Forbes Mexico.
Populism, exacerbation of its features and their consequences
Doing politics from the populist perspective implies feeding, disseminating and consolidating the conception that the people are the center of the entire action of the government, that the authority is unavoidably governed according to their designs and that there is always a latent threat of dark groups on the prowl snatching your rights.
Every act of government will always be aimed at getting these three factors present in their followers. Hence, the central function of communication will be propaganda, it is not about informing or evaluating but also keeping the discourse, content, exalting its central ideas and values, repeating, enhancing, confirming, at the same time denouncing their critics and opponents
It is logical, since these central definitions on which populism is based are part of its essence; However, although each one entails – in effect – social support, legitimacy, it can also have not so positive consequences for the political development of citizenship.
- THE PEOPLE AS EPICENTRO. Populist leaders assume the role of universal, omnipotent, practically paternalistic guides. Defenders and protectors are tireless. Its central mission is to make people believe that Ellxs participate in politics in an act of sacrifice and immolation, never by ambition.
They must then be austere, hide and disguise all kinds of excesses, appear a minimalist operation. The primary function of the budget is “distributive” and symbolizes having taken from the “aristocracy” which monopolized as an ostentatious privilege. With this, no one could question the “goodness” of the populist system.
In the same way, set that idea there will be no social audit and inspection institutions can be eliminated. Reviewable figures, accountability, transparency, hard data, nothing.
Precisely, not accounts is the paradise of impunity and loss (for citizenship) of their criticism, review, reflection and evaluation rights. The purchase of the vote passes to the institutional plane, is mimicked and the support of social support bases is normalized.
Anyone who goes against the populist “facts” or dares to question them is nothing more than part of that perversion, injustice, antipatriotism and betrayal of the people that at the same time also becomes an exclusive asset, but -That. If- as long as it remains as an asset loyal and dependent follower.
- Polarization and Manichaeism. Make the society feel that there are always insurmountable divisions, historical conflicts, grievances that require a rematch and that if someone is or is doing well it is because it has stolen Otrx always has toxic effects.
A divided society is convenient for populism, to use the exhibitions, the transcended ones that show stalking, offenses, maneuvers, the complicities of its detractors contributes to feed that perception and fix it in the social imaginary.
A little autoflagelo around here, victimization, make the virtues of those who face the evil forces that threaten populist advances. The dance of the technicians and rude gives a lot of political thread from which to take advantage. The calls to close ranks, to preserve the unit and to combat dissent nourish that fuel.
Risky when the limits are crossed, the mesurated positions are canceled, the levels are canceled and the verbal aggression is made, reaching the extremism and radicalism, with this rejection, discrimination, violence, racism, signage, exclusion, harassment, harassment, harassment and even the use of laws to annul any opponent.
The breath to the conflict prevents many superior goals, that public policy projects and innovative ways of doing things cannot be generated. A society must adapt to change, evolve, progress, develop, grow. It is a waste that great ideas or contributions are lost due to indolence, indifference or dogmatism simply by having emerged in opposition, divergence or aseptic neutrality.
- The essential, the priority, the fundamental, the structural. Results, concrete facts, plans, projects, units of measure, higher goals, are essential for democracy.
A society that lives in the accusations, the denotation, distribution of faults and the systematic use of the past as an exclusive contact format is halfway.
The division of powers, neutral and impartial institutions, the balances, the resources that the citizen must have at hand to face precisely the excesses, failures, omissions and complicities within the government are natural rights, achievements, the consequence of struggles and a high cost paid precisely by the people.
That cannot be paid, subrogate, condition, hold on to an individual or group will. When populism achieves it, it concentrates those resources and subjects them to their propaganda logic, it does not skimp on knocking them down, limiting them or subjecting them, including the media, analysts, leaders or personalities that do not fit their style.
Under this context, the populists grow and expand, make each word profitable against them, exercise power from individualism, without obstacles, without discussion, without analysis, without reflections, laws, norms, institutions become a heritage of convenient use, personalist and modal.
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Populism, exacerbation of its features and their consequences
Alfredo Paredes
