{"id":20810,"date":"2024-05-21T13:08:31","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T20:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=20810"},"modified":"2024-05-21T13:08:31","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T20:08:31","slug":"populism-isnt-democracy-its-ochlocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2024\/05\/21\/populism-isnt-democracy-its-ochlocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Populism Isn’t Democracy, It’s Ochlocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

     One of the great achievements, and integral elements of America as a civic nation (and formerly the Anglosphere more widely), was the keystone concept of liberty under law\u2014an ordered liberty ordered not by either a ruling elite or some Rousseau-esque volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/i>, but by that great contract that is \u201ca partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those whoa re dead, and those who are to be born\u201d, as Edmund Burke wisely noted.<\/p>\n

     This very concept brings forth the very essence of equality under the law by the equal application of rules without prejudice or favor<\/a>. By grounding our laws and rules with history, tradition, and common law sensibility, we create laws of a general nature, equally applicable to all according to the facts and circumstances. This<\/i> is the way to prevent some ruling over others: To rely on the \u201cfixed principles and institutions of society express[ing] not merely the present opinions of the ruling part of the community, but the accumulated results of centuries experience\u201d, as James FitzJames Stephen noted consistent with the understanding of Burke. It is the lodestone that dissuades tyranny, and provides a guidelight back when we stray\u2014to eschew that is folly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     It is when we eschew such limitations that we empower whoever does rule over us to do so without practicable limit beyond perpetual civil war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     Yet some on the post-conservative Right (that some refer to as the \u201ctrans-conservatives\u201d) embrace the oppressor\/oppressed power dynamic of the hard Left with all the dripping Marxist seething of their intellectual forefathers. In this false framing they focus not on restraining power, but using that power against some imagined elite as if it were the One Ring<\/a> in order to vanquish some real life Sauron!<\/p>\n

     Oh, there are those who deign to rule over us all, and accumulate power and influence to do so. Your humble author has for well over a decade<\/a> on this blog decried<\/a>, condemned<\/a>, and belittled<\/a> Nomenklatura<\/i>. But rather than work towards a restoration of the rule of law, some have become envious and wish to use power to to rule over the elite, regardless of whether they are Nomenklatura<\/i>, or simply are declared to not work for the common good<\/i> as defined by whoever will have the power to define it. There is a difference between Nomenklatura<\/i> and people who simply have achieved some leadership role, gained some position of relative influence, or simply have money.<\/p>\n

     The false dilemma fallacy of elites vs<\/i>. the people is an old one, and just as fallacious now as it has always been. It is quite a fancy to see \u201cpopulism\u201d as the perfect solution<\/a> to rein in disagreeable elites, as if \u201cthe people\u201d were some single entity with a common will, a volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/i> if you will, rather than a potential mob to be manipulated and used by a populist elite<\/i> like a sheepdog guiding sheep. But then, they might even claim that the sheepdog is simply animating vessel of the collective will of the sheep!<\/p>\n

     Such anti-elite elites declare populism, as they define and shape it, is but true democracy! In truth, populism is the most elitist of political ideologies<\/a>. Rather than populism being democracy, populism is in reality ochlocracy with a thin veneer of superficial legitimacy. But some people try to claim otherwise by painting opposition as the evil elite to be overcome\u2026 and who wants to side with this \u201cevil elite\u201d? If you don\u2019t oppose these \u201cevil elite\u201d then you are not one of the \u201cordinary people\u201d. Do note the false dilemma fallacy underpinning this type of argument<\/a>, along with reliance on non sequiturs, strawmen, class warfare, and other song\u00a0 n’ dance measures.<\/p>\n

     Note how, ironically, he redefines populism as being specifically the hoi polloi standing up against the elite and being antithetical to it, as if a populist leader is somehow inoculated from elitism or elitist rule by spiritual balm of the volont\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/i>!<\/p>\n

     It is easy for people to fool themselves into thinking that they<\/i> are the ones who rule under a populist regime. As James FitzJames Stephen notes:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPeople came in time to regard their rulers rather as their own agents and the depositaries of their own power than as antagonistic powers to be kept in check, and it did not occur to them that their own power exercised through their own agents might be just as oppressive as the power of their rulers confined within closer or wider limits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Further:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     Populism isn\u2019t the \u201cvoice of the voiceless\u201d, it is the organization of sentiment by the elites<\/i> to be used by the elites<\/i>, towards the ends desired by the elites<\/i>! The \u201cpeople\u201d do not and can not rule, for they have no collective will nor singular voice. To equate \u201cpopulist\u201d with \u201cauthoritarian\u201d or \u201cstrong man\u201d is not some Orwellian changing of the meaning of words\u2026 but an observation grounded in reality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     This ultimately ochlocratic<\/i> sentiment tries to deflect from the very real negatives of mob rule and the populist elite<\/a> by declaring the danger to be the \u201celites\u201d who are defined as whatever the populist elite<\/i> decide isn\u2019t being used for what the populist elite <\/i>deem to be the \u201ccommon good\u201d. How dare, these populist elites<\/i> say, organizations, corporations, or simply people with money try to have a say in the government that rules over them, especially when it is a populist<\/i> government! Any real <\/i>student of 20th<\/sup> century Italian history would note this organization of business for the common good under a government that speaks for the people to be corporatism<\/i>. Sadly, some populist elites<\/i> must outright fib and declare it to be business ruling over other via<\/i> the government (which wouldn\u2019t even be possible under a society that insists upon the rule of law).<\/p>\n

     Elitism, if understood as rule of the Nomenklatura<\/i>, is unique no neither the Left nor to the post-conservative<\/i> elite. It is conservatism<\/i> in the American vein that stands against it! The problem is not that it is news media, businesses, academics, &c. using government to impose, being the Nomenklatura<\/i> they are, <\/i>their whims on others, but that the power is there\u2014unmoored from any superseding rule of law\u2014to be used by some to rule over others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     The beauty of the rule of law where the rules are elevated above the rulers, be they some dictatorial elite who declare they are better than the people or the dictatorial elite who claim to speak on behalf of the people better than the people can speak for themselves, is that no one has the predominant power over others.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

     Just as democratic elections serve as a critical check upon the government and whoever may hold the reins thereof, one of the wisest elements of the Constitution, and the true Anglospheric tradition it embodies, was the understanding of the necessity of contra-majoritarian elements in any government or even society itself to serve as a check on populist<\/i> sentiment. The only way the people can be protected from the people is by proper checks and balances against the people, for \u201cthe people\u201d is but many individuals who speak with millions of individual voices, and as much as democracy is a \u201cmild and disguised form of compulsion \u2026[where we] agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads\u201d, as James FitzJames Stephen noted, placing checks and balances on populism<\/i> serves to prevent the populist elite<\/i> from democratically breaking heads anyway.<\/p>\n

     So NO, populism is not<\/i> democracy. The sentiment of the majority, or even plurality, is part of democracy and a key and integral part of American governance, but such sentiment must be protected from populist elitists<\/i> and even headless mob rule lest we fall into ochlocracy.<\/p>\n

     A little mood music:<\/p>\n