"This world view is striking for the total lack of compassion for working class men and women who are subject to forces beyond their control, such as inflation and unemployment. This hostility to the working classes, who have suffered the consequences of a recession resulting directly from the greed and mismanagement of the monied class, is what passes for populism in our time."
(2) Undermine the liberal separation of church and state.
Of all the aspects of liberal democracy, the most important target is the separation of church and state. It is critical that religion and "family values" be used to demonize liberalism. As Drury says,
"The idea is to blur the distinction between freedom and license; in so doing, liberalism is painted as the ideology of the vulgar, licentious, sexually perverse and atheistic. In this way liberalism is presented as a threat to any decent, god-fearing society, while conservatism is the ally of the upright and devout."
In undermining the constitutionally sanctioned separation of church and state, the practitioners of fake populism are reversing four hundred years of human advancement in religious tolerance.
(3) Promote a crude conception of representation.
Once discredited, the elites can be replaced by "anti-elitists". The public is encouraged to see their representatives as home-spun folk, just like them, simple instruments of the peoples' will, eager to do its bidding.
Seen in this light, the so-called anti-elites can claim that any limitation on their power is a limitation on the power of the people, a direct reversal of the liberal democratic rule of the majority according to the rule of law. It immediately sets at risk the rights and protections of individuals and minorities.
(4) Promote the tenants of voodoo economics.
Otherwise known as "trickledown economics", this well-known (and generally discredited) theory says that everyone benefits when the rich get richer. The alarming gap in wealth and prosperity in America and elsewhere clearly refutes this canard. The economy is not a tide that raises all boats. As Drury says,
"The metaphor feeds on the naive view of democracy, which assumes that there are no conflicting interests -- the interests of the few rich by the oxymoronic. This spurious conception of representation allows unscrupulous elites to pretend that all limitations on their power are limitations on the power of the people."
The interests of the rich few are not identical to the interests of the many poor. The contribution to society by the rich is greatly inflated while the contributions of ordinary people are greatly devalued. And, as a result, we are witness to a growing deficit in social justice, where the benefits and burdens of society are unequally distributed.
(5) Cultivate the illusion of meritocracy.
The liberal revolution replaced the medieval inequalities based on birth with liberal inequalities based on merit. Unlike aristocracy, meritocracy accords status in society on the basis of talent, diligence and hard work. Appealing to this deeply held view, the new elites maintain that the rich deserve their riches as a just reward for exactly these attributes. Its a disingenuous position, however, because it assumes that so-called self-made men and women emerge fully-formed without any influence or support from the society into which they were born.
As Drury makes clear, in an era of too-big-to-fail, governments have come to rely on multi-national corporations in an increasingly deregulated and corporate-friendly business environment. Meritocracy is meaningless in a capitalism where profits remain private but losses become public.
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