The battle against Populism

Populism is the dumbing down of democracy. It weakens civic action to make way for leaders whose caricatures appear so real.... To get to power populists exploit ignorance and insecurities. They are willing to exploit base instincts like xenophobia as well as crass economic ignorance and old fashioned autarky. Those of the right promise tax cuts which erode the entire social model. Those of the 'left' ransack the state coffers mostly to create networks of patronage and dependencies. In power populists have to further dumb down the political debate and create more insecurities and fears. The scary part is that democracy as we know has proved no antidote for these vermin. And even worse they often use elections to undermine checks and balances. In fact the past decade has seen authoritarian populists flourish all over the world, from Putin in Russia to the tea party in the USA, from Berlusconi in Italy to Chavez in Venezuela... In the face of all this, the only antidote is a democratic mobilisation based on civic action and wide alliances involving all shades of democratic politics. And lets not imagine that populism is not present in our country, elements of it are present in both dominant political parties, even if we do not yet have rude leaders like Berlusconi. Rather than the leaders themselves, in Malta it is the duopoly itself which is oppressive and illiberal.