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The French [ ::: ] are exasperated. That politicians attempt to surf on this exasperation—
I mean, in their discourses—is quite normal. This is not populism, as the ill-intentioned
would say. It's just the game of democracy, the politician must RESPOND to the desires of
those who voted or intend to vote for him [ ::: ] 12
Nouvelobs.com
In order to get an image of the common ground in this interaction we could start
by looking for pieces of information that can be considered to be believed as true by
both participants. I take into account only two pieces of information: (21) and (22).
The Common Ground of the interaction contains:
(21) 2/3 of the French are for the return of the Romani to Romania and Bulgaria
(22) Valls is for the return of the Romani to Romania and Bulgaria
It is easy to see that (21) and (22) are accepted as true by ALPHA and are
taken for granted by BETA. We could then state that (21) and (22) are part of the
common ground of this interaction. I know I am oversimplifying but this extremely
simplified version reveals the core of the problem. Exactly as in Royal's and
Sarkozy's positions, we cannot describe ALPHA's position by juxtaposing pieces
of information. We could summarise ALPHA's opinion by saying that she states
that what is going on qualifies as a specific instance of some general idea that she
calls the “populist mathematics”. But which piece of information may qualify to
instantiate this general way of doing politics? If ALPHA sees a manifestation of
populism it can neither be in (21) nor in (22) taken as isolated pieces of information.
Take (22), the information about Valls. It just describes Valls as being for the return
of the Romani to their countries of origin. That is not, in itself, what ALPHA is
calling populism. If we don't relate it to (21), it does not manifest Valls' populism
that ALPHA is talking about.
What manifests populism, for ALPHA, is the THEREFORE link between Valls'
declarations and popular opinion. We can note this entity as in (23):
(23) two thirds of the French are for the return of the Romani to R&B (Romania and
Bulgaria) THEREFORE Valls is for the return of Romani to R&B
ALPHA opposes this concept to the one that she associates with the poll,
namely (24):
(24) Valls is for the return of the Romani to R&B THEREFORE 2/3 of the French are for
the same thing
In this concept—that ALPHA rejects—, Valls' opinion about the Romani appears
to be the cause of public opinion. According to the poll, people would follow Valls,
while ALPHA's position is that Valls follows popular opinion.
We can see, once again, that the THEREFORE connection may occur at the
deepest conceptual level in the impossibility of describing what populism is—
12 [ ::: ] Les Français [ ::: ] sont exaspérés. Que des politiques tentent de surfer sur cette
exaspération—en paroles s'entend—est tout à fait normal. Ce n'est pas du populisme comme
diraient les mal-pensants. C'est simplement le jeu de la démocratie, l'homme politique devant
REPONDRE aux désidérata de ceux qui votent ou ont l'intention de voter pour lui [ ::: ]
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