Thanks for sharing your article on your blog, Walter. Interesting piece. Though I would submit that the "facade" as you call it is actually pretty important. Its presence can make a difference between whether a govt has sufficient support to keep the peace, or descends into something anarchic, like the US is doing now.
Also, while in theory a left populism is possible, in practice populism usually seems to come with a degree of autocracy. Gov Huey Long was kind of a leftish populist (for Louisiana in the 1930s) but also with an autocratic streak (hence his nickname "The Kingfish") and that didn't turn out too well.
Finally, in your formulation over policy preferences ("s P1, P2, P3....Pn"), the challenge in figuring out what voters really prefer is that, for example, say a voter likes policies P1 and P3, but actually strongly prefers P3 to P1. A simple vote among the voters won't reveal what policy preferences they *really* prefer. The "intensity of preference" has to be accounted for in some way. Which is possible to do if you could actually hold referendum votes on policy using different electoral methods. But practically speaking that's not so easy to do from a logistical standpoint.
So the elected officials have to often use their own best judgement, their "gut" so to speak -- which is sometimes wrong. And of course without having a way to compile true data about voter preferences, the elected can easily justify their actions by saying "that's what my voters want." So policymaking often feels like a crapshoot.
This article immediately reminded me of an old TV series from 1993 called Wild Palms where faked TV ads were the way political war was waged. Today the sophistication of political ads far exceeds what could be simulated back then but the techniques is still the same.
Thanks for your comments. Couple of things: I'm not really a "left populist"--at least not officially. I want the people to get whatever it is they want, consistent with the retention of authentic democracy. I make what *I* happen to want-- or the arguably anti-democratic Huey Long did-- not terribly important. Second, that P1...Pn thing that you attributed to me was a quote from the Braybrooke book. I'm a supporter of Approval Voting myself.
https://luckorcunning.blogspot.com/2025/07/democracy-criteria-from-woodstock-days.html?m=1
Thanks for sharing your article on your blog, Walter. Interesting piece. Though I would submit that the "facade" as you call it is actually pretty important. Its presence can make a difference between whether a govt has sufficient support to keep the peace, or descends into something anarchic, like the US is doing now.
Also, while in theory a left populism is possible, in practice populism usually seems to come with a degree of autocracy. Gov Huey Long was kind of a leftish populist (for Louisiana in the 1930s) but also with an autocratic streak (hence his nickname "The Kingfish") and that didn't turn out too well.
Finally, in your formulation over policy preferences ("s P1, P2, P3....Pn"), the challenge in figuring out what voters really prefer is that, for example, say a voter likes policies P1 and P3, but actually strongly prefers P3 to P1. A simple vote among the voters won't reveal what policy preferences they *really* prefer. The "intensity of preference" has to be accounted for in some way. Which is possible to do if you could actually hold referendum votes on policy using different electoral methods. But practically speaking that's not so easy to do from a logistical standpoint.
So the elected officials have to often use their own best judgement, their "gut" so to speak -- which is sometimes wrong. And of course without having a way to compile true data about voter preferences, the elected can easily justify their actions by saying "that's what my voters want." So policymaking often feels like a crapshoot.
This article immediately reminded me of an old TV series from 1993 called Wild Palms where faked TV ads were the way political war was waged. Today the sophistication of political ads far exceeds what could be simulated back then but the techniques is still the same.
Thanks for your comments. Couple of things: I'm not really a "left populist"--at least not officially. I want the people to get whatever it is they want, consistent with the retention of authentic democracy. I make what *I* happen to want-- or the arguably anti-democratic Huey Long did-- not terribly important. Second, that P1...Pn thing that you attributed to me was a quote from the Braybrooke book. I'm a supporter of Approval Voting myself.