Mark Lilla on The Perils of Populist Chic | Kevin Hoffberg’s Blog
Monday, November 10th, 2008In 1976 Irving Kristol publicly worried that “populist paranoia” was “subverting the very institutions and authorities that the democratic republic laboriously creates for the purpose of orderly self-government.” But by the mid-’80s, he was telling readers of this newspaper that the “common sense” of ordinary Americans on matters like crime and education had been betrayed by “our disoriented elites,” which is why “so many people — and I include myself among them — who would ordinarily worry about a populist upsurge find themselves so sympathetic to this new populism.”
Mark Lilla on The Perils of Populist Chic | Kevin Hoffberg’s Blog



