Populists are out to divide us. They must be stopped -Timothy Garton Ash, theguardian.com

[elmac]

So now the challenge is in plain view: we face the globalisation of anti-globalisation, a popular front of populists, an International of nationalists. “Today the United States, tomorrow – France,” tweets Jean-Marie Le Pen. It will be a long, hard struggle to defeat them, at home and abroad, and we may now have to look elsewhere for the “leader of the free world”. But defeat them we will.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/11/populists-us

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia we have something very close to fascism. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey is rapidly crossing the line between illiberal democracy and fascism, while Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is already an illiberal democracy. In Poland, France, the Netherlands, Britain and now the US, we have to defend the line between liberal and illiberal democracy.

In Britain that means standing up for the independence of the judiciary, the sovereignty of parliament and the impartial strength of the BBC. In the US we shall now witness the biggest test of one of the strongest, oldest systems of liberal democratic checks and balances. Even though Republicans dominate Congress and, fatefully, Donald Trump will be able to make key political appointments to the supreme court, that does not mean the new president will have it all his own way.

On closer examination, it turns out that “the people” – Volk might be a more accurate term – is actually only a part of the people. Trump perfectly exemplified this populist sleight of hand in an impromptu remark at a campaign rally. “The only important thing is the unification of the people,” he said, “because the other people don’t mean anything.” It’s not the Others, you see: the Kurds, Muslims, Jews, refugees, immigrants, black people, elites, experts, homosexuals, Sinti and Roma, cosmopolitans, metropolitans, gay Europhile judges. Ukip’s Nigel Farage announced that Brexit was a victory for ordinary people, decent people, real people – 48% of those who voted in the referendum being thereby declared neither ordinary nor decent nor real.

[Hortensis]

1. What Bannon and others in the Trump camp are

boasting of, and coordinating with uber-right leaders in other nations for, is the continued formation of a unified national and international movement against liberalism and secularism.

Already here in the U.S., the people who voted for Trump see "draining the swamp" as meaning purging liberal policies and programs, and of course liberals, from Washington and state governments.

That's behind their liking for Putin and Russia, who they see as allies against liberalism.

That's why they don't mind a Goldman Sachs exec becoming a cabinet officer. He's also part of their noble crusade to "take back" their nation from liberalism.

Of course, since our nation is founded on liberal principles borne out of the Enlightenment and guaranteed by our constitution, they're trying to destroy a lot more than most realize, but they're propaganda-driven and are very, very far from understanding that.

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It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

[MBS]

3. i agree with your analysis. n/t

[Bill USA]

2. it's Sham populism...

Sham populism, shameless plutocracy

[Blue_Tires]

4. k+r