# How to defeat a populist leader, with lessons from history **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327 "2017-01-27T17:51:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/41 "2017-01-28T21:47:08Z")
Yikes, what the hell did I just say? Make that “sown” and “sowing”. Good grief! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/42 "2017-01-28T22:33:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You are wrong. I don’t know where you’re getting your alternative facts from, . . . The phrase “alternative facts” is an accusation of lying. Such accusations are prohibited in this forum and in Elections. Do not make such accusations in either of these fora. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/43 "2017-01-28T23:25:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The phrase “alternative facts” is an accusation of lying. > > Such accusations are prohibited in this forum and in Elections. > > Do not make such accusations in either of these fora. > > [/Moderating] I certainly didn’t intend it as such. In my post, it was synonymous with “I don’t know where you read / heard that”, but I’ll avoid using the phrase in the future. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/44 "2017-01-28T23:27:17Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And I think it should be pulled. I’m just saying that it is by taking the popular vote into account that we have the moral duty to demand better and prevent a slide towards the normalization of a pseudo populist leader in the USA. What does “prevent a slide towards the normalization of …” even mean? How would that look, if you were successful in that moral duty? Would we just sit around and tell each other that “Trump’s not a normal politician” while he fills Supreme Court vacancies and builds a wall? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/45 "2017-01-28T23:51:29Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What does “prevent a slide towards the normalization of …” even mean? How would that look, if you were successful in that moral duty? It will look as the current example of closing the door to people that already were living in America and for all intentions vetted already. Allowing that to stand with no complaints is what leads to the normalization/acceptance of other very stupid policies for America. For a populist it is pandering indeed to a large alienated element of a population… by alienating another in this case. Even Bush the lesser did not go that low. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Would we just sit around and tell each other that “Trump’s not a normal politician” while he fills Supreme Court vacancies and builds a wall? As per the current example, do not just stand there, call your congress critters to tell Trump that this is not a good idea and if it continues that then less support will come his way for his big ideas. If the congress critter is just an enabler of the president tell the congress critter that he/she then will be the one gone in the next mid term. > **[Trump Refugee Order Dashes Hopes of Iraqis Who Helped the U.S.](https://fortune.com/2017/01/28/trump-refugees-iraqi-translators/)** > > "Mr. Trump, the new president, killed our dreams," said one Baghdad man whose wife worked for USAID > [@](#): > > More than 7,000 Iraqis, many of them interpreters for the U.S. military, have resettled in the United States under the Special Immigrant Visa program since 2008, while another 500 or so are still being processed, according to State Department figures. Another 58,000 Iraqis were awaiting interviews under the Direct Access program, according to the International Refugee Assistance Project. Tens of thousands have already arrived under the second program, but no recent total was available. > > “A lot of translators were trying to get the hell out of there because they had a mark on their head for working with U.S. forces,” Allen Vaught, a former U.S. Army captain who went to Fallujah in western Iraq in 2003, said in a telephone interview. “They’re viewed as collaborators.” ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/46 "2017-01-29T00:16:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Starving Artist** > Political correctness and other tactics/practices of the left have sewn and are sewing… “Sown” and “sowing,” as in sowing seeds. > [@](#): > > Definition of sow > sowed; sownplay \ˈsōn\ or sowed; sowing > > intransitive verb > 1: to plant seed for growth especially by scattering > 2: to set something in motion : begin an enterprise > > transitive verb > 1a : to scatter (as seed) upon the earth for growth; broadly : plant 1a > 1b : to strew with or as if with seed > 1c : to introduce into a selected environment : implant > 2: to set in motion : foment \ > 3: to spread abroad : disperse ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/47 "2017-01-29T00:55:35Z")
