Penny Thoughts: World-Wide Rising Populism

If we reflect on world history and the revolutions which have begun across humanity, it is obvious that the American Revolution against the massive 18th Century British Empire, for lack of a better word, was an “outlier”.  You see, it was a SUCCESS! 

There have been no other revolutions in the recorded history of humankind which have had the success our American ancestors achieved against the overwhelming odds they faced.  This is not a boast…it is a fact! 

Some may argue that the French Revolution which followed the American Revolution succeeded, but all it did was realign the sources of power in France.  Others may claim that Napoleon’s rallying of the masses against the ruling classes was a revolution, but it was crushed in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

By the way, we here in Demopolis were the benefactors of that history as it was some of Napoleon’s officers who founded our “Vine and Olive” colony in 1817, the foundation of “Demopolis”.

By contrast, our American Revolution established a completely new order of governing, a completely new geographic and political entity with its own system of order, of law, of economy and of culture.  It was aided by a sympathetic media – read Thomas Payne and Ben Franklin – which the present revolution does not enjoy but must count the mainstream media as adversary and this is a sad testimony to Joseph Pulitzer!

Today we are in the midst of a worldwide revolution of populism – that is, a rising of the masses, the “deplorables” as Obama and Hillary Clinton called them, against the prevailing hallmarks of power in every country.  Here in the U.S., we have known the progenitors of this power as members of “The Swamp” or the “Political Class”.  And this revolution is serious! To wit: Trump’s election and now in Great Britain the implementation of BREXIT, the exit from the European Union, which is acknowledged by many as having been inspired by Trump’s election!

Our British cousins do recognize a viable path when they see it!  It is, after all, the land where many of our founders were birthed and who were imbued with notions of freedom and independence.

This populist revolution is full on and those in power are doing their level best to discredit and negate it.  We have witnessed this first-hand in our Republic with the attempts to impeach Our President Trump “by any means necessary”, AND even BEFORE he was elected or inaugurated!

Here I refer to Professor Eric Schnurer whose article, “A Modern Waterloo: The Working Class Uprising that Fueled Trump and Le Pen is Still Building”, was published in the June 16, 2017, edition of US News.com. In this excellent piece Schnurer compares what was perceived to have happened at the Battle of Waterloo actually laid the foundation for a future dominated by democratic principles in opposition to the powers of the ruling classes in the 18th and 19th Century Europe.

Napoleon and his French troops faced units from six different countries led by the United Kingdom’s Duke of Wellington.  Wellington’s forces represented every ruling monarchy in Europe. They were facing Napoleon’s populist army and sorely needed to put down this revolution.  On the battlefield, they did.

But Schnurer points out an interesting irony to Wellington’s victory. “Those who believed that Waterloo meant they could now get back to ruling subject populations as they had for the previous half-millennium were therefore soon to be sorely disappointed. When they failed to meet the popular expectations that the rising middle class, increasing industrialization and modern centralized state had birthed, they faced decades of further democratic revolutions.”

The assumptions of the ruling class – read “political class” for us here today – were effectively dissolved with their apparent conquest as Schnurer observes, “A century after Waterloo, every regime that had prevailed on the battlefield that day effectively had been toppled; the forces of technological, economic, cultural and political change that had produced Napoleon ultimately prevailed.”  

In a sardonic reference to America’s current political class nomenclature, Schnurer makes a keen comparison as a caution to those who reside in and who perpetuate the “Swamp”:  “The democratizing aspirations of the deplorables so feared by the aristocracy ultimately proved to be not only on the right side of history but also right.”

Ultimately, history has favored that which has been inherently beneficial to the human condition. I even reflect on John’s Book of Revelation in our Bible, because, you see, in the end Christ prevails! So, WE WIN! My eschatology may be a bit too “off” and too positive, but it seems to serve the purpose here.  The mere existential fact that humanity has survived all manner of cataclysms indicates to me that positive survival forces have endured.

In the final analysis, as I see it, there seems to be a cosmic sensibility intent upon a positive direction for humanity – a direction immersed in advancing the most beneficial paths for a constructive framework which promotes humanity’s progress. And that is hope even for us troglodytes. Right, Hillary?