Taking Populism Seriously
John Berger of Vital Interest, the blog of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, interviewed Dennis Patterson:
I would take issue with your premise that people are controlled in what they think. I agree with you, about the polarization. But in many ways, the polarization is more a manifestation of elite culture – both right- and left-leaning versions – than of voters. Fox isn’t a grassroots media organization based in the Midwest, after all. Nor is Fox news synonymous with populists, because remember populism is voters of both right and left who are turning on elites. Part of the reason that Jacob and I are writing this book is because we are worried about this discourse… Our discourse has basically deteriorated to the point where we can’t have a rational discussion….
Our central claim about experts is that elites love to invoke them. When it comes to the virus, the mantra is - we follow the science. You heard Joe Biden recently say, if the experts tell him to shut the country down, he’ll do it. Now, the problem with this, of course, is that it’s completely one dimensional and I think it evinces a misunderstanding of science. Science doesn’t tell you what to do. Science provides data, it provides evidence but it’s up to us, it’s up to our politicians, to decide what we’re going to do with that evidence. I think the problem with the discourse now is that the public lacks the context for making a well-informed decision about what to do.