Executive Summary of Neopopulism

Read it and act!

There may be some disagreement about the details of this summary, but I believe most Neopopulists will agree with most of this:

Neopopulism is a post-modern democratic movement that focuses on the rule of law, political and cultural context (relevance) and democratic process.  What makes the shining city on the hill beautiful is not any ideological architecture, but HOW it is built.  It has to be built by the people. 

Neopopulism replaces the question "What is the objective truth?" with "Who's in charge here?" 

This  implies the elimination of discretionary bureaucratic power, the political and cultural demise of the expert aristocracy, the rejection of ideology as a will to power that abuses and even hates the people's language, the rejection of the conservative theory of the natural aristocracy and the statesman as more elitism, the rejection of utilitarianism as rationalist nonsense that perpetuates the myth of expertise and the statesman, and a Neopopulist theory of the politician as being directly responsible to the agenda of the people.  

 At an even deeper philosophical level, Minnesota Neopopulism is a wholesale rejection of the modern, rationalistic, scientistic, reductionist tradition.  Neopopulism is a political movement, but deeply respects the capacity of religion to put reason in its place and assert the intrinsic dignity and worth of the people. The rise of Modernism supported the rise of expert aristocracy.  The death of that tradition now supports the rebirth of democracy.  The critique of the modern tradition is in.  The rationalist roots are dead, and the whole tree has fallen on its utilitarian branch, smashing it.  It's firewood.  The people, not the experts, will now be the measure of what is politically correct.

Neopopulism is NOT a political party and should never become one, because the political parties trivialize politics, turning politics into nothing but a will to power -- an ideological process which is often out of context and simply focuses on electing an elite member of the party.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans oppose expert aristocracy, they just disagree about who the experts really are.

Neopopulism is strategic.  It focuses on the creation of political counter- culture.  The right political culture (culture = a belief system [religion, both secular and traditional] externalized, the practical implementation of a world view) will automatically produce the right agenda.

Core Values:

• The rule of law versus the discretionary power of the modern regulatory state.
• Democracy versus expert aristocracy (modern elitism) and rationalism.
• Common sense versus rationalism and  ideology as an out of context will to power.
• Religious faith versus scientism (religion putting reason in its place).
• Respect for the dignity, not just the rights of the people.
• Ordinary language versus technical language as more reductionism.

Core Principles:

• The government should not only respect our rights, it should respect our dignity. It will not do the former if it cannot do the latter.
• There is no objective utilitarian calculator. No expert, no government can measure the net utility of individuals and communities. This can only be decided by the people themselves as a democratic compromise and, as such, is hated by experts who are evil for their ideological perfectionism and who appeal to the utilitarian myth.
• We are "post-modern". The modern rationalist tradition, including utilitarian justifications for giving power to experts, is dead. This also includes the death of modern scientific reductionism, which is the cornerstone of the myth of expertise.
• We reject the conservative theory of the natural aristocracy and the statesman. This is just more elitism.
• The Neopopulist politician is the politician who refuses to play the statesman, but instead remains true to the agenda he was elected on.
• What's new in "neo"-populism is the popular, historical conclusion that the government cannot do for the people what the people must now do for themselves. What we must first of all do for ourselves is liberate ourselves from the expert aristocracy - the excesses of the modern regulatory state (the modern scientific republic).
• The bureaucracy is not an evil conspiracy, it is just inherently mediocre and requires massive surveillance by the people.
• Socialism is rationalism and elitism and cannot be implemented without totalitarianism.
• Private property is power to the people.
• Serve the people or fear the people.
• Ideology is a will to power which has no respect for the common meanings that common people associate with words. Ideology, as opposed to philosophical consistency, is willing to falsify the experience and language of the people in order to achieve power.
• Reason alone has no authority.  But ordinary language, common sense, and the religious tradition have all the authority required to avoid radical relativism.

Core Processes:

• Massive surveillance of the government by the people. We are looking for particularly good informants.
• Bringing suit against the bureaucrats when they violate the rule of law or abuse discretionary power. Force the regulators to either abide by the rule of law or give up their power to regulate.
• Monitoring of all elected officials to keep them on the people's agenda.
• Recall.
• Initiative and referendum.
• Write-in campaigns.
• Civil disobedience.
• Education through the alternative media.
• Coordination through the alternative media.
• The direct control by the people of all educational institutions; the end of government education as a puppy mill for the government's own rationalist tradition.

Basic Agenda:

• Educating the people in the death of the modern rationalist tradition and the need to end the age of expert aristocracy.
• Creation of anti-rationalist, anti-intellectualist counter-culture.
• Direct election of judges. Make the judiciary directly accountable to the people.  Judges and their judgments are all tradition bound.
• Direct election of all state commissioners and police chiefs (as well as sheriffs). Make the bureaucracy directly accountable to the people. Establish the rule of law in the otherwise mediocre bureaucracy. Make the bureaucracy perform for the people; end its wholesale moral and technical mediocrity.
• Bring education under the direct control of the people. Make education directly accountable to the people in order to finally make the people fully free by putting them in charge of the means of cultural production.
• The election of Neopopulist politicians. Make the legislature directly accountable to the people.
• National and state initiative and referendum for deconstructing what the modern scientific republic constructs.
• Recall of any and all politicians including the president.
• Liberate the American worker by liberating him from big business as an extension of the regulatory regime. End the age of the employee by ending the government's regulation of the relationship between the worker and the firm.
• Ordinary language statutes which will control all other law by enforcing the people's common sense meanings for words.
• A constitutional requirement that elected representatives write their own statutes; not experts (lobbyists) or staffers.