Saturday 7 May 2022

Populism & Democracy

Try to find a definition of populism and you're hard pressed to differentiate between democracy and populism. Both are defined in terms of the will of the people.


The crucial difference, however, is the impact of consequences. 

In traditional democracy the will of the people is tempered by consequences. Populism, however, ignores consequences completely and attributes superior and unerring wisdom to the masses. 

Populism cynically exploits and mobilises the masses while weaponising consequence-free policy, which invariably leads to the failure of such populist governments when the consequences become apparent post implementation and there's a reaction from the electorate.

Both left and right can be guilty of populism in the battle for votes in the run up to an election.

Can you give me examples of populist policies in, say, the last 5 years?


2 comments:

Roger said...

Brexit

David Boffey said...

Trump and Bolsonaro.
Brexit and pretty much everything since in the UK.