Newman, Chesterton, and the Rhetoric of American Populism

The presidency of donald trump has inspired much debate concerning the relationship between religion and political populism in the American context. Several scholars have focused on what they see as the negative dimensions of this relationship at the present, in the United States, and elsewhere.1 Other scholars have discussed the interrelationship of religion and populism in more nuanced terms, as having both positive and negative aspects. Margaret Canovan has argued that populism “should not be dismissed as a pathological form of politics” and discussed it in relation to the “redemptive and pragmatic aspects” of democracy. She argues that where politics become dominated by the “pragmatic,” and there is a loss of faith in its “redemptive” aspects, a gateway opens for populists.2 Carlo Invernizzi Accetti discusses the populist aspects of Christian Democracy with great sympathy, and is careful to categorize Christian Democratic forms of populism as “popularism,” to distinguish them from more nationalist and undemocratic manifestations of populist politics.3 Luke Bretherton warns against “the latent antidemocratic suspicion among critics of populism” and notes that “historical forms of populism can be democratic or authoritarian,” and cites numerous examples of democratic populism that have often been interlinked with religious movements