Great episode! I think about this topic a lot from a completely anecdotal, non-academic point of view.
One mental model that I associate with the populist mindset is a belief that everyone secretly agrees with you and the only thing stopping your envisioned utopia is some sort of shadowy "them." Such people then don't believe you need to convince anyone of your ideals; you just have to topple a few bad guys and everything will fall into place.
The question about whether elites foisted a dysfunctional immigration system on us on purpose kind of hinted at that underlying paradigm.
However, the part about returning the wallet undermines that point. They clearly believe that every day people are wallet snatchers and not just a shadowy elite, and I am not sure how to circle that square with the general big good, small bad world view I associate with populism besides noting that both ideas stem from paranoia.
Maybe it's kind of related to the idea that our enemies are both all powerful and very stupid and weak.
Great episode! I think about this topic a lot from a completely anecdotal, non-academic point of view.
One mental model that I associate with the populist mindset is a belief that everyone secretly agrees with you and the only thing stopping your envisioned utopia is some sort of shadowy "them." Such people then don't believe you need to convince anyone of your ideals; you just have to topple a few bad guys and everything will fall into place.
The question about whether elites foisted a dysfunctional immigration system on us on purpose kind of hinted at that underlying paradigm.
However, the part about returning the wallet undermines that point. They clearly believe that every day people are wallet snatchers and not just a shadowy elite, and I am not sure how to circle that square with the general big good, small bad world view I associate with populism besides noting that both ideas stem from paranoia.
Maybe it's kind of related to the idea that our enemies are both all powerful and very stupid and weak.