Radical populism’s challenge to democracy: It’s not just US

Opposition to governments in various countries is taking on a new and dangerous character: radical populism. And it’s putting democracy on the defensive.

What we’re seeing in the United States is mostly right-wing populism embodied by former President Donald Trump. Trump is currently the Republican frontrunner for his third presidential campaign — in defiance of multiple pending criminal investigations and one indictment. You can also see right-wing populism in the increasing number of anti-Asian and anti-Semitic hate crimes in the U.S.

At the same time, radical left-wing populism is breaking out in the form of anti-government street demonstrations in France and in Israel. France is approaching a constitutional crisis over a new law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. The change, forced through parliament by President Emmanuel Macron, is opposed by 70 percent of the population. Public outrage is focused not just on the new retirement law, but even more on Macron’s elitist behavior in not allowing a parliamentary vote on the new law.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a wave of street demonstrations, resulting in a national strike that is shutting down schools, airports and businesses. The issue? Anger over a proposal to curb the power of Israel’s Supreme Court.

Populism is driven by resentment of elites.

On the left, populism is typically economic — resentment of the rich and big business. Right-wing populism is more likely to be cultural, driven by resentment of the educated elite. Conservative populists resent experts like scientists and bureaucrats who presume they can tell people what to do — and who sometimes exhibit a condescending attitude toward the ill-informed. Barack Obama in 2008, disparaged small-town voters who “cling to guns and religion.” And Hillary Clinton in 2016 called Donald Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables.”

The case of Israel is particularly interesting because the country was founded by highly educated European socialists and social democrats. Every Israeli prime minister until 1977 was affiliated with the labor movement. Now, however, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a man of the right. His support is strongest among Israeli Jews of non-European and more orthodox religious backgrounds. They resent the power of the secular Israeli elite that has traditionally controlled the government, the courts and even the military.

Israel’s far right, including ultra-orthodox Jews and extreme nationalist Jewish settlers in the West Bank, finally came to power with Netanyahu last year. Netanyahu’s government aims to curb the power of the supreme court by giving the elected government — his government — more power over the court.

Some years ago, I was asked to speak about my recent visit to Israel at a Sabbath service in, of all places, Honolulu. I had been on assignment in Israel, whereI interviewed Ariel Sharon, an Israeli military hero and future prime minister. Sharon told me he found it disturbing that Jews around the world were “losing their Zionism.”

I asked him how he would define Zionism.

“A true Zionist wants three things,” Sharon replied. “He wants a Jewish state. He wants a democracy. And he wants Greater Israel — all the land promised to the Jewish people in the Bible (including the West Bank).”

Sharon went on: “He can have any two of those things but not all three. If you have Greater Israel and a democracy, Israel would not survive as a Jewish state because the Palestinians would eventually get political power. If you have Greater Israel and a Jewish state, it would not remain a democracy for long.”

The only hope, Sharon told me, is for Zionists to give up the dream of Greater Israel.

It should be noted that the threat to Zionism of Greater Israel may be less serious today than it used to be because the birth rate of Israeli Jews — even secular Jews — is now higher than the Palestinian birth rate.

As prime minister in 2005, Sharon evacuated Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip — a policy that continues to enrage the nationalist right. Had Prime Minister Sharon not been struck down by a massive stroke in 2006, he might have supported the evacuation of at least some Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The rabbi in Honolulu responded with a startling assertion.

“Sharon was wrong,” the rabbi said. “What God promised the Jewish people in the holy Torah was a Jewish state and Greater Israel.” He added, “The word ‘democracy’ never appears in the Torah.”

Bill Schneider is an emeritus professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and author of “Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable” (Simon & Schuster).