American Populism & The Slippery Slope Toward No Possibility
Following Argentina’s path to resignation
By Jim Selman
Jim Selman raises the alarm: the rise of populism in America may signal the nation's slide into resignation.
There is an almost universal consensus among my South American friends that Argentina, the nation and the society, has succumbed to resignation. The United States is heading in the same direction.
When I moved to Buenos Aires in 1997, I was excited to encounter the culture and its people. The concept of populism never came up in my conversations while I was there. However, one phrase I heard a lot was “…it’s very difficult…”
One day, I was in a conversation about the government and the blatant, deep, widespread, and well-documented corruption. Any ideas we came up with about what might be done were followed by the universal response: “It’s very difficult.” To my North American ‘can do’ sensibilities and way of listening, this simply meant we’d have to work harder, be smarter, innovate, or, in one way or another, overcome whatever obstacles or challenges existed. To my South American colleagues’ sensibilities and way of listening, this meant any significant change, particularly in government, would be impossible. After a while, I realized they were profoundly resigned to that belief.
In Argentina, “it’s very difficult” means “it’s NOT POSSIBLE.” This everyday response to many situations signals a deep and persistent mood of resignation.
In a recent conversation with one of my oldest and best friends from there, a senior corporate executive who has lived and worked in the United States for many years now, we agreed that the U.S. is heading down the same slippery slope, especially with the rise of populism, social media, and widespread misinformation. The standard response to any idea about what might be done to overcome political log jams and polarization among voters to save American democracy is now some variation of “It’s very difficult.” And the meaning is becoming the same as in Argentina: it’s not possible.
At some point, resignation will become so pervasive and ingrained in the mood, culture, and institutions of our society that returning to some sort of non-resigned state will no longer be possible. There will be no going back. The American people will have become resigned to being resigned. For all practical purposes, the generative, creative, and dynamic spirt of the nation will have dried up. Possibilities for our society and a different future will be gone. The idea of a workable democracy, of being a truly self-governing nation, will be dead.
Resignation Defined
Resignation is a universal mood. It can infect not only the political realm, but also our workplaces, our schools, and our personal relationships. Every human being experiences it, at one time or another, most often in the face of circumstances in which there appears to be “no possibility” to accomplish one’s goals and ambition.
Resignation often takes the form of living in denial of the situation you find yourself in or of simply “not thinking about it”. This covers up what could otherwise become despair, hopelessness, or some form of shutting down and disconnecting from participating in life. More often than not, it means simply giving up and abandoning our dreams, goals, and aspirations. Bottom line: the mood of resignation protects us from much of the pain and disappointment in life.
On a day-to-day basis, it remains mostly invisible because it disguises itself as “truth about the way it is”. That “truth” keeps us drifting through the circumstances of our lives, extending our past into the future and just going with the flow. In this “circumstantial drift”, change happens very gradually, if at all. In the drift, we usually explain away any disruptive or accelerated change as being “luck” or the result of something very unusual or exceptional happening. Resignation is akin to sleepwalking. You don’t notice that you’ve given up: it just looks like you’re being sensible. Life goes along as “normal”, and any suggestions that whatever we are resigned to can be changed will generally provoke resistance and even anger.
Essentially, resignation locks you into a “no possibility” existence.
Whenever resignation becomes embedded in a national culture, the result is a society where the people and the government exist in different worlds. Day-to-day life goes on, in spite of the government. People go through the motions of participating in a democracy with few expectations. Almost everyone is resigned. Most of the coffeeshop conversations in Argentina today are full of complaints about the government and cynical or self-deprecating assessments that, as a consequence of “the way we are”, this is just “the way it is”. Coffeeshop conversations I overhear in America today are filled with similar complaints and assessments. They are what I call “ain’t it awful” conversations that end with frustration, hand wringing, and an even deeper feeling that “nothing can be done.”
Argentina: The Populist Path to No Possibility
Argentina in the 1950s was statistically on a par with Canada: the same geographic size, similar size population, a variety of climate zones, abundant natural resources, and more or less the same educational opportunities for the people. Today, there is no comparison.
In a populist situation, power is invested in the demigod and the people have less access to the levers of powers. As a consequence, democracy is less effective in this context.
Much of the divergence can be traced back to the political style and philosophy of Evita Perón (1946-1952) and former president Juan Perón (1946-1955 and 1973-74). These populist leaders initially derived power from their nation’s largely disempowered and impoverished working class by making promises to eliminate poverty and dignify labor. Though controversial, they were considered icons by the followers of Peronism, the political movement they spawned which exists in the form of the Justicialist Party to this day. Aggressively punishing or suppressing those who opposed him, Juan Perón eventually became a demigod who could not be questioned or doubted.
Until the 1990s, Argentina went through numerous coups, swinging back and forth between Peronist and primarily military-led governments, and limped through decades of political and economic uncertainty, accompanied by gradual growing distrust of the government and its institutions. With the exception of a few years under Carlos Menem (1989-1999), the Argentine people have continued to suffer with very high inflation, political and social uncertainty, and loss of credibility in global financial markets. Somewhere along the line, people lost faith in their government—and in themselves—and lost the possibility of anything ever changing.
America: The Populist Path to Resignation
The United States is currently in the process of a large and growing populist resurgence. If polling is to be believed, half of us actively support and may vote for a demigod whose public pronouncements unequivocally promise less freedom and more control over citizen’s lifestyles, over the media, over political protests, over anything the government doesn’t like or agree with. (Sound familiar?)
Donald Trump’s promise to free the convicted January 6th felons makes a mockery of our justice system and should remove any doubt that the attack on our nation’s Capitol was indeed an intentional attempt by him to overturn the election and resist the transfer of power. If the GOP is successful, it will be on the back of modern populism, massive misinformation, a short-term view of history, and a militant view toward containing dissent.
The drum beat of the progressive and liberal establishment is rightly declaring that our constitutional democracy and its institutions are at stake in the upcoming election. But the immediate threat, at the human level, is that our nation—and each of us individually—succumbs, like Argentina, to resignation.
So what can be done when you are resigned, when you’ve given up? What can be done when you find yourself immersed in an ocean of conversations that argue against progress and that defend an unworkable status quo? For that matter, what can be done when a mood of hopelessness and “no possibility” captures a crowd, a community, a country? We’ll explore these and other questions next At the Crossroads.
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Originally published July 17, 2024 on Jim Selman’s Substack “At the Crossroads”
© 2024 Jim Selman