Francis Fukuyama and Robert Muggah — Populism is poisoning the global liberal order

The title signals the strong liberal bias of the authors. The dialectic is actually about traditionalism, which appears negatively as authoritarianism to liberals, versus liberalism, which appears as libertinism to traditionalists.

The tell is the admission that the wave of traditionalism is being led by "populism," as in what people actually want.

But what the people actually want is supposed to be the hallmark of liberalism.

The way liberals counter is this is that the majority lacks intelligence and sophistication and therefore need "enlightened" (liberal) leaders.

Thus democracy needs to managed because the people cannot be trusted to act in their real (liberal) interests.

Got that?

Global and Mail — Opinion
Populism is poisoning the global liberal order
Francis Fukuyama and Robert Muggah

See also

The Guardian (26 May 2016)
'It needs more public-spirited pigs': TS Eliot's rejection of Orwell's Animal Farm

Alison Flood