[lbo-talk] Spiegel interviews Sharpton

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Mar 22 08:56:45 PDT 2007


On Mar 22, 2007, at 11:43 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> For the record, I am against all populism, not just Black. Bush is a
> populist, Berlusconi is a populist, Le Pen is a populist, current
> right wing
> Polish government is populist - enough already! You may say that
> Chavez is
> a populist too, and I would not have an easy answer to that
> counterexample -
> but my gut reaction is that nothing good has ever came out of populist
> politics - only pogroms, lynchings, "tyranny of the majority,"
> authoritarianism, corruption, and mass disappointment.

There's a populist appeal, which Chavez certainly uses, and a populist agenda, which can be nearly impossible to describe. But Sharpton's agenda would be classically social democratic, and most black voters would support that, regardless of the race of the advocate.

Doug



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