Trump And The Rise Of populism In The United States
Populism has started ever since post World War 2 and it recently started to rise and some are starting to worry.
What is populism?
Well “populism” comes from the Latin word “populus”, meaning “the people”, that shows a strong connection to democracy itself. The vagueness and doubt of populism make it impossible to create one definition of this phenomenon. This is why so many people are afraid of the rise of populism because most people don’t understand or even know what it is. Once people start to research what is populism, they see what the media tells them, which is populism is supported by Trump and racism. Which is true but we should be too afraid of the rise.
Many analysts believed that populism actually started due to the economic distress created by the protracted Great Recession. The reason why populism is on the rise is because it draws strength from public opposition to mass immigration, cultural liberalization, and the perceived surrender of national sovereignty to distant and unresponsive international bodies. The reason, why people are against immigration, is that immigration raises cultural and security concerns as well as fears of economic displacement. The brooking article tells us that the rise of European populism has started making the centered left less appealing and it actually started to collapse in recent years. Galston has also stated that “the rise of anti-immigrant, anti-internationalist sentiment, which has shifted the political balance within Europe, could have grave consequences for liberal democracy itself. ” This quote tells us that populism has shifted political balance which causes countries to become more of a nationist country. As a country becomes more about nationalism, the country will become more hostile to other countries. For example, how Trump had a travel banned seven countries due to the rising terriost attacks, but he decides to make a drastic decision and ban a whole culture and nation to “feel safer” even when the culture does not support these acts. The Maclean’s message was about the unexpected rise and appearance of populism around the world. Essentially, the new populists are just like the old populists: They act as divining rods and take power if politicians ignore concerns. They also argue that we should see populism for what it is: An expression of an under-represented or unheard percent of the people/ public. That also said that one of the examples, where most developed countries, don’t listen to the public is whether new immigrants are successfully integrating into the norms of Western nations, such as the equality of women and the freedom to criticize others’ gods. Overall this article was just talking about how populism is on the rise and how we should perceive this.
I find that the first article was more convincing due to the reason of experience and statistics. They have multiple facts like how populism started and what has it become today. Which in the brooking article, it started in the mid-1900’s century and only has become relevant because of its rise in recent years, due to the economic distress and the distress was created by the protracted Great Recession. Even when the distress was over, the populism had momentum and still continued to rise. It has continued to rise because most of the support is the public that is against mass immigration. Just like how Trump won the election, most of his supporters were hiding or didn’t express their feeling to the public. That's why Trumps win was a surprise to everyone globally. Trump won on the public fear of immigration and much more. The first reason why it is so convincing is that it gives us examples of how populism has become more powerful each year like how Trump won the election. That was a major win for populism because he is somewhat a populist himself. He has openly admitted that he was against immigrates like him deporting a lot of dreamers/ illegal immigrates and the travel ban on multiple Muslim/ middle eastern countries. Trump supporters were afraid of immigration because immigration raises cultural and security concerns as well as fears of economic displacement. They didn’t want a repeat of the 2009 financial crisis.
Another reason why this article was convincing was the how they explain what populism has done to our community. They explain how populism has shifted the political balance within Europe so that it has actually threatened and gives grave consequences for liberal democracy. This is convincing because fear plays a big part in our lives when it comes to decision making like when to vote and who to vote for. Even though populism isn’t really as dangerous, we should still be aware of the problem which is the rise of the anti-immigration, anti-internationalist sentiment and this could have very bad repercussions in the future like more countries developing more of a nationalist view where it is a us vs. them mentality, where Trump has somewhat brought back that kind of view and its starting to take a toll.
We have started to not trust the president of the United States of America and started to divide as a nation where we don’t even support each other as much anymore. Trump has expressed how he despises the people who kneel during the anthem in the NFL. He has created a nation where people don’t trust each other and out for each other’s neck.
