SADOPOPULISM'S CRUEL OUROBOROS
During these weeks of presidential carnage — of deportations, mass dismissals, proposed ethnic cleansing and democratic eviscerations of every kind — I’ve been reflecting on our sadopopulist moment — reflecting darkly.
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A quick refresh: Timothy Snyder introduced sadopopulism in his 2018 book The Road to Unfreedom, and elaborated upon it in last year’s On Freedom.
As Snyder notes: Populism offers some redistribution, something to the people from the state; sadopopulism offers only the spectacle of others being still more deprived. Sadopopulism salves the pain of immobility by directing attention to others who suffer more. One group is reassured that, thanks to its resilience, it will do less poorly than another from government paralysis. Sadopopulism bargains, in other words, not by granting resources but by offering relative degrees of pain and permission to enjoy the suffering of others.
Donald Trump proved to be a compelling sadopopulist, teaching his supporters contempt for others during his campaigns, then declining to build infrastructure as president—precisely because it would have helped people. When sadopopulism works, the majority is satisfied with what is, never asking for sensible things like roads or railroads. My roads are bad, but yours are worse. I am trapped in my social class, but you are trapped in a ghetto.
Sadopopulism replaces the American Dream with that American nightmare. It directs the attention of a fragile middle class toward those who are doing still worse, rather than toward those who collect the wealth and decline to be taxed on it. It activates racism as the substitute for a better future. It creates barriers that block the many, then defines freedom as their absence for the few. Putting Black people in prison offers no social mobility (except to newly employed guards), but it might leave white people feeling less stuck than others.
Sadopopulism normalizes oligarchy. If I am comfortable with stagnation because others are drowning, my attitude to the highfliers will be one of supplication.1
Snyder describes the sadopopulist leader as one whose policies were designed to hurt the most vulnerable part of his own electorate. As for the sadopopulist electorate: Such a voter can believe that he or she has chosen who administers their pain, and can fantasize that this leader will hurt enemies still more. The politics of eternity converts pain to meaning, and then meaning back into more pain.