Huckabee and Populism

The other day as I was running an errand I heard Rush Limbaugh calling Mike Huckabee a populist, someone who panders to the popular opinion to keep the people happy so as to maintain or achieve power. The dictionary definition of populist is someone “who seeks to represent the interests of ordinary people” (Merriam-Webster), but modern political lingo has assigned the word a meaning slightly less sinister then that of a socialist, someone with no backbone or principle except that of seeking power. While I can see the reasons for Mr. Limbaugh calling Governor Huckabee a populist, I must disagree.

I do not claim that Governor Huckabee, like so many politicians, operates without a finger in the wind. In fact, I am fairly sure he does, and has most likely changed or moderated some of his positions because of popular trends. But I do not think that his entire election platform is designed this way, rather, it seems to me to be based on his sincere beliefs and desire to help people. These beliefs come from his Christian faith, something which I share and sympathize with. But it is the enactment of these beliefs that we seem to disagree on, and lead to the charges of Mr. Huckabee being “a pandering populist.”

Calls for universal health care, lenient immigration policies and the like are not based of idiocy or a desire to grow the government and bankrupt the state, as Republicans are frequently prone to suggest. Rather, they are based on real concern and compassion(however unfirm the foundations for such ideals are), which tends to blind people from the more practical and policy issues of their proposals. I would like as much as the next person to have free (or affordable) health care of all, to see no one left hungry, and every child in a good and safe school—but I also know the state of mankind and his ability to succeed in such endeavors. I know the ideas of individual liberty and personal responsibility this country was founded on, and see an incompatibility between social medicine and the Constitution. It is therefore not because I am heartless that I oppose such things, but because I am practical in policy and ideal to the founding principles which have served this country so well.

And this is then the conflict between heart and head, between the role of government and the role of the individual. Fundamentally, a Christian idea of God demands that each individual do his utmost to help those around him, not that the government do it. From a worldview without God, or one that is lacking in the personal aspect of him, all means are acceptable to help the most people. The Christian view (in my understanding at least) does not exclude government help, but it makes individual action the first and prime obligation.

I genuinely believe that Governor Huckabee wants to help people, and even suspect that the general feeling in America is one that sees a significant need for people to be helped. If that is the case, you may cast Governor Huckabee as a populist or as a caring, concerned person; and both will be true.