Tonight I find myself recalling Timothy Snyder’s analysis of sadopopulism which he distinguishes from normal populism.

Populism offers some redistribution, something to the people from the state; sadopopulism offers only the spectacle of others being still more deprived. Sadopopulism salves the pain of immobility by directing attention to others who suffer more.

The sadopopulist leader, Snyder argues, is one “whose policies were designed to hurt the most vulnerable part of his own electorate.”  As for the sadopopulist electorate, “Such a voter can believe that he or she has chosen who administers their pain, and can fantasize that this leader will hurt enemies still more. The politics of eternity converts pain to meaning, and then meaning back into more pain.”

Throughout this election I’ve noticed a surgence of something very Snyderesque,an offshoot of sadopopulism that I can only describe as sadosuffragism.  Voting or withholding one’s vote in an attempt to punish the party or candidate that might have otherwise benefited from your vote.

Like sadopopulism, sadosuffragism attempts to salve the pain of immobility (political un-responsive) by attempting to direct hurt at another – in this case the political leadership that failed and disappointed.

Whether sadosuffragism will serve anyone or, like sadopopulism, will only harm the most vulnerable part of the sadosuffragist’s own electorate, these next years must show.