Populism has existed as a political term since the 19th Century, but has seen a surge in use over the past few years. You can see a major spike in people googling the word the week of Donald Trump's inauguration.
But the term doesn't just apply to those on the right. After initially experiencing a Renaissance due to liberal journalists using their new buzzword to describe The Orange One, it inevitably became part of the public lexicon. Politicians of all stripes, from Brazil's Bolsonaro to Britain's Jeremy Corbyn, have been dubbed populist.
What makes them populist?
To deliver a populist message, you must base it around the idea that there exists in society two fundamental groups: 'the people', and 'the elite'.
Figures on both the left and right have adopted the idea of populism into their messaging, consciously or otherwise, by identifying these two distinct groups.Though the notions of who the people or the elite actually are differs between left and right, the fact these two groups have been identified at all indicates they are populist, whether they are right or wrong.
Populism is (unsurprisingly) about staying popular. Politicians do this both by following public opinion, and by tapping into widely held fears and anxieties present in the population. Fears and anxieties 'the elite' cause 'the people' to have, and the happiness 'the elite' stands in the way of 'the people' achieving.
Whether the 'liberal media elite' is standing in the way of free speech, or the 'giant corporations elite' are standing in the way of tax revenue for public services; whether defined as the '99% against the 1%', or as the 'freedom-loving patriot against the deep-state', the people/elite dichotomy means smug journalists can and will label them a populist, and dive absolutely no deeper into where these fears, loves, anxieties, and hopes came from in the first place.
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