We are the People!

[Nentsia]

"You know, there's this region of the world absolutely filled with conflict, violence, and instability. The dominating religion of this region is one which promotes violence against nonbelievers. You know what would be a great idea? Bring in hundreds of thousands of military age, single males from this region and locate them strategically throughout our country."

This is precisely the populist rhetoric I mean. Aside from that this kind of logic would have prevented the US from taking up hundreds of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors in 1945-48, it makes one false assumption after another - all based on the idea that everyone is screwing Us, the People, over.

''the dominating religion of this region is one which promotes violence against nonbelievers'', seems to suggest as if there is some permanent religious war going on between Muslims and Christians. Thats what ISIS wants you to believe, which is what Al Qaeda tried to ignite with its 2001 attacks, etc. There is no religious war. There is only ISIS, about 20,000 religious lunatics, murdering anyone. They've murdered many more Muslims so far than Christians.

''You know what would be a great idea?'', this is another false sentence, hinting that the governments of Europe actually like to take up refugees. The reality is that the UN treaty, designed in the wake of WWII, obliges governments to give refugees asylum. Nobody likes this situation however. Populists want you to believe that only they are sane and that only they dislike this situation, and that evil Merkel wants to create a country full of refugees.

''Bring in hundreds of thousands of military age, single males from this region and locate them strategically throughout our country.'' Another typical example of Populism. With ''military age'' the hint is given that an army is coming over, while in fact, most of these people are simply fleeing violence themselves. ''Locate them strategically'', more military references to cast vigilant suspicion against a bunch of refugees.

Populism is so obvious that I cannot understand people cannot see through its simple manipulations to get your vote. The content of the message is not even Populist. There are valid reasons to argue that Europe should close its borders to refugees from the Middle East, or at least Syria. But in the formulation above, it casts suspicion against the political leaders as if they willingly sacrifice security just to let in more refugees. The Populist message is that the ''elite'' is aiding the enemy.