Populism is the Larval Form of Fascism

Populism’s Chilling Effect on Democracy

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

Every February we have a Black History Month during which white people complain about the length of the month of February and ask “when is White History Month.” Seriously. Every February. Without fail. And then it’s followed by Women’s History Month during which men make every effort to be worse than usual.

That may seem like a weird opening for an article about populism and democracy, but my point here is that this kind of prejudice and systemic racism and sexism is an integral part of both populism and fascism. Both populism and fascism require the exercise of power over minority populations even when those minority populations are “majority minority.” I am not in a position to argue that there are more racist and sexist incidents during February and March of each year, but there certainly aren’t less.

In the exercise of power it is necessary for the dominant group to constantly remind everyone of their relative power particularly during elections and pride or history months.

Part of this is just pure and simple exercise of power and some of it is fearful backlash against the increasing human rights of disenfranchised populations a.k.a. bigotry.