech on election night, [“We are a model for the Democratic Party! A party where we fight for working people with no apology.”] Mamdani’s message was so unapologetically progressive, so unapologetically populist, that many political pundits questioned whether it would turn off more moderate voters in redder areas of the country. Would it resonate outside of New York City? He was, after all, a Democratic Socialist, just like his backer and mentor Senator Bernie Sanders, whose campaign themes Mamdani echoed throughout his winning campaign. But just as Sanders’ Fighting the Oligarchy tour —which he launched with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last year—filled arenas throughout Trump country, from Louisiana to Iowa to Texas, we’re seeing more moderate candidates across the country begin to adopt an explicitly economic populist message. And now new polling confirms, in this time of unprecedented economic inequality and consolidation of wealth, that message is not just for the left anymore; it resonates with moderate voters in red and swing districts and is precisely what they are craving from the Democratic Party. The 2025 Populist Wave For Mamdani doubters questioning the salience of his economic populism outside of blue New York City, it didn’t take long for us to get an answer. And as I urged in my piece last June , Democrats were clearly taking notes. The same night Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected Mayor of New York City, center-left “normie” Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill were elected overwhelmingly to the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively. And the consensus for why they were able to win so decisively emerged quickly. In each state, that message looked a little different. In Virginia, Spanberger railed against Trump’s federal worker layoffs and health care affordability. In New Jersey, Sherrill focused on skyrocketing energy costs, promising to declare “a state of emergency on utility costs and freeze utility rates on ‘Day One as New Jersey’s next governor.’” And unlike Trump with his affordability promises, that’s precisely what she did . […] “Patriotic Populism” In recent years, Democratic candidates have fared worse and worse in red states, particularly at the statewide level. It wasn’t so long ago that Democratic Senators represented such Republican strongholds as Montana, Arkansas, Ohio and West Virginia. But over the past decade, as political polarization spiked and Donald Trump and Fox News weaponized negative partisanship and hot-button cultural issues, Republicans have largely won back those seats. And in the absence of a compelling message from the Democratic side, that same playbook deployed in 2024 sent Trump back to the White House and gave Republicans a trifecta in Washington, D.C. […] The Rise Of The “Moderate Populist” For years, two competing theories for how Democrats can win elections have been in tension. The conservative scolds at such groups as Third Way urge a centrist path, piping up with an unhelpful “told ya so!” every time a Democrat loses the presidency. The “run to the left” strategy, on the other hand, urges bold progressive messaging, particularly on economic issues, to win over voters who are struggling to make ends meet. Recent polling suggests that these two theories are not in as much tension as conventional wisdom would suggest. That’s because, as the “populist moderates” have observed and even embodied themselves, what defines a “moderate Democrat” is changing. And contrary to the message we got from the right and the media broadly after the 2024 election, that shift is NOT to the right. Love this piece in The Big Picture. Economic populist pitches are no longer just confined to the left end of the Democratic Party. See Also: TNR: Finally, Democrats—of All Stripes—Are Coming After the Wealthy’s Money

This is not only a fake, it’s a bad fake. https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2025/09/11/hsv-rufe-faelschlich-als-stimmungsmache-gegen-migranten-ausgegeben/ Tl;dr these guys are fans of the german football club HSV yelling about their hate for their rival club St. Pauli. Not a single word about immigrants is said, they are saying ,Scheiß Sankt Pauli’.

GENTLE WORDS DEFY BIGOTRY; HISTORY LIVES IN SMALL HANDS. https://ift.tt/zQislnt

2 years later: