The Media Is Clueless About Shift Toward ‘Populism’

David Brooks is the regular alternative voice discussing politics and public affairs for the government-supported Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour. He is a regular columnist for the New York Times, a former editor for the Weekly Standard (from its inception), and a contributing editor to progressive Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly.

Wikipedia noted that Brooks has been described ideologically as a moderate, a centrist, a conservative, and a moderate conservative. He has been a professor at Duke University, taught at Yale University, and was elected to the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. (READ MORE from Donald Devine: It’s Time to End the Anti-Democracy Myth: Trump Must Reform the Insurrection Act)

But it also reported that Brooks describes himself as a “moderate.” So why do PBS News and the rest treat him somehow as a voice for conservativism when he does not do so himself? Let’s try to understand.

Brooks has written a piece for the Times that was reprinted even in my little hometown newspaper and which perhaps explains his presumed conservativism. He begins with what he has “always thought”: That our country’s people have believed in what he calls “American exceptionalism.” The “bulk of the evidence” to demonstrate this is that the U.S. has historically been the world’s “champion of democracy.” It has been a nation that “welcomes immigrants,” and whose national “faith” has been in “the American dream.”

But Brooks has recently read a world study of 28 nations that demonstrates that America is merely in the middle of the pack in supporting these supposed features of the dream! Brooks interprets this data as demonstrating a worldwide move of people to right-wing populism, even in Europe — the Netherlands! — much less India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the rest. And, of course, the U.S. has become even more populist than they by supporting Donald Trump for President!

The shock to Brooks is the movement of the world so far away from the historic 1848 revolutions that began the modern worldwide swing toward liberal democracy. This turn had been completed by the time of Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” 1989 fall of communism that turned all Europe and much of the world into democracies. But now these are in “retreat” everywhere. To meet this threat, Brooks’ solution is for “liberals” everywhere to support change — but now in a more “comprehensive and constructive way.”

Ah, “comprehensive;” with no sense that comprehensive might just be the problem. Conservatives might conclude that the reason the world is so upset with the status quo is that experts have transformed American exceptionalism into comprehensive plans to manage their lives from the top. From Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey and the rest, progressives have passed their “experts govern” logic along to the world, especially to the democracies. American progressives have by now imposed a woke “democracy” on them that seems almost planned to alienate as many non-woke subgroups as possible in the process.

Populism and Conservatism

Progressivism’s promises have now become due. In fact, most of the 1848 revolutions failed to achieve real democracy; but they all did adopt the progressive’s centralized expert power model. Even in the U.S., a true conservative opposition to progressivism did not arise until post-WWII with F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and politically by popularizers William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and the rest. Reagan was somewhat successful preparing the way for the 1989 revolutions but his message was not a comprehensive government approach, but to “curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or the people.”

Although Reagan’s economic reforms lasted right up to the 2008 Great Recession, comprehensive progressivism has exploded ever since. And all nations are now reaping the whirlwind.  In fact, what Americans “always thought,” was not belief in an arrogant “exceptionalism,” or to be the world “champion of democracy,” or be a nation that “welcomes immigrants,” or to have faith in a dream. As Reagan insisted, America’s faith was from a higher authority; and it was republican and federalist, not “democratic.” Its people were to build America, not the world; from the “bottom to the top,” not at the whim of the those at the top.

The authoritative U.S. Gallup poll recently asked the American people, “how much trust and confidence do you have in government.” Regarding the Federal government handling domestic problems, 63 percent of Americans said they had “not very much trust” in it, or “none at all.” Only 6 percent had a “great deal” of confidence. For local governments, however, 67 percent said they had a “great deal” or “fair degree” of trust. Only 11 percent said, “no trust at all.” For state governments it was 59 percent having a great or fair degree of trust and confidence against 17 percent with no trust at all.

It is no secret why populism is booming worldwide. The centralized, comprehensive progressive welfare state has the power, but it simply does not work. The solution to populism is not more comprehensive plans but to loosen up, to get out of the way, not to force all to become progressive scolds demanding rights without accepting any near-home obligations. (READ MORE: New Ways of War and Meeting the Human Challenge)

The real American dream was the federalist, decentralized and limited Constitution, moving decisions away from centralized comprehensive bureaucracies and towards communities and individuals. That is the solution for populism, not “comprehensive and constructive” plans by big government moderate-progressives. Let people have some say in how they are ruled, and even moderate dreamers might be surprised how well a Constitutional populism might work.

Donald Devine is a senior scholar at the Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. He served as President Ronald Reagan’s civil service director during his first term in office. A former professor, he is the author of 11 books, including his most recent, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, and Ronald Reagan’s Enduring Principles and is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.