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Populism for dummies

This new “Trump populist” GOP is going to be enough to make me hurl. It was already absurd that Richie Rich Trump was the avatar of down-home Real America but some of the young Turks jumping on the bandwagon is truly sickening:

President-elect Joe Biden, a state-college graduate who was once the poorest man in the U.S. Senate, is facing accusations of elitism from Republicans after defeating a billionaire incumbent with an Ivy League degree — a sign of how the politics of populism have been upended and redefined by President Trump.

In recent days, Republican lawmakers have sought to describe Biden’s early Cabinet selections as well-heeled and well-pedigreed but out of touch with the kinds of problems facing everyday Americans.

After Biden won the presidency in part by claiming a larger share of college-educated suburban voters, some of his GOP foes see his early moves as an opportunity to brand him as an elitist president catering to the nation’s coastal professionals at the expense of its heartland laborers. The burgeoning dynamic underscores how the battle over populism is likely to animate the nation’s politics even after Trump leaves the White House and is replaced by a man who has called himself “Middle Class Joe.”

While Trump’s populism often manifested in style rather than substance, he was able to appeal to a unique coalition of voters that politicians from both parties are now aiming to capture in a post-Trump era, said Amy Walter, national editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

“It’s this us-versus-them mentality — a belief system that there’s a real America, and we’re the only party fighting for it,” Walter said. “I think that’s where Trump was the most successful, and I don’t know how well anyone else is going to be able to do that.”

Biden’s initial Cabinet selections are giving some Republicans with national ambitions a first shot at trying.

His decision to nominate Harvard-educated Antony Blinken for secretary of state, Yale-educated Jake Sullivan for national security adviser and Yale-educated former secretary of state John F. Kerry as the special presidential envoy for climate sparked immediate backlash among Republicans aiming to take up the populist mantle.

“Biden’s cabinet picks went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter. “I support American greatness. And I have no interest in returning to the ‘normal’ that left us dependent on China.”

Oh STFU, Rubio. And these guys are even worse:

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) took to Twitter to attack Biden’s preferred Cabinet as “a group of corporatists and war enthusiasts.”

“Take Tony Blinken. He’s backed every endless war since the Iraq invasion,” Hawley, who attended Yale Law School, wrote earlier this week. “Now he works for #BigTech and helps companies break into #China. He has no sense of what working Americans want or need.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted that Biden was “surrounding himself with panda huggers who will only reinforce his instincts to go soft on China.” Cotton, a Harvard Law graduate, accused another Biden nominee of “selling Green Cards to Chinese nationals on behalf of rich, democratic donors.”

Meanwhile:

In contrast, Trump has boasted about his Ivy League degree from the University of Pennsylvania while mocking Biden for his educational credentials.

“Don’t ever use the word smart with me,” Trump told Biden during the first presidential debate. “Don’t ever use that word. Because you know what? There’s nothing smart about you, Joe.”

Trump’s Cabinet was the wealthiest in modern history, filled with well-educated secretaries with resumes bearing such names as Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and OneWest Bank Group. While the president touted their pedigrees, calling some of them “killers,” he also embraced a nationalist governing philosophy that resonated with working-class voters who welcomed his brash attacks on Washington’s elites and the ills of globalism.

Right. They “responded” to his shameless hypocrisy, lies and propaganda because he hates who they hate. Let’s not kid ourselves that their loathing of “globalism” had anything to do with ideology. It is racism and xenophobia, pure and simple.

We’ll see if it works as well with prancing hypocrites like Hawley and Cotton. I’m not sure it will. Like all white guy politicians in America with national ambitions they will be running around with guns and trucks and waving the flag trying to appeal to those same people. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. They are the center of the American political universe because the the stupid electoral college and Senate — and it’s completely ridiculous.

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