Thursday, March 15, 2018

''How To Defeat The Populist Progression'' by Kostas Botopoulos

Since 2015 international politics have sped up and changed direction. The return to power of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), led by Jaroslav Kaczynski in October 2015, the Brexit vote in June 2016 and the Trump victory in November 2016 should be seen in conjunction and taken as portents of a new political era.
Those three major events, corroborated by the growing impact of populist movements in power or aspiring to power (Italy is the latest very significant example), symbolize the dawning of a new era, and a new kind of populism internationally. Beyond the classical characteristics of populist movements, namely nationalism, anti-liberalism, anti-elitism, nativism and a pronounced anti-immigration stance, this “populism of the 21st century” is driven by anti-globalization instincts, an open refusal of logic, rationality, science and the objective truth, the institutionalization of state and para-state violence and the blurring of the distinction between Right and Left resulting in the quasi-demise of the reformist and democratic Left..''

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