Populism is just a silly term made up by losers. Seriously. Our system is designed to be "populist". It's designed so the guy with the popular beliefs of our society gets elected and put in charge. It's literally SUPPOSED to be that way. Putting "ism" behind a word is supposed to make it sound bad. It works.
America has a hybrid form of government, based on the template set forth by Cicero in "De Republica". Cicero agreed with Plato and Aristotle that there were 3 basic forms of government: Monarchy, aristocracy and republic. These three decayed and had corrupt forms: namely, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Cicero said that, to keep the best aspects of all three (and to mitigate their worst aspects) it might be good to create a hybrid form of government, composed of all three . . . with a President [representing monarchy], a senate [representing aristocracy] and a House of Representatives [representing republic].
The Founding Fathers in America followed this recipe.
Of the three branches, only the House of Representatives had people DIRECTLY voting for the politician. (The House of Representatives represented the common man.)The other two [senate and President] had a two-tier system, whereby the politicians were installed by wiser minds. In the senate the people voted for the state legislators and the state legislators installed the senator. Likewise, with the Presidency, where the people voted for the electors and the ELECTORS chose the President.
Senators and the President were supposed to be somewhat removed from the common man, due to the common man's lack of knowledge regarding political science. Senate and the Presidency were more aristocratic in nature, with the representatives removed somewhat from politics (like Supreme Court Justices who are not directly elected, to tamp down on political conflicts of interest).
So populism was very limited in our Constitutional system, with only the House of Representatives being given over to "the people". The other two branches mitigated the excesses of the House by having men of higher stature in those positions.
In fact [to go by what John Stuart Mill said in 1861] the House was just a tack-on to prevent revolution. It was an afterthought to give the poor SOME say . . . but not much.
The adults were supposed to be in the senate and White House, to counteract the wild extravagances of the common people [who would just try to vote themselves money from the Treasury through welfare schemes].
That's the difference between a democracy and a republic. In a democracy, whatever is popular is implemented. (Like how candy is always more popular than medicine.) In a republic, it's not what's popular that counts, but what's right.
A democracy exists by mob rule and cares nothing for individual rights. Only the collective matters. Whereas, in a republic, the mob counts for nothing, and the rights of the individual are protected.
All things considered, I prefer a republic to a democracy. Like Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, I consider a democracy the corrupt form of a republic. (Sadly, in America, we already degraded from a republic into a democracy. And we went bankrupt because of it. And that's why we're now living through a coup where an oligarchy is taking over. This always happens in the cycle. Plato said, "Democracy is the last stage before a dictatorship.) Take a look at the District of Columbia, with razor wire and barricades around it. This is a coup that happened because the wealthy were pissed off at the democracy that had previously run the nation's finances into the ground.
I leave you with a quote from Alexander Fraser-Tytler: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship".
Populism is just a silly term made up by losers. Seriously. Our system is designed to be "populist". It's designed so the guy with the popular beliefs of our society gets elected and put in charge. It's literally SUPPOSED to be that way. Putting "ism" behind a word is supposed to make it sound bad. It works.
America has a hybrid form of government, based on the template set forth by Cicero in "De Republica". Cicero agreed with Plato and Aristotle that there were 3 basic forms of government: Monarchy, aristocracy and republic. These three decayed and had corrupt forms: namely, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Cicero said that, to keep the best aspects of all three (and to mitigate their worst aspects) it might be good to create a hybrid form of government, composed of all three . . . with a President [representing monarchy], a senate [representing aristocracy] and a House of Representatives [representing republic].
The Founding Fathers in America followed this recipe.
Of the three branches, only the House of Representatives had people DIRECTLY voting for the politician. (The House of Representatives represented the common man.)The other two [senate and President] had a two-tier system, whereby the politicians were installed by wiser minds. In the senate the people voted for the state legislators and the state legislators installed the senator. Likewise, with the Presidency, where the people voted for the electors and the ELECTORS chose the President.
Senators and the President were supposed to be somewhat removed from the common man, due to the common man's lack of knowledge regarding political science. Senate and the Presidency were more aristocratic in nature, with the representatives removed somewhat from politics (like Supreme Court Justices who are not directly elected, to tamp down on political conflicts of interest).
So populism was very limited in our Constitutional system, with only the House of Representatives being given over to "the people". The other two branches mitigated the excesses of the House by having men of higher stature in those positions.
In fact [to go by what John Stuart Mill said in 1861] the House was just a tack-on to prevent revolution. It was an afterthought to give the poor SOME say . . . but not much.
The adults were supposed to be in the senate and White House, to counteract the wild extravagances of the common people [who would just try to vote themselves money from the Treasury through welfare schemes].
That's the difference between a democracy and a republic. In a democracy, whatever is popular is implemented. (Like how candy is always more popular than medicine.) In a republic, it's not what's popular that counts, but what's right.
A democracy exists by mob rule and cares nothing for individual rights. Only the collective matters. Whereas, in a republic, the mob counts for nothing, and the rights of the individual are protected.
All things considered, I prefer a republic to a democracy. Like Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, I consider a democracy the corrupt form of a republic. (Sadly, in America, we already degraded from a republic into a democracy. And we went bankrupt because of it. And that's why we're now living through a coup where an oligarchy is taking over. This always happens in the cycle. Plato said, "Democracy is the last stage before a dictatorship.) Take a look at the District of Columbia, with razor wire and barricades around it. This is a coup that happened because the wealthy were pissed off at the democracy that had previously run the nation's finances into the ground.
I leave you with a quote from Alexander Fraser-Tytler: "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship".