Populism makes for strange bedfellows, says Kishore Jayabalan in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Take Pope Francis and Donald Trump, for instance. They are certainly populists of very different sorts, but there is one issue that unites them – both are harsh critics of economic globalization.”
Francis does explicitly and by name what Trump does implicitly and in practice. In fact, they seem to derive much of their popularity precisely because they attack free markets as an enemy of the people. Their worlds will collide later this month when Pope Francis visits America’s centers of political and financial power – K Street and Wall Street will not be treated nicely, we can be sure.
But really, how can the pope and the Donald see eye-to-eye on anything? Isn’t Francis the compassionate voice of concern for the world’s marginalized and excluded, while Trump is the aggressive, often insulting face of strident nationalism? Trump’s answer to America’s illegal immigration problem (i.e., building a wall across the border with Mexico, deporting illegals and denying those born in the US birthright citizenship) couldn’t be more opposed to Francis’s. Trump would strengthen the US military and has said that he doesn’t ask God for forgiveness. There couldn’t be a starker contrast between Christian humility and American bravado.
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