Populism

I am not qualified to try to define or analyze populism, and other people who are much more qualified have written about it, but I nevertheless want to think about it, and I think there's a chance, however small, that I might end up saying something worthwhile that hasn't already been said. So here goes.

I think that, at least roughly (and technological advances aside), what a lot of people want is the kind of world portrayed in the Asterix books. There, people live in villages or small towns in which there is one blacksmith, one fishmonger, and so on, or perhaps a small number who, to the amusement of others, are rivals. Employment is basically self-employment, and the secrets to success are hard work, skill, and competitive pricing. So it's fair, and everyone benefits (with possible exceptions: see below). Each village in a given province is similar, but every province or country has its own peculiar culture. The British drink a lot of tea, the Spanish take siestas, etc. People everywhere are basically the same, but there is an entertaining assortment of cultures.

I'm sure things were never quite so rosy as this picture suggests. There have always been wars and plagues and serious inequalities of wealth and freedom. But it seems to be roughly what life was like before the industrial revolution, at least when times were good. The big disruptor of the Asterix model was industrialization, which means the end of cottage industry and leads more people to move into cities. This means there is greater efficiency and profit, but less equality. And if family and local charity were ever enough to take care of old, sick, disabled, and otherwise unlucky people (which is doubtful), they aren't any more.

Another disruptor is feminism (and, in the United States, the civil rights movement). The women in Asterix are much less likely than men to have their own businesses. This is still true, but less so (it seems to me, as I should add to every sentence here). This progress in terms of opportunities for women is good, but it means there is more competition for the fishmonger, etc., and a less cushy life at home as well. So women have more options and are, presumably, happier (which could also benefit men), but life is basically worse for men than it was. Justly, but people don't always care as much about justice as they do about their own comfort.

Thirdly there is globalization or free trade. Like industrialization and feminism, this is good overall, but it has its losers. If goods, including jobs, can easily move from one country to another then this is good for the world's poor (who need it most) as well as for business owners (who don't), but at least potentially bad for those in between, who perhaps find that they can buy cars more cheaply but no longer have as good a job as they once did. Globalization also means that each place comes to seem less unique and more like anywhere else (even if this appearance is combined with persistent deep differences of some kind).

Populism is unhappy about these trends. Hardly anyone opposes the industrial revolution, but plenty of people are unhappy about at least some of its effects. The left-wing version of populism, if there really is such a thing, opposes globalization and, especially, inequality. The right-wing version (which is much more noticeable) opposes feminism and globalization. But there is often more to it than this. Here's a list of other features:

• Fight response (as in fight or flight). People on the right, and especially on the far right, like military stuff, but they especially seem to think of it as a necessary response to a perceived threat. Hence the 'response' part. I suppose this is part of why such people are called reactionaries.
• Racism. The Asterix books are not exactly free of racism, even if it is intended to be friendly or at least inoffensive. And populism is always likely to involve stereotypes and caricature. But the right-wing version embraces this aspect of populism and digs its heels in (and mixes its metaphors). Cultures are not (regarded as) just different: some are (regarded as) better than others. And the (supposedly) better ones just happen to be those that come from around here, wherever here is in any particular case.
• Social Darwinism. A major reason why cultures cannot be thought of as simply different is because they are conceived as being in competition with one another. This relates also to the fight response feature of this kind of mindset. Others are (perceived as) a threat. Their appearance requires a defensive response. So globalization, increased openness to interaction with strangers, just as such, is scary. 
• Tribalism. This is related to racism but prior to it. A tribalist, in my sense, need not think of his or her tribe as better than any other. But they will think of themselves as a member of this or that tribe (rather than as simply an individual). Jonathan Haidt, if I'm remembering correctly, has found that conservative people tend to be sports fans, affiliating themselves with groups, such as sports teams. This is an aspect of Aristotle's idea of the political animal: we are naturally social beings. It relates also to the idea of justice found in Book I of Plato's Republic (but rejected by Socrates) that justice is a matter of helping one's friends and hurting one's enemies.
• Relativism. Tribalism is also part of Devlin's idea that people need a society, which in turn depends on shared morals, and that these morals need not be particularly good. We just need to have some sort of code, and serious threats to this code cannot be permitted. The conventions matter much less than that we conform to them. This is hard to take seriously unless we abandon the idea that one set of conventions can be better than another. And (so?) one kind of right-wing person is a relativist about ethics. We are better than them, but not in a particularly ethical way. Betterness is more a matter of mere feeling. This is likely to be expressed in more concrete terms--we are more intelligent than them, more ethical, and so on--but if any specific claim to superiority is disproved it will be met with an "Ah, well, nevertheless..." What matters is not so much being better, or even good, as expressing and believing in the superiority of one's own tribe.
• Irrationality, by which I mean positive hostility to reason (and science, expertise, etc.). Loyalty to the code of one's tribe means rejecting the very idea of objective or dispassionate assessment of norms. (Which is why I think it's questionable to link objectivity with white supremacy culture.) Passion must trump reason. And one's own tribe, and those like it, must be preferred to others, so there can be no respect for the "global community" or humanity in general. The Enlightenment can be championed as a feather in the hat of one's own tribe (if one happens to be European or white or more or less plausibly related in some such way to the Enlightenment), but actual Enlightenment ideals such as human rights or the value of reason (except as understood in tribal terms) are to be rejected. (Which all makes it unsurprising that populists are more likely to believe conspiracy theories.)
• Anti-individualism. The group and its conventions come first, and assertions of one's own identity or ethics are a threat to this. They ought not to be argued against (although there might be some show of 'arguing', especially if one regards the Enlightenment as a badge of honor as described above) but should be suppressed in other ways, such as mockery and violence. So being trans or vegan, or different in many other ways, is not allowed. Once a kind of difference is conventionally accepted, though, then it's OK. So being gay might be accepted, but any kind of difference is always likely to be (regarded as) dangerous.
• Immorality, i.e., positive opposition to (some) ethical behavior. The conscience, so far as it is the voice of reason or individual belief, is not to be trusted. It must be overcome. This takes "strength." And strength is already considered a virtue because of the importance of fight response, social Darwinism, and manliness.    
• Manliness. The ideal person is a not-too-rational team player who is willing to fight, a manly man. This is likely to be an especially popular view among anti-feminists. There's been a lot of attention paid to young incels, but there are also a lot of bitter, divorced, older men out there. 

I don't mean that every populist has all of these features. But they do seem to go together, in practice as well as in theory, and perhaps thinking them through like this helps to bring the connections out.

OK, that's about all I have. If you're disappointed, try this instead: "What We Know Now About Bias".