See post 41. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/48 "2017-01-29T02:18:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Political correctness and other tactics/practices of the left have sewn and are sewing far more divisiveness in this country than anything Trump has done. By. far. Right! Back in those halcyon days of yore for which you so often hunger we were all unified and the “niggers,” “kikes,” “wops,” “spics,” “Polacks,” “rubes,” and such knew better than to make a fuss that would interrupt our unity. The anger displayed by those opposing Trump occasionally goes overboard, but given that most of those people are reacting to the images and violence that Trump explicitly expounded in his political rallies, your claim that it is the fault of his opponents is just silly. The notion that “Political Correctness,” (the effort to get people to stop referring to every non-white, non-straight, or non-male person using slurs), has caused the discord is ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/49 "2017-01-29T02:32:21Z")
You haven’t been paying attention if you think political correctness stops at “get[ting] people to stop referring to every non-white, non-straight, or non-male person using slurs”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/50 "2017-01-29T02:33:46Z")
It seems that a few Republican senators are noticing that Trump is indeed dividing us and also increasing the danger too as a “bonus”. [http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/316713-republicans-sound-off-against-refugee-executive-order](http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/316713-republicans-sound-off-against-refugee-executive-order) > [@](#): > > GOP lawmakers are stepping out against President Trump’s executive order barring many refugees and citizens of certain predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. > > Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) called the order “unacceptable” amid concerns that it would prevent legal permanent residents from entering the U.S., which the administration attempted to clarify on Saturday. > > “President Trump and his administration are right to be concerned about national security, but it’s unacceptable when even legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry,” Flake said in a statement. > > “Enhancing long term national security requires that we have a clear-eyed view of radical Islamic terrorism without ascribing radical Islamic terrorist views to all Muslims,” Flake added. > > The Department of Homeland Security said Saturday that Trump’s order also applies to green card holders from the seven affected countries – Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen – which are all predominantly Muslim. > > A senior administration official said that those with green cards, which serve as proof of their permanent legal residence in the U.S., would need a case-by-case waiver if they were outside the country and wanted to return to the U.S. > > Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a vocal Trump critic, also issued a statement Saturday calling the order overly broad and arguing that it played into the hands of terrorist organizations looking to turn Muslims against the U.S. > > "There are two ways to lose our generational battle against jihadism by losing touch with reality. The first is to keep pretending that jihadi terrorism has no connection to Islam or to certain countries,” Sasse said. “That’s been a disaster.” > > “And here’s the second way to fail: If we send a signal to the Middle East that the U.S. sees all Muslims as jihadis, the terrorist recruiters win by telling kids that America is banning Muslims and that this is America versus one religion,” he added. One really has to support those few Republicans that are willing to oppose misguided populism and ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2017, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/51 "2017-01-29T03:57:18Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > It seems that a few Republican senators are noticing that Trump is indeed dividing us and also increasing the danger too as a “bonus”. > > [http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/316713-republicans-sound-off-against-refugee-executive-order](http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/316713-republicans-sound-off-against-refugee-executive-order) > One really has to support those few Republicans that are willing to oppose misguided populism and ignorance. This is encouraging. I may sleep tonight. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327/52 "2017-01-30T15:14:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You are wrong. I don’t know where you’re getting your alternative facts from, but according to Wikipedia: > > [2016](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2016#Results_summary) > 62,787,149 Republican votes (48.7%) > 61,753,932 Democrat votes (47.9%) > > [2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2014#Results_summary) > 40,081,282 Republican votes (51.2%) > 35,624,357 Democrat votes (45.5%) I stand corrected…As **GIGObuster** pointed out, what I said applied to the 2012 election, not 2014 or 2016. However, in those latter two cases, the split in the popular vote in favor of the Republicans was considerably smaller than the resulting split in seats won. My point about the Presidential vote and my overall conclusion (“So, the actual facts are that we have a very closely divided country on the national level…and Republicans who have benefited strongly from the way that population is distributed”) still hold. [And, for what it’s worth, I didn’t really take your correction as an accusation of lying, but rather that I had my facts wrong, which I did on the Congressional voting.] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-defeat-a-populist-leader-with-lessons-from-history/778327.md?page=2)