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because it's virtually always tied to policies that are meant to be easily digestible for the lowest common denominator. as it turns out, however, that complex problems virtually never have simple solutions.
ie Trump and his border wall in 2016. Populist with a populist platform to stop illegal immigration. What does it actually accomplish? Nothing because
a) it's impractical to actually build a wall across the entire length of the border
b) majority of illegal immigrants come legally on tourist visas and then overstay
but why focus on "The Wall"? Because Trump understands that it's an easily understandable symbol he can point to.
Left wing populism is similar. For example "tax the rich!" is a common mantra. And sure, taxing the rich is good. But what use is there in increasing tax revenue by a fraction of a percent when we are bleeding money at the seams to corruption? It's not going to solve our deficit. It's not going to lower taxes for the average American. Look at how the military will spend $100k on a bag of metal bushings that me and you can buy on Amazon for $100.
But how are you going to tackle the problem of deeply ingrained corruption? It permeates from our local institutions all the way to the upper echelons. Look how Haliburton got billions of dollars worth of "no-bid" contracts during the Bush administration. Just happens that Cheney, the most powerful VP in history, used to work there.
There is no easy solution. So populists come and say "tax the rich" or "build a wall" when in reality it does absolutely nothing to fix the actual problems. But the real solutions are complex and hard to relay to voters. and in fact, the solutions are painful and no politician would ever campaign on painful policies. For these reasons I think we are doomed as a society and that technocratic countries like China are going to dominate us in the next century unless we can radically change course
Your comment ignores that not all simple ideas are bad.
i gave two examples of simple ideas that don't fundamentally change the status quo yet are popular
that doesn't mean that simple ideas can't work
there are simple ideas, I think, that would work very well. however a populist would never go for it because it's bad marketing.
for example I think in all cities with significant junkie populations we should have clinics giving out free heroin shots to addicts. simple idea. i think it'll work
but the majority of the people would not approve of this. they don't want to see the data and research about lowering HIV rates, lowering crime, lowering healthcare costs, etc. they don't like junkies and they feel icky giving out free heroin to addicts
i'm not saying simple idea = bad. I'm not even saying populist = bad. i said that in practice it's usually tied to ideas that seem good on the surface but when you scratch the veneer off it's not nearly as good as it seems.
like i brought up above, if we restructured how our government spends money we could increase our effective spending while lowering taxes and it would have magnitudes more impact than the marginal increase in revenue from taxing the rich. so why don't we do it?
because it's a complex overhaul that would require a large initial investment and you wouldn't see the fruits for more than a couple election cycles- something a populist cannot afford.
A lot of neoliberals just want an excuse to never go deeper than "I will fix ____" because they don't have any policy or desire to fix shit
AOC of all people can give a broad message quickly and effectively, then deep dive into specifics.
If she gives policy they say she should be simpler, if she keeps it simple they say she has no policy
There's no consistency, they just want to try and break her stride and keep pivoting.
And most of them never go further than "shut up, we're second worst."