Ante-postscriptum (April 2021): In April 2021, a memo came out in Washington D.C. stating a simple fact about the previous year’s electoral outcome. “Thanks to the quirks of the electoral college,” it stated, “the difference between a new administration and four more years of Donald Trump was merely 43,000 voters cast across Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.” The report was signed by a group of five leading Democratic polling firms —ALG Research, GBAO Strategies, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, Global Strategy Group and Normington Petts— banded together in an effort to understand the “major errors” and failure “to live up to [their] own expectations” and predict how close the 2020 race actually turned out to be. They admitted having underestimated turnout, as well as a number of measurement errors, but, I think, their major problem was the lack of a deeper understanding of how politics work, especially when the incumbent is a populist. Eventually, the pollsters settled on the idea that “there is something systematically different about the people [they] reached, and the people [they] did not.” Or, perhaps, they reached the same people as usual. Only that, in populist democracies, people get energized, and act, in unusual ways.
I have been studying and writing about populism for over ten years. And, with just 56 days left before the U.S. presidential election on 3 November, I think it likely that Donald Trump is to win re-election. This view is based on my published comparative research on the sum of postwar liberal democracies that have undergone the full populist experience: Populist rise, populist rule, and populist aftermaths. While building the argument below, I provide links to previous works of mine, which you may find useful. Let’s go, then, with this judgement keeping one thing in mind while hoping for another. What is to keep in mind is that, unless in the following days or weeks the American market suffers a massive decline, in which case Biden wins, spiralling polarization is of advantage only to Trump. As of the hope, may this forecasting be wrong.
What is populism, why it matters, and why Trump is the quintessential populist
In the simplest terms possible, populism is a novel political system that presents itself as a radical alternative to the liberal democratic systems established in most of the Western world during the postwar era. It is minimally defined as “democratic illiberalism” and is the mirror-image opposite, and major foe, of contemporary liberal democracy. Hence the conundrums with populism: What makes it so successful at the present? Why is it so difficult to beat a populist? Can populism eventually unmake liberal democracy? Probably no case of populist emergence, and populist rule, is more impressive than Donald Trump’s. Ever since he appeared in 2016 as a presidential candidate and until this very moment, he has attacked every single liberal institution, disrespected (and violated) all checks and balances, fuelled polarization to a maximum, and established a rule template that, if re-elected, is certain to lead toward an authoritarian direction. But Trump’s populism isn’t unique. Which means that similar cases of populism offer valuable clues for understanding his case.
In which modern liberal democracies has populism won state power?
There are nine of them, the “lands of populism.” In chronological order, dating from the year a populist party came to power, these countries are: Argentina (1946), Greece (1981, and then 2015), Peru (1990), Italy (1994), Venezuela (1998), Ecuador (2007), Hungary (2010), Poland (2015), and the United States (2016). Save Poland, each and every of the cases above is discussed in detail in separate chapters in my Populism and Liberal Democracy: A Comparative and Theoretical Analysis. There are lessons to be learned.
What HAVE I LEARNED from the comparative study of populisM?
Here are 6 of the lessons I’ve learned, which are postulated in almost axiomatic form as follows:
1 Modern populism, from an infrequent and little noticeable phenomenon in the early postwar decades, has in more recent years gained momentum and presents as a real alternative to liberal democracy. Just witness Trump’s America.
2 All populist leaders classify as “charismatic” in the sense that those (a) exersize full control over parties that they themselves have either created or taken over, and (b) use those parties as vehicles in their pursuit of illiberal programs. Trump is a typical such case.
3 With the exception of Italy in the 90s (and, partially, Greece in 2015), populist parties most often govern singlehandedly, that is to say, without relying on coalition partnerships.
4 Once in power, populist parties seek to establish an order that remains democratic but not liberal. They also use a certain template of rule, which I have analyzed in detail here. Trump also uses the exact same template.
5 After their first electoral victory, populist parties have always won at least a second, usually back-to-back, election. May the November US presidential election become the first exception to this rule.
