I feel like the pejorative conotation is not just an american thing but a general historical thing. The usual implication of populism is that you are appealing

I feel like the pejorative conotation is not just an american thing but a general historical thing. The usual implication of populism is that you are appealing to the base masses, who lack the knowledge to understand the implications of the policies, and don't understand how they will likely be negatively effected by the more subtle (or even overt) implications. Of course, that is very convinent to the aristrocrats whose power is threatened, but i still think there is a very clear implication with the word populism, that it implies something akin to letting a child eat as much candy as they want.