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| Lamont, Biden, Hayes |
Can you be a populist without being popular? Of course you can, sometimes. Can you be a populist if you talk like a member of Harvard’s Law faculty? Not likely. Bill Buckley, free of the stain of populism, once said he would rather be governed by the first hundred people picked at random from a phone book than the Harvard Law faculty.
However, populism is not merely a matter of tone. Your
mother – well, at least my mother – was engaging in populist rhetoric when she
told you a couple of times every week, “You will be judged by the company you
keep.” That sentiment, before the 1960s disturbed our increasingly secular
moral universe, was widely shared – in a word, popular. Mom delivered most of
her apothegms in the common tongue, as did her mother and her mother’s mother.
Common sense spilled out of her like wine from pressed grapes.
Despite his riches and vulgar gold toilets, former President
Donald Trump -- vilified every Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the Harvard Law
faculty -- is a populist of this kind, his tongue almost certain to get him
into trouble with anyone who is not a member of a fire department, a police
department, active duty marines, sidelined border officers, or ordinary
work-a-day folk who do not prance about the universe covered from head to toe
in the kind of ivy leaves that adorn Yale University’s ancient walls.
The company Trump keeps is larger and more various than the
usual company of the usual politician. Most American politicians limit their
company to staffers, many of whom are graduates of prestigious colleges, friendly
members of the media, members of their immediate families, however grasping and
corrupt, likeminded political acquaintances, political fantasists, propaganda
producers and government administrators, the hidden puppet-masters adept at
pulling strings.
Their political views are narrowed by – my mother again – “the
company they keep.”
Trump, constantly berating the media as “fake” and partisan,
is not likely to find many friends among media engineers who produce news and
then beat us with their product 24/7 as if it were a truncheon.
But the news media – and increasingly a highly politicized and
humorless entertainment media – is, according to polls measuring such things,
unloved by the general populace. Americans' Trust in Media Dips to Second
Lowest on Record, Gallup tells us: “36% in U.S. have a "great
deal" or "fair amount" of trust in mass media; 68% of Democrats,
31% of independents and 11% of Republicans trust media; Democrats' and Independents'
trust is down five points since 2020; GOP's flat.”
Trust in the media hit its lowest point in 2016, and then
rebounded, according to Gallup, “gaining 13 points in two years -- mostly
because of a surge among Democrats amid President Donald Trump's antagonistic
relationship with the press and increased scrutiny of his administration by the
media. Since 2018, however, it has fallen a total of nine points, as trust has
slid among all party groups.”
The abysmal media rating appears to be baked into the political
consciousness – or consciences? – of a majority of Americans, and the nine
point slide since 2018 cannot be due to an increase in Trump’s distaste for a
hectoring media, which remains flat like the “trust the media” numbers within
the GOP.
Consider the lede to the following Fox Business News story featuring
Jared Bernstein: “In a recent cringe-inducing moment, Jared Bernstein, Chief
Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to President Joe Biden, found himself in
hot water as he struggled to explain the basic concept of how money works. This
occurred during an interview for an upcoming documentary titled 'Finding The
Money', which aims to delve into the complexities of the economy.”
What was so cringe-inducing about the documentary? The
documentary asserted that the nature of money was “illusory.” And Biden’s Chief
Economist and Economic Policy Adviser was flummoxed when he was asked whether
it was possible for the U.S. government to go bankrupt.
"The US government can't go bankrupt,” Bernstein
answered, “because we can print our own money."
The real fun began when the interviewer “sought
clarification on the government's borrowing practices.”
“Some of the language, Bernstein confessed, “is just
confusing. The government definitely prints its own money. The government
definitely prints money and lends that money. The government definitely prints
money … It then lends that money by selling bonds. Is that what that they do,”
he asked the ghost of Adam Smith, standing off stage? He must have received
confirmation from the ghostly author of The
Wealth of Nations,” because he then declared confidently, "They sell
bonds and then people buy the bonds and lend the money. Yeah."
Bernstein, who appeared confused by elementary economic
verities, did not stress the important connection between deficit spending,
Biden’s specialty, borrowing by the federal government, and the printing of
money to pay down debt, possibly because he did not wish to further confuse the
president he serves as chief Economic Policy Adviser.
We do not know whether Bernstein is confused by the company
he keeps with Biden or Biden is confused by the company he keeps with
Bernstein, possibly a little of both.
We do know that Moms of the world are undoubtedly right when
they say, “You are judged by the company you keep.”
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