Julianne Schultz - Griffith Review 57: Perils of Populism

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CONTENTS

GriffithReview 57 2017

Griffith Review is published four times a year by Griffith University in conjunction with Text Publishing. ISSN 1448-2924 ISBN 978-1-922212-38-2

Publisher Martin Betts

Editor Julianne Schultz AM FAHA

Managing Editor John Tague

Assistant Editor Jerath Head

Editorial Assistant Lauren Mitchell

Reader Nina Roxburgh

Fiction Editor Sally Breen

Sales & Subscriptions Manager Angela Smith

Proofreader Sonia Ulliana

Publication Text Publishing

Text Publishing Michael Heyward, Kate Sloggett, Jane Finemore

Typesetting Midland Typesetters

Printing Ligare Book Printers

Distribution Penguin Australia

Contributions by academics can, on request, be refereed by our Editorial Board. Details: griffithreview.com

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INTRODUCTION

Grooming the globe

Denying fairness, complexity, humanity

Julianne Schultz

I KNOW IT makes you sick to think of that word fairness, Arthur C Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, told the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2013. But, he went on to tell the heads of Washingtons most influential right-wing think-tanks still shocked by Obamas continuing appeal, Americans universally believe its right to help the vulnerable. If you want to win, he continued, start fighting for people! Lead with vulnerable people. Lead with fairnesstelling stories matters. By telling stories we can soften people.

New Yorker investigative journalist Jane Mayer paraphrased Brooks message in her magisterial book Dark Money (Scribe, 2017): if the 1 per cent wanted to win control of America, they needed to rebrand themselves as champions of the other 99 per cent. Donald Trump may not have been the 1 per cents preferred candidate his ego, ignorance and lack of discipline were well known but he embodied the message. In the words of the Hannah Arendt scholar Roger Berkowitz, the US President appeals to the need for constant distraction, destruction and entertainment.

It is tempting to think that this appeal, and its authoritarian consequences, is innate a default setting of human societies across history and geography. But the swift counter-reaction to Trump at home, and subsequent elections in Europe, challenge this presumption. Nonetheless, there is a long list of authoritarian leaders across the globe ready to deride the rule of law, circumvent checks and balances, undermine institutions, cultivate ignorance and encourage fear.

As Mayer painstakingly demonstrates, making self-interest seem normal and a commitment to fairness an elite aberration has been a long-term project. Upending this commitment expressed most simply in President Roosevelts four freedoms (of speech and religion, from want and fear) that were ultimately embodied in national and global institutions created at the end of World War II is not something that has happened by chance. It has been the result of a deliberate, well-funded, long-term strategy that has touched us all, whether we are aware of it or not. As Mayer writes, During the 1970s, a handful of the nations wealthiest corporate captains felt overtaxed and over-regulated and decided to fight back. Disenchanted with the direction of modern America, they launched an ambitious, privately financed war of ideas to radically change the country. They didnt want to merely win elections; they wanted to change how Americans thought.