Prehistory of populist constitutionalism: Difference between revisions
Prehistory of populist constitutionalism (view source)
Revision as of 15:12, 24 February 2024
, 4 months ago→Theodore Roosevelt
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<blockquote>[T]he judicial power [...] slows, it cannot stop the people, because the latter by changing the constitution can always arrive at what they desire.<ref>Alexis de Tocqueville, ''Democracy in America. Historical-Critical Edition of De la démocratie en Amérique'', ed. Eduardo Nolla, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010, p. 167 (note b).</ref></blockquote>
==Theodore Roosevelt==
Theodore Roosevelt has been conventionally thought of as a vehement opponent of populism, i.e. of United States People's Party. Nevertheless, labels aside, the 26th President of the United States did not shy away from expressing populist views in constitutional matters. For example, in a famous speech delivered in 1912 and recorded by Thomas Edison, Roosevelt quipped:
<blockquote>[T]he majority of the plain people of the U.S. will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to govern them.<ref>.</ref></blockquote>▼
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==Eleftherios Venizelos==
It has been rightly observed that Greece “''has been recurrently susceptible to populist appeals, the figures of Eleftherios Venizelos and Andreas Papandreou towering over twentieth-century Greek history''”.<ref>Paul Kenny, ''Why Populism?: Political Strategy from Ancient Greece to the Present'', Cambridge University Press, 2023, p. 187.</ref> Venizelos' statesmanship “''could by no stretch of the imagination be equated with the attitude and mentality of latter-day populist politicians''”; however, these politicians “''appear similarly consumed by politics, but lack Venizelos' moral understanding of the character of public life''”.<ref>Paschalis M. Kitromilides, ''Venizelos' Intellectual Projects and Cultural Interests'', in Paschalis M. Kitromilides, ''Eleftherios Venizelos: The Trials of Statesmanship'', Edinburgh University Press, 2006, p. 377.</ref> In this vein, Venizelos can be seen as a principled populist, i.e. as a man who understands that politics is the realm of opinion and not of truth.<ref>Cf. Arendt</ref>.<br>
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