microsocial encounters macrolevel politics. What are the new
and European backgrounds: ‘In today’s populism, there is no people and
layers of experience that succeed Reich? What is it that viscerally
there is no prince. It is necessary to beat populism because it obscures the
appeals to the “people” of Essex? Perhaps it is fear! There is the
relations of power.’ Through its economic-mediatic-judicial apparatuses,
Eastern European conspiracy/contagion here (they are coming
neopopulism constantly shapes “trust-worthy people” similar to the “cus-
for our jobs and benefits). They blame it on the Muslims too
tomers portfolio” of the branded world of neoliberal economy: Berlusconi’s
(they want to kill us all). What escape do we have from these
“people” have been following the deeds of Arcore’s Sultan for twenty years;
formations? What kind of intervention could clear away the fog
Grillo’s followers are adopting similar all-encompassing identifying pro-
of populism that obscures affirmative felt relations: the empathy
cesses, giving birth to the more confused impulses of the Italian social
all repressed people should have in common with each other.
strata. With institutional fragility, fluctuating sovereignties and the oblivion of left-wing dogmas (class, status, conflict, solidarity, equality) how can we form people today? Is it possible to reinvent an anti-authoritarian people? Is it only the people or also politics itself that is lacking?
On the missing people TS One source of the fog of populism is the seemingly recip-
94
OC Mario Tronti states that ‘there is populism because there is no
rocal relation between the people and the media. While some
people.’ That of the people is an enduring theme which Tronti disclaims
coverage of the protests in Turkey are appearing at the backend
in a very Italian way: ‘the great political forces use to stand firmly on
of BBC news reports, top of the most watched/listened to list on
the popular components of the social history: the Catholic populism, the
the news website have been items relating to the price of the new
socialist tradition, the diversity in communism. Since there was the peo-
PS4, interest in Apple’s new look for iOS 7; and live video cover-
ple, there was no populism.’ Paul Klee often complained that even in
age from Westminster Abbey of a special service to mark the 60th
historical artistic avant-gardes ‘it was people who were lacking.’ However
anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The media
the radical critique to populism has led to important results: the birth of
has also perpetuated the rise of the loveable rightwing buffoon:
a mature democracy in America; the rise of the theory and the practice of
UKIP’s Nigel Farage and the Tories’ Boris Johnson. These right-
revolution in the Tsarist Empire, a country plagued by the contradictions
wing conceptual personae help to obscure power relations in
of a capitalist development in an underdeveloped territory (Lenin and
the UK, which are rapidly sinking back to a people dominated
bolshevism). Tronti carries on in his tranchant analysis of the Italian
by those “born to rule” Bullingdon bullies.(1) 95