[Townhall] Last week, former President George W. Bush said he's not worried about the current moment in American politics because "these populist movements begin to fritter over time." I don't know Bush well personally, but I served in his administration for eight years. As a senior staffer to Vice President Dick Cheney, I was in numerous meetings with Bush each week. While I did not agree with the president on every policy issue, I did leave my service with a feeling that, agree with him or not, Bush is a good person who cares a lot about our country.That's why his statement is so frustrating.
The country is going through profound changes and political difficulties, to say the least. Populist sentiments started way back with the Tea Party movement on the right in 2009 and the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left in 2011. You could even argue that the first signs surfaced with the Ross Perot presidential candidacy in 1992. The populist movement has been building for many years, and it shows little sign of slowing down. The majority of voters on the Republican side are Trump populists, and all the energy in current Democratic politics is with the socialist wing led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Populism is, of course, less of a political ideology than it is a sign people are unhappy with American leadership. The approval and trust levels for elected leaders and leading institutions have been in free-fall for years. On the left and on the right, there is a growing belief that society's riches are flowing too heavily to a privileged and well-connected few and not enough to the average American.
In the worst-case scenario, our leaders can ignore the warning signs and hope things just fritter away. That's the scenario we are in, unfortunately. Populism can definitely turn ugly. We have seen some of that already. And historically, ignoring the concerns of regular people led to almost 100 years of repressive communist rule in Russia and the development of a Nazi state in Germany that didn't end until millions were killed in a world war.
Our leaders aren't ignoring all of today's warnings because they are bad people; they do it because our society has become so segregated that people who are thriving are surrounded almost exclusively by others who are also thriving. This segregation facilitates worldviews that can grow detached from reality.
In conclusion -
The same voters now clamoring for change once voted for Barack Obama and George Bush. They haven't turned into bad people overnight. They just don't believe our system is really working for their interests. That concern can lead to positive reform, or it can turn really ugly. It's still up to us. Either way, this isn't likely to just fritter away.