populism – Vogel Wakefield

On Tuesday afternoon, a friend in Boston emailed to acknowledge that my country was now officially more embarrassing than his. This had been a bone of contention between us: him cringing at how Trump was eviscerating the reputation of the United States; me pointing to Brexit. But the elevation of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to Prime Minister of the UK had tipped the scales in our favour. Thus was my attempted sabbatical from political engagement brought to an unwelcome end.

On Wednesday, I had a disturbed night. I kept waking to the anxious residues of Johnson’s first day in office, as I absorbed the seizure of government by a clique of “nepotists, chancers, fools, flunkeys, flatterers, hypocrites, braggarts and whiners“ – as Nick Cohen put it, with uncharacteristic understatement.

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Current events

Shaping disaffection is the way to mend broken politics

By Martin Vogel

Kenan Malik has an insightful critique of the failure of moderate politicians to provide an answer to populism:

“It’s not populist disaffection that is unreasonable, but the policies and institutions that have created that disaffection. Policies that have driven up inequality and driven down living standards. Institutions that have excluded people from the process of decision-making. There has been much talk of ‘out of touch’ politicians. Little expresses that out-of-touchness more than the fact that for almost a decade politicians have spent more energy worrying about populism than about the policies that have nurtured disaffection.”

That there is widespread demand for politics that addresses the disaffection is underlined by a YouGov opinion poll in The Sunday Times which suggests that nearly half of people think politics is broken. Only one in seven think the Conservatives and Labour represent the views of the public. Two thoughtful pieces during the year gave shape to the kind of thinking that could rejuvenate the two main parties.

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Leadership

Networked populism: the defining leadership style of our era

By Martin Vogel

If, as I wondered in my earlier post, eco-leader is not the defining leadership discourse of our age, then what is?

If you look at the actually existing leadership narratives that are currently to the fore, you might label the dominant discourse networked-populist rather than eco-leader.

Trump and Farage are its most eloquent symbols. Both worked outside established structures, with seemingly outlandish agendas which, against the odds, they brought to fruition using networks of influence. (Jeremy Corbyn shows similar characteristics – though, in his case, the mastery of networks that brought him to prominence seemed to be his backers’ rather than his own.)

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