Right wingers have been repackaging tried and true right wing tropes as something now new, some of this kind of new populism that is emerging. The fundamental problem with right wing ideological production and reproduction is that a lot of people don't to feel like they're defending the big guy, the big corporation. How do you rit? How do you make the big guy seem like the little guy? It's the fundamental propaganda question they have to figure out. Now there are twists, and there are other more organic currents. But what we saw wat the tea party, which we think is worth honing in on when talking about this kind of repackaging john bircherism,.
“The elites are out to get you and your hard-earned pay.” “We’re spending too much on protecting foreign nations and not enough defending our own borders against immigrant invaders.” “China is taking your job and will soon take over your phone.” We are consistently fed this type of “rightwing populism” –– sticking up for the working man against an array of villains: coastal elites, liberal media and foreign boogeymen - but replete with seamy audience flattery, xenophobic and anti-Semitic dogwhistles and confusing, ever-shifting definitions of what exactly constitutes “the elite” and “the media.”
With the rise and eventual presidency of Donald Trump there’s been no shortage of pontificating and reporting about the appeal of “rightwing populism” but one aspect worth dissecting is the way in which wealthy Republican-funded media deliberately seeks to win over confused and sometimes lefty media consumers with a clever mix of faux class warfare, vague appeals to post-partisanship and piggybacking off legitimate discontent with the Democratic party to sow nihilism and suppress voter turnout.
From Jacksonian "Producerism" to Trump’s fake anti-imperialism to the shameless grifts of today’s billionaire-backed hucksters like JD Vance, the right has long tried to soap box about the beleaguered working man and rail against the mysterious - often urban, black, brown or Jewish - authors of his pain and suffering.
In this episode, Part Two of our two-part episode on right-wing populism, we dissect three more tropes of "right-wing populism," detailing the ways the Republican messaging apparatuses seek to rebrand their stale platform every 10 years with a new, tweaked version of warmed over John Bircherism.
Our guest is Poor People's Campaign co-chair Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis.