Protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza interrupted President Biden’s speech in South Carolina on Monday, the latest example of divisions among Democrats over the fighting in the Middle East. B…
Populists don’t roll with this logic. Any blemish on the part of someone they vote for, they consider their own. You can’t reconcile harm reduction with this mindset, because you have to hate anyone who isn’t 100% in alignment with your ideology. So, you get the rightist populists tossing McCarthy out for keeping the gov open, and the leftist populists willing to let the country burn because Biden can’t unilaterally control Netanyahu’s gov or abandon one of the few Western footprints in the middle east. And they never consider the consequences for doing nothing theirs to own. Inaction is bowing out for populists, while you recognize it as what it is, a choice of its own with consequences. Even once the consequences are upon us, they’ll just blame Biden, the DNC, whatever. Responsibility and owning your choices is anathema to populism.
Populists don’t roll with this logic. Any blemish on the part of someone they vote for, they consider their own. You can’t reconcile harm reduction with this mindset, because you have to hate anyone who isn’t 100% in alignment with your ideology. So, you get the rightist populists tossing McCarthy out for keeping the gov open, and the leftist populists willing to let the country burn because Biden can’t unilaterally control Netanyahu’s gov or abandon one of the few Western footprints in the middle east. And they never consider the consequences for doing nothing theirs to own. Inaction is bowing out for populists, while you recognize it as what it is, a choice of its own with consequences. Even once the consequences are upon us, they’ll just blame Biden, the DNC, whatever. Responsibility and owning your choices is anathema to populism.