Has the pandemic sounded the death knell for Populism as a political movement? You would like to think so given the disastrous response of Populist leaders to COVID-19 around the world.
However, the fact remains that in the second year of this virus, most Populist leaders who were there at its beginning remain in power, and in many cases still retain a solid basis of support.
In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro still draws a crowd; Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hold on Turkey is as firm as ever; the United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson’s position of strength was confirmed in a recent by-election victory.
The one casualty, of course, has been Donald Trump in the United States, but his dismal performance was so destructive even fellow Populists around the world were scrambling to distance themselves from him.
From claiming that COVID-19 would end “like magic” to
blaming it all on the Chinese, then the Democrats, peddling fake remedies, and
discouraging the wearing of masks, Trump lurched from one disaster to another
as the world’s richest nation chalked up infection and death tolls that
rivalled the poorest and least prepared in the Third World.
Yet for all that, it took a massive effort by the opposition
to dislodge him. At last year’s election, Trump polled higher than any
Republican candidate in history. Fortunately, Joe Biden’s Democrats also broke
records. Even so, Trump’s support base remains intact, many nursing the totally
unfounded belief that the election was somehow stolen from their candidate.
There is also one aspect of Populist theory that has been
strengthened by the pandemic — the suspicion, if not outright hostility to
globalisation.
In Australia it has become apparent in our own backyard,
with State Premiers making constant references to keeping “Queenslanders” or
“Western Australians” safe. We have had disparaging references to “Eastern
Staters” and endless eulogies as to how one part of the country was doing so
much better than the poor saps in others. Through it all, the references to
Australians or Australia were few and far between.
Except of course when it came to closing our borders to the
rest of the world, even to the point of threatening desperate citizens overseas
who might try to breach ‘Fortress Australia’. Attempts to repatriate
Australians stranded in other countries by the pandemic have been spasmodic and
inadequate. There are still thousands who cannot find a way home after many
months of trying.
The pandemic has exposed Populism to what it has always been
— easy answers to complex questions which in the end prove to be now answers at
all. Even so, the demagogues and rabble rousers, muted for the time being, have
not gone away. In many cases they still hold the levers of power, unrepentant
and ready to take up the cause again in more propitious times.
A post-pandemic world, struggling to choose between reaffirming
the old ways and adapting to the new ones, could be fertile ground for those
wishing to assail the existing order while conveniently fudging what they wish to
put in its place.
