Populism is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, as a country that bases its leadership on those who win elections, our leaders should be popular. On the other hand, our country’s institutions are there to keep a steady head on solving the nation’s challenges.
Cicero summed it up well, writing, “Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.”
With new shifts in federal roles, Americans can expect a wide array of policy course corrections, as well as changes in foods, beverages, and rules of the road for the companies that produce them.
If it wasn’t clear before, with the MAHA Report published last month, this is now clearer than ever. The President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission will now set its sights on a new strategy roadmap to be released in August.
While government steering market outputs isn’t traditionally a Republican idea, it is further evidence that something else is currently driving politics: populism. The problem is that this new populism trend leaves an uncertain role for science and facts. If potential bans on food dyes come to fruition, it’s possible that the color of our favorite foods or your favorite soda might have to change. These changes are expensive, would change these products in tangible ways that could be harmful to the brands, and may not be in full alignment with established science.
The populist message seems to be that these companies don’t care about their customers, but the truth is that companies must care about their customers to remain in business. If a certain bag of potato chips falls out of favor, the customer stops eating that brand altogether, they tell their friends to stop, and they go to the media and tell everyone to stop eating that brand of chips. Fast food companies, for example, are recently following their customers’ interests and looking toward the “freshest, high-quality” foods.
For food dyes currently under the microscope, many have been scientifically proven safe for consumption time and again. They have been studied in Europe and in the U.S. extensively. Studies that have attempted different claims, like the Southampton Study conducted in 2007, haven’t been able to be reproduced, which means that they weren’t actually scientific.
If decisions aren’t based on science, then what is driving these ideas? Fear of the unknown? The ingredients have been studied repeatedly for safety. Or is the fear that ingredient names are long, hard to read, and less familiar to people? That is where populism teeters on the edge of delivering wayward results.
In politics, you need people to support you. Newt Gingrich once said that if you have an issue that polls at 80%, you just stand next to it and smile. But just because something polls well, just because an issue has support, doesn’t make it right. In fact, as mentioned at the start, our whole political system is based on combating populist swings.
We have a House of Representatives where the members are elected every two years. This House is built to reflect the will of the people. They are the teacup, and because of this, the emotions in the House run high, the arguments are fiery, and the speed is fast.
The Senate is the tea saucer. Senators are elected every six years. They represent a broader group of people and therefore deliberate more intentionally on various issues. The Senate takes its time, allowing the hot tea spilled from the teacup to cool down.
After policy makes it through both the House and Senate, we have the president, who again represents an even broader audience and is elected every four years. The goal of these different stages is to encourage debate, encourage thoughtfulness, and hopefully produce well thought out legislation that is both the will of the people and helpful in the long run.
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Populism doesn’t always work well in that system. Many are calling for action, and they want it immediately, which may leave less room for proper deliberation on key facts and science.
That doesn’t mean that Congress should lose any assertiveness. They need to fulfill their constitutional role and deliberate. They should continue to craft smart policies that are largely in their constituents’ interests. And, most importantly, in the great tea saucer of the Senate, they should rely on the science of this debate and work toward meaningful legislation.
Charles Sauer, a seasoned economic policy expert and a former legislative analyst, is the president of the Market Institute.