NY Times wouldn't know a populist...if one got elected

Robin Toner and Kate Zernike had an almost incomprehensible article on Sunday in the New York Times.

Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology

They start with a discussion of the freshman class in 1994 under Newt Gingrich, which they say was distinctly ideological despite the fact that it was, in reality, deeply populist. Gingrich railed against entrenched Democrats and the day was carried by the House Banking Scandal -- a non-issue that was all about out-of-touch politicians getting bennies that were inconceivable to ordinary people. Sorry, but term limits are not ideological -- they were a textbook example of 'throw the bums out' populism.

Then Toner and Zernike contrast Gingrich's supposed ideological revolution with the winners last week:

Many in the class of 2006, especially those who delivered the new Democratic majorities by winning Republican seats, show little appetite for that kind of ideological crusade. ...[T]hey say they were given a rare opportunity by voters, many of them independents and Republicans, who were tired of the partisanship and gridlock in Washington.

Hating partisanship and gridlock is neither populist nor ideological -- it's exhaustion with poor governance.

Now, they say, they have to produce -- to deal with long-festering problems like access to affordable health care and the loss of manufacturing jobs, and to find a bipartisan consensus for an exit strategy in Iraq, a source of continuing division not only between but also within the parties.

Many of them say they must also, somehow, find a way to address the growing anxiety among voters about a global economy that no longer seems to work for them. There is a strong populist tinge to this class.

What a bunch of nonsense. If you put the word "economic" in front of "populism," then you're talking about the economic world-view -- the ideological position -- of the Dems' liberal wing and progressive base. The problem here is the authors' attempt to create a false dichotomy; they're trying to draw a distinction that doesn't exist. If they mean a group that may be more moderate on social issues (that's not entirely true) but are a bunch of fighting lefties on the economy, they should say it.

Because populism is a specific rhetorical style; populists stress that the system is being gamed by elites who govern in their own narrow interests and that ordinary people have to take power for the good of society. Populist issues can be social or economic, left (e.g. CEO pay) or right (O'Reilly's war on Christmas or activist judges). At their best populists shine a light on the fact that there's so much policy that is in fact made by elites in their own interests and at their worst populists can be anti-intellectual, racist or fond of using silly stereotypes to marginalize ideological opponents (like East-Coast latté-drinking liberals).

Five or six incoming lawmakers ran genuinely populist campaigns, but every winner ran against the Bush agenda. They fought hard, and maybe that's what's confusing these Times' reporters -- they've been convinced that liberals are supposed to be wimps. But that obscures the fact that they ran against what passes for conservatism these days and that's why they won (by the way, I haven't seen any exit polls in which voters said that "partisanship" in Washington was a key issue -- Iraq, corruption and the economy were the big issues).

And look at these examples of a "strong populist tinge" -- economic anxiety in the face of corporate globalization, affordable healthcare and a strategy for getting out of Iraq.

I'll concede that opposing the bipartisan trade consensus blurs the line between populism and ideology. In every article and post I write about trade I stress that lobbyists write these deals and the benefits they confer go primarily to those who hire them. That's populist rhetoric and it was used in a dozen campaigns in 2006. But the implication here by the New York Times, which shills for any policy that bears the "free trade" label, regardless of what it entails, is that there is no ideological basis for opposing corporate trade deals. That's wrong; more and more progressives are waking up to the fact that their effect is an upward redistribution of wealth, and that they're a part of a broader basket of issues that fall under the banner of "economic justice," which is decidedly ideological.