The Populist Moment Quotes

“In the media, the personality-driven mood of today’s politics makes it almost impossible to win elections without the asset of a recognizable leader.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“Although personally popular, Barack Obama left the Democratic Party in a state of profound disarray.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“Once it was clear that established candidates would bite the dust, Trump was able to extend his patrimonial business empire into his political office, collapsing the line between public and private.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“In this vein, Podemos’s first phase consisted of an explicit application of a populist strategy in response to what they called the “Latin Americanization” of Spain—characterized by the pauperization of the middle class, the rise of inequality, the collusion between political and financial elites, the erosion of traditional parties, and the consequent “fluidification” of political labels.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“In Laclau’s view, populism is the process by which a leader unifies popular demands based on their opposition to a common enemy, thereby constructing a “people” against a power bloc.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“You might not be interested in the war,” Leon Trotsky said to young communists lamenting the start of the 1914 mobilization, “but the war is interested in you.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“Academia remains the true headquarters of the populism industry.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“To add to the confusion, the label “populism” was embraced a few years later by none other than the leader of the free world, Barack Hussein Obama.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession

“All these forces took part in the political cycle spawned by the 2007–08 financial crisis, which metastasized from the United States to Europe.”
― Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession