You can be an honest conservative or an honest liberal. What you...
Richard Hanania@RichardHanania
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May 04, 2025
~1 min read
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You can be an honest conservative or an honest liberal.
What you can't be is an honest populist.
Populism should be understood as a way to hack democracy by being more dishonest than elites are used to.
Take Social Security and Medicare. Paul Ryan says cut benefits. Bernie Sanders says raise taxes. Both are honest positions meant to deal with an issue.
JD Vance says blame Ukraine for the fact that entitlements are running out of money. This isn't an ideology, it's just being good at politics by lying more. DOGE is similar, it's all a mountain of lies that no informed person with any ideology can defend. richardhanania.com/p/how-populism…
What you can't be is an honest populist.
Populism should be understood as a way to hack democracy by being more dishonest than elites are used to.
Take Social Security and Medicare. Paul Ryan says cut benefits. Bernie Sanders says raise taxes. Both are honest positions meant to deal with an issue.
JD Vance says blame Ukraine for the fact that entitlements are running out of money. This isn't an ideology, it's just being good at politics by lying more. DOGE is similar, it's all a mountain of lies that no informed person with any ideology can defend. richardhanania.com/p/how-populism…