What Donald Trump and Pope Francis have in common

The hanging in the Oval Office of a portrait of President Andrew Jackson brings up a political phenomenon known as “populism.”

The word has many nuances. In Roman history, the Tribunes of the People were to defend and represent the poorer folks of the Republic. Jackson’s rise came from a similar concern about a financial and cultural elite not representative of everyone. 

{mosads}Whether modern “populism” parallels the dissenters in the English Civil Wars, the depressed of the French Revolution, or the “masses” of Marxist fame is doubtful. Mussolini, Hitler, Mao and Peron were usually designated as “populists.” The populist leader was mercurial, ungrounded. Jackson himself was said to have thrown the wildest party ever in the White House at his inauguration on May 4, 1829. Many populists, like Lenin, however, were austere men. Populist traits were familiar to Aristotle in his discussion of the supporters of demagogues, but his middle classes were not populists.

In a recent interview, Pope Francis referred to the rise of “populism” in the West. Some reports hinted that he was referring to President Trump. For the pope, “populists” seem to mean those who are concerned about their frontiers and national integrity. From his first appearances in St. Peter’s Square, many have described Francis as a Latin populist.

The pope recently wrote a letter to the Regional Meeting of World Popular Movements, meeting in Modesto, Calif. He was worried about “the world’s economic system whose god is money at its center.” The ecology crisis, he insisted, is “real,” no possibility of scientific doubt.

He told the World Meeting of Popular Movements that “no people is criminal and no religion is terrorist. Christian terrorism does not exist; Jewish terrorism does not exist, and Muslim terrorism does not exist.” Many will hear such rhetoric as what is usually called, at least in English, “populism.”

The frequent refrain about the evils of money was also that of Jackson in his day. He represented those who did not have it, a not uncommon experience. In one of the great paradoxes, Trump, who is no pauper, represented those who were neglected by the elite forces of money and power.

When spelled out, we witness a world “populism” that denigrates frontiers and the integrity of differing political societies. Everyone has a “right” to be wherever he needs to be. It is evil to ask any questions of “refugees” or “immigrants”, where they come from, what they intend to do. Their status is enough to open doors. To many, such views sound like a world without borders and universal citizenship, no further questions asked.

Historically, populism could be right, center or left. Bernie Saunders is a socialist populist. Populism referred not to content but to “people” against perceived oppressors. Since World War II, the going wisdom sought to confront the world’s problems by making things larger. Europe was to be united into a single entity as the solution for inner-European conflicts and antagonisms. The United Nations was to be the place where the whole world could come together. There would be a common military contingent ready to go wherever there was trouble. 

Various economic and cultural alliances were formed. We noticed that world economy became global. Once impoverished nations became richer. Europe itself quickly recovered, as did Japan. India, China, Mexico and Korea became major factors in the world order.

But with the many issues swirling around the Arab world, which generally did not manage to grow, a new form of populism arose. One might well call it “theological populism.” But something very different drove it. With a large population growth and no real concept of a modern state, some of its member states failed. They were replaced by what many considered a more authentic Islam, one that did not need the modern amenities. Belatedly, Europeans noticed that many did not assimilate. The question became more and more pressing about what was a nation state. The internationalist bureaucracy seemed to ignore the ordinary people of most lands. 

The current European populism is almost invariably compared with fascism or Nazism, but not with Jackson. In this country, the left has put its marbles on the first analogy. It did so because it forgot or never knew what might be called a “common man populism,” one that does not bypass constitutional order with myriads of edicts and privileges for its supporters.

When populism is based not on world massive movements but on locality, family, preservation of identity and reasonable law, it looks very different. People who stand for these sane things are often called terrible things. The current Jacksonian populism, if that is what it is, along with many of the same tendencies in Europe, seems closer to what is needed and what is right than anything else immediately on the horizon.

The Rev. James Schall, S.J., author of “A Line Through the Human Heart: On Sinning & Being Forgiven,” is professor emeritus at Georgetown University.

The views of contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.