Populism on Pause

So what is populism?  "Populists can be everything from militarists to libertarians. So what does the word actually mean?"

But populism’s belief that the people are always right is bad news for two elements of liberal democracy: the rights of minorities and the rule of law.

That's what it said. 

Charles Krauthammer

"The worldwide movement has not been halted but is temporarily on hold."

"Yesterday’s conventional wisdom: A wave of insurgent populism is sweeping the West, threatening its foundational institutions — the European Union, the Western alliance, even liberal democracy itself. 

"Today’s conventional wisdom (post-first-round French presidential election): The populist wave has crested, soon to abate. 

"Chances are that both verdicts are wrong. The anti-establishment sentiment that gave us Brexit, then Donald Trump, and then seemed poised to give us Marine Le Pen, has indeed plateaued. But although she will likely be defeated in the second round, victory by the leading centrist, Emmanuel Macron, would hardly constitute an establishment triumph." 

. . . 

"The other notable populist victory, the triumph of Trump, has also turned out to be less than meets the eye. He certainly ran as a populist and won as a populist but, a mere 100 days in, he is governing as a traditionalist.

"The Obamacare-replacement proposals are traditional small-government fixes. His tax reform is a follow-on to Reagan’s from 1986. His Supreme Court pick is a strait-laced constitutional conservative out of central casting. And his more notable executive orders read as a wish list of traditional business-oriented conservatism, from regulatory reform to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines." . . .