Chip Berlet: Healthcare, Right-Wing Populism, & Civil Society

Chip Berlet: Healthcare, Right-Wing Populism, & Civil Society: "The aggressive public protests against Obama’s healthcare plan are an example of right-wing populism, a type of mass movement that periodically sweeps across the United States. Since the late 1800s, right-wing populist movements led primarily by angry White men have demonized and scapegoated people of color, immigrants, Jews, and other marginalized groups.

Populism on the right does not necessarily represent the policies or practices of traditional conservatism or economic libertarianism. In right-wing populist movements, anger, fear, and resentment are often mobilized by cynical rightist political elites as part of an orchestrated response in defense of unfair power, wealth, or privilege (and sometimes all three).

This does not mean, however, that the individual persons currently disrupting the town meetings have no right to participate in the public square."