Populisms Pull Mainstream Ideologies to Extremes
In my posts on the logics of right and left-wing populism I described the way that each populism tugged mainstream principles regarding national identity toward the ideological extremes. What that meant in regard to understandings of race was a particular concern, Here I want to conceptualize the nature of that tugging and offer a visual depiction of what’s going on. In the process I contrast outcomes of that mainstream-populist tension on the right and left, again with particular attention to race.
The racial ideology of traditional conservative American nationalism is white assimilationism. This embodies the notion that the US constitution protects individual rights, not group rights. At a cultural level and in the workplace, it encourages people to conform to the values already in place. This pressures people of color to behave and see the world just like White folks! Thus, I call this value white assimilationism.
White assimilationism is a polite form of white supremacy. It says that POC are okay as long as they don’t make noise or otherwise make White folks uncomfortable about race. The Trumpist` right-wing populist agenda calling for restriction of immigration, continuation of the status quo regarding criminal justice policies and greater voter restriction is not necessarily at odds with mainstream conservatism. But the racially-charged and bombastic way that Trump talks about these issues energizes a Republican base whose racism was mostly latent before 2016.[1] His demeanor also reduces the wiggle room intrinsic to the mainstream penchant for compromise. Trump’s position on racial issues and his intransigence regarding them are a more in your face kind of white supremacy that is white nationalism.
Because the extremist seem more likely to vote in primaries, mainstream would be Republican candidates are compelled to approximate white nationalist values in order to gain support (See attached diagram) below for a depiction of these dynamics).
The racial ideology of liberal progressivism is liberal multiracialism. This outlook accepts racial equality, but assumes that diversifying workplaces, student bodies or boards of directors is enough to undo racism. In institutional settings we refer to this position as the “affirmative action organization.”[2] At the level of the entire social system we call it liberal multiracialism.
Populist progressivism calls for transformation of the criminal justice system, policies that generally support both legal and undocumented immigration and easy access to voting. Liberals, like their mainstream counterparts on the right, generally agree with populists. But like mainstream conservatives they favor negotiated and incremental, not sweeping changes in those policy areas.
Since the protests over the murder of George Floyd, however, left populists have called out systemic racism in law enforcement and all American institutional sectors. The anger and fear that has gushed forth from the left as a result of the Trump presidency has engendered calls for a more wide-ranging systemic overhaul. They envision a more aggressive attack on racial inequality which I call structural multiracialism. As is the case with the mainstream right, liberals are pulled to this more leftist position in order to sustain their primary electoral base (See diagram).
The big difference is that liberalism behind Joe Biden seems able to make enough policy reforms to corral populist into a center-left pragmatism and govern. This may be largely, because in the immediate term left populist fear Trumpian fascism more than they dislike mainstream liberalism. See the diagram below to visualize what I’m saying here.
American Nationalism, Populism and Race
Traditionalism
Conservatism Populism (Trump)
|
Racial Ideology
|
white assimilationism,
trending to white nationalism to keep electoral base àà à
|
white nationalism
|
Progressivism
Liberalism Populism (Sanders)
|
Racial Ideology
|
liberal multiracialism,
trending to structural multiracialism to keep electoral base ààà
|
structural multiracialism |
Johnson, Vernon D. and Autry, Chelsee, “Populist Nationalism in the Age of Trump,” Acta
Academica: Critical Views on Society, Culture and Politics (South Africa), vol. 54, no. 3, December 2022, DOI: https://doi.org/10.18820/24150479/aa54i3/4
[1] Mostly, because Patrick Buchanan’s candidacies in the 1990s and Sarah Palin’s presence as Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008 also brought the racism in the Republican base to the fore.
[2] For the full discussion racial ideology in social movement and institutional sites see of Johnson, Vernon D., and Benslimane, Kelsie, “Practical Representation and the Multiracial Social Movement,” Journal of Educational Controversy, vol. 12, no. 1, Article 5, 2017 Available at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/vol12/iss1/5 2017
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