Wednesday, August 02, 2023

It sounds better in the original French

 Ross Douthat has a nice column attempting an analogy between the Stuart rebellions in Britain and Ireland and the diffuse nature of populism today. But as with a past effort, he really should give in to the logic and acknowledge the primary of French politics for the templates of today. Especially this:

This specifically British story, in turn, is a type of the larger pattern of politics in Europe and the United States, where the gap between thriving capitals and struggling peripheries, between a metropolitan meritocracy and a nostalgic hinterland, has forged a right-wing politics that sometimes resembles Jacobitism more than it does the mainstream conservatisms of the late 20th century.

That's fairly close to a definition of Poujadism. And as the French example shows, the movement can fail but still trigger a realignment of the major political blocs.  

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