Posts Tagged ‘political cartoons’
“Populist victors continue to behave like victims; majorities act like mistreated minorities”…
… and, as Rachel Kleinfeld explains, that doesn’t work out well for their economies…
In the 20th century, economic and political systems could be situated on a simple 2×2 grid. Economic policies ran from left to right, while political systems could be arrayed from authoritarian to democratic.
Most U.S. business pegged themselves easily on this spectrum: they wanted favorable regulation and management-friendly policies of the sort generally pursued by the right. And while a few opened up shop behind the Iron Curtain, CEOs knew business prospered most under classically liberal democratic systems that upheld the rule of law and inalienable rights—including property rights.
The rise of populism in the 21st century has overturned this game board. Today, even supposedly right-wing populists exploit distrust, pessimism, and anger to make the case that government should wield a heavy—and often retaliatory—hand in markets. But while such interference by authoritarian leaders could once be portrayed as undemocratic, modern populists often bask in electoral support. Voters cheer as their elected leaders undermine rights and the rule of law.
Populism, in other words, has shaken the kaleidoscope of 20th century political and economic identities—and acting as if those labels still apply could be catastrophic for market economies. Modern populists from the right use right-wing rhetoric to sell what used to be left-wing economic ideas. And many marry the electoral aspects of democracy with authoritarian tactics to undermine the rights, institutions, and norms that create a stable business environment.
Economic and historical studies show that even supposedly pro-business populism is bad for business; countries that elect one populist tend to elect others, its effects creep well past a single election cycle.
This matters because populists are getting elected at a rate last seen in the 1930s. In 2018, they presided over nearly a third of global GDP, including mega-countries like India. Next year, with 40 countries (accounting for 44% of global GDP) going to the polls, they could control even more. Some come from the left, particularly in Latin America. But as in the turbid 1930s, many populist leaders like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, and Donald Trump in the United States hail from the right—deploying a trio of political strategies that characterize populists regardless of their avowed ideology.
First, populists win elections by deepening existing social divisions. By turning nearly every political question into a fight between a virtuous “us” and a deceitful, dangerous, disloyal “them” they create an intense base that is personally loyal to the leader and not any particular ideology. That base lets populists maintain strong voter support even as they centralize and personalize power, their second go-to tactic. Finally, by redefining democracy as majority rule, they can claim that anything that stands against their desires (as the embodiment of the majority) is anti-democratic. This rhetorical jujitsu lets them undermine checks and balances, once-independent institutions from judiciaries to statistical bodies, and the rule of law itself, depicting them as obstacles to taking radical steps to implement the majority’s wishes.
The dire economic effects of left-wing populism are well-researched. Leaders from Argentina’s Juan Perón to Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador nationalize businesses, politicize their management, and fill their ranks with supportive political appointees. They shower voters with government money come election time and overheat their economies. The result is often a short-term economic boom followed by a long, inflationary bust…
Using Victor Orbán and Hungary as an example, Kleinfeld demonstrates that right-wing populists are just as disastrous for their countries; the problem is not that the leader comes from the left or the right, it’s that they pursue the populist playbook.
Eminently worth reading in full. Aspiring autocrats keep ruining their countries’ economies: “The Economic Cost of Right-Wing Populism,” from @RachelKleinfeld in @JoinPersuasion.
[Image above from the co-published version of the article]
Apposite: Zeynep Tufekci with a diagnosis of the attractiveness of autocratic leaders: “A Strongman President? These Voters Crave It.” (gift article). Not sure that I buy her sense that Trump has been working a careful and canny strategy from the start (2016); but her focus is on his adherents’ grievances and their response to his charisma and his self-anointed status as “the only one who can save [us]”… a provocative read.
* Jan-Werner Müller, What Is Populism?
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As we contemplate civics, we might recall that it was on this date in 1870 that pioneering political cartoonist Thomas Nast gave the Democratic Party its mascot:
On January 15, 1870, Nast published the cartoon [see below] that would forever link the donkey to the Democrat. A few ideas should be clear for the cartoon to make sense: First, “republican” and “democrat” meant very different things in the 19th century than they do today (but that’s another article entirely); “jackass” pretty much meant the exact same thing then that it does today; and Nast was a vocal opponent of a group of Northern Democrats known as “Copperheads.”
In his cartoon, the donkey, standing in for the Copperhead press, is kicking a dead lion, representing President Lincoln’s recently deceased press secretary (E.M. Stanton). With this simple but artfully rendered statement, Nast succinctly articulated his belief that the Copperheads, a group opposed the Civil War, were dishonoring the legacy of Lincoln’s administration. The choice of a donkey –that is to say, a jackass [understood at the time to be a play on “Jackson,” as populist Andrew Jackson was an inspiration to the Copperheads]– would be clearly understood as commentary intended to disparage the Democrats. Nast continue to use the donkey as a stand-in for Democratic organizations, and the popularity of his cartoons through 1880s ensured that the party remained inextricably tied to jackasses…
“Political Animals: Republican Elephants and Democratic Donkeys”- Smithsonian
Post-modern politics…
The reason the pipeline was blocked is because Obama has a brain. A Good Cartoon.
From A Good Cartoon— “spelling out what political cartoons really mean”…
The artist proposes a monument to Ronald Reagan, who famously squatted out a pile of sh*t known as Starve the Beast doctrine. The pile has increased through successive tax cuts by likeminded presidents, who ignore the promise of only increased debt at its core. By now the pile of sh*t has overshadowed the ideas of even our most hallowed presidents of the pre-Reaganomics era. A good cartoon.
As we steel our resolve to avoid the Intentionalist Fallacy, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965 that about six hundred people began a fifty-four mile march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in Montgomery. The marchers were demonstrating for African-American voting rights and commemorating the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who’d been shot three weeks earlier by a state trooper while trying to protect his mother at a civil rights demonstration.
One hundred years after the end of the Civil War, the protections of the Fifteenth Amendment had, in many Southern states (as indeed, in many others) been eroded by local statute and intimidation. And indeed on the outskirts of Selma, after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the marchers were brutally assaulted, in plain sight of photographers and journalists, by heavily armed state troopers and deputies.
John Lewis (on right in trench coat) and Hosea Williams (on the left) lead marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
B.C. (and H.)…
Readers will recall that before the exquisite Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson drew political cartoons…
Before that, he drew for his college newspaper, The Kenyon Collegian…
These and more, from every stage of Watterson’s wonderful career, at Rare Bill Watterson Art.
As we remember that this was why we used to subscribe to newspapers, we might send birthday smiles to another Ohioan, humorist and cartoonist James Thurber; he was born (in Columbus) on this date in 1894.
Q. No one has been able to tell us what kind of dog we have. I am enclosing a sketch of one of his two postures. He only has two. The other one is the same as this except he faces in the opposite direction. – Mrs EUGENIA BLACK
A. I think that what you have is a cast-iron lawn dog. The expressionless eye and the rigid pose are characteristic of metal lawn animals. And that certainly is a cast-iron ear. You could, however, remove all doubt by means of a simple test with a hammer and a cold chisel, or an acetylene torch. If the animal chips, or melts, my diagnosis is correct.
– The Thurber Carnival (1945)
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