Stupid Hippies

Dave Weigel talks to Third Way about populism:

When I asked Bennett whether his think tank was opposed to “economic populism,” he wondered whether that term was de facto positive. “It depends on how you view economic populism,” he said. “We didn’t view the president’s speech last week as populist, for example. He was talking about poverty—and that’s a Democratic point of view, what he said. We view populism the way we view right-wing populism. It’s a way to avoid making choices. Right-wing populists say that if we cut government down, everything will be better. The idea on the left is that if we can just expand entitlements, everything will be better and we don’t have to make choices. And we just don’t agree.”