What Leads To Violent Populism? – OpEd |
The article argues political violence has been normalized across Left and Right, citing Professor Robert A. Pape’s book on “violent populism,” with the root cause in post-Progressive Era government expansion that eroded constitutional legitimacy.
It links the 1920s, 1960s and current rises in violence to aggressive Federal Reserve money-and-credit expansions that inflate prices, suppress real wages and create winners and losers.
The piece concludes the remedy is a return toward limited government, beginning with sound money to reduce the economic violence fueling political conflict.
Beyond the high-profile assassination of Charlie Kirk, the amount of political violence has greatly increased. What causes political violence to become “popular”? Fortunately, libertarians have drawn attention to this violence, political division, and government-caused chaos, and they also explain the causes and how Austrian economics provides the remedy.
I have talked about domestic political violence on this podcast for a while and in interviews too. I have focused my attention not on sensational assassination events but on the increasingly common violent disputes between citizens and their government. I can tell you that audiences do not appreciate talk of war and citizen violence; it’s a real downer. In addition, hard-core Trump supporters think I am attacking the president and “conservatives,” but let me assure you that this is a bipartisan issue. Just as many people hate Republicans as hate the Democrats. Political violence is bipartisan!
Along with the increasing dissatisfaction and political division in America, according to the statistics, there has been increasing political violence in quantities greater than you would think. The situation suggests to me that political violence could be a prominent story with the mid-term elections, the seating of the new Congress in January, and beyond—real stress tests for America. Unless diffused, it could be the most serious threat in history to the American way of life.
Professor Robert A. Pape of the University of Chicago’s prestigious political science department has just published a book on this subject: Our Own Worse Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism. The well-respected author has published on topics such as military strategy, particularly the role of air power, national security, and terrorism, but you are more likely to know of him as a leading guest expert on multiple top shows regarding the war in the Persian Gulf.
This article will give you a quick overview of the book, most of which is based on empirical political science that establishes that political violence has been normalized in the American “public conscience.” This implied shift of ideology gives us the theme of “violent populism—when political violence becomes an accepted instrument of democratic struggle.” I will then review one chapter in particular to draw out the Austrian and libertarian answers for the dilemma posed, giving us both the cause and the highly plausible cure.
Any type of “liberal,” whether libertarian or even progressive, once........