William Galston writes Populism Rises on a Wave of Frustration in The Wall Street Journal

excerpts:

Populism offers many satisfactions. Its narrative is clear and easy to understand. It identifies villains—corrupt officials, unresponsive bureaucracies, arrogant elites, large corporations, giant banks, immigrants, even the Jews. It legitimizes outrage, the expression of which is one of the greatest human pleasures. It flatters the people, whose virtue and common sense, it claims, could set the country right if only rich and powerful forces didn’t stand in their way. “The humblest citizen in all the land,” declaimed William Jennings Bryan more than a century ago, “when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they”—the elites—“can bring.”

Populism is the politics of nostalgia. It appeals to a better time in the past—whether that means the mid-19th century, when sturdy yeoman farmers and craftsmen formed the backbone of the economy; or the decades after Congress slammed shut the gates of immigration in 1924; or the mid-20th century, when assembly-line workers enjoyed secure jobs and middle-class incomes.

The ills against which populists inveigh are rarely illusory. On the contrary: Populism typically gives voice to genuine grievances, and in so doing gains credibility and energy.

“Large forces—technology, automation and globalization—are not inherently malign forces,” he said. The task for Democrats is not to turn back the clock to the fleeting period when the American economy dominated the world. It is rather, Mr. Schumer said, to “figure out ways for the middle class . . . to be able to thrive amidst these forces.”

But how? When it comes to the economy, the old answers have lost credibility. Few Americans believe that another tax cut—or, for that matter, another stimulus package—will restore middle-class opportunity. Citizens understand that something fundamental has changed, even if they cannot say what it is. You can, as Bill Clinton would say, “work hard and play by the rules” and still find yourself falling behind. You can borrow tens of thousands of dollars to finance a college education and still be a Starbucks barista. The old rules no longer apply, but it is not clear what the new rules are—if any exist.

On the Democratic side, populist economics has found its voice; not so for nonpopulist liberalism.

Like nature, politics abhors a vacuum. The right response to populism is to offer real solutions.

HKO

Our current choices seems to be between bad solutions and no solutions. But the lack of a solution from the government does not mean one will not develop in the market. Both parties have a real challenge to control their populist wings.  It is one thing for the OWS and the Tea Party to have their day in the media. It is quite another to let them decide important policies.

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