6 Ruling populism has been defeated at the polls decisively only once. That was in the July 2019 landslide of Greece’s center-right ND, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, over the left-populist Syriza. For a detailed analysis, see here.
How DOES populism win office?
To win state power, populism requires (1) an extraordinary leader who (2) uses a symbolic discourse to divide society into two opposing camps, one consisting of an allegedly corrupt minority and another comprising the righteous majority of ordinary people, and who (3) assaults on established checks and balances, promising instead to attend to the people’s interests regardless of institutional legality.
HOW DOES populism SURVIVE IN POWER?
Once in power, populism thrives as long as its leader’s charisma persists and his strategy of social polarization continues to work. Disrespectful toward the rule of law and long-established liberal institutions as they are, populist leaders also populate the state administration with loyalists and distribute state-related resources selectively to their supporters at the same time crowding out the opposition. This graph summarizes.
How is populism defeated?
A defeat of populism requires reversing the wave that brought populism to power in the first place. Logically, then, everything hinges on the presence of an opposition leader with certain qualities who is ready to spearhead the drive back to more attractive political liberalism. Such a leader must be able to perform the following three (highly interrelated) feats. Will Joe Biden be that leader?
WHY BIDEN does NOT seem EQUAL TO THE TASK?
Below are the three Herculean feats that are obligatory for defeating a populist leader like Trump — that is to say, the ABC for a Democrats’ victory. Biden comes up short in all three of them.
A
Present undisputed, strong leadership
The forthcoming election has united the Democrats under Biden’s leadership in opposition to Trump and the prospect of his re-election. But this is a semblance of unity that masks important ideological and policy divisions within the Democrats, especially between moderate centrists and radical liberals. Such divisions have forced Biden to constantly try to gauge how to keep a balance between the warring intra-party factions and hold the party together. As hard as he may have tried, however, Biden has not succeeded to convey a sense of strong and undisputed leadership, and portray himself as a resolved commander-in-chief. In addition, Biden lacks Trump’s formidable physical presence, energetic campaigning style, and extraordinary communication skills.
B
Avoid populism’s polarization trap
Biden’s campaign has focused on the coronavirus pandemic, which Trump’s administration has handled disastrously, and the real economy, which is in tatters. But, even leaving aside the possibility of having a vaccine by October or the fact that polls show Trump to be more trusted than Biden for restarting the economy, none of those issues seems able to decide the electoral outcome. For, meanwhile, the protests and civil unrest that ravage many American cities have emerged as the major issue of the campaign. And while Biden castigates virus mismanagement, the president banks on intensifying polarization. By focusing on law-and-order, he casts himself as the protector of social peace. He pits law-abiding Americans against “anarchists,” “looters,” “rioters” – all presumed Biden’s voters. As long as Biden cannot avoid the polarization trap, and replace it with a convincing unifying message, Trump is free to stoke more division and thus mobilize new voters among the white middle class in key states.
C
Provide a bold vision for the future
Joe Biden, a 77-year-old establishment figure, is clearly not a visionary reformer. He lacks a bold political vision for the future of America. At best, his promise is about a return to liberalism of old. As English philosopher Michael Oakeshott would have put it, he is like a trimmer in the nautical sense – one who trims the sails of the ship in order to keep it afloat in choppy seas. He offers to lead America back to “normal,” that is, the preservation of formerly established institutional order, open markets and free trade, and the remaking of traditional alliances. But, against a background of global economic recession, an increasingly intimidating China, and the old liberal rule book now shredded in bits by Trump, Biden has failed to put forward a realistically radical idea about a liberal reconstitution of the American society — one that would resonate among both the entire Democratic Party and the moderate wing of the Republican Party .
In conclusion
If the historical and comparative knowledge of modern liberal democracies that have experienced populist rule can serve as guidance, it is a Trump’s, not Biden’s, win that seems the most plausible result in the forthcoming US presidential election. But above all else please keep in mind two things. First, likelihood (i.e., what this post is about) is not the same as probability (for which, see the inexact science of electoral surveys). Second, and since no two cases in history are exactly the same, no history’s rule is bindingp
