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While "liberal democracy" has a very clear meaning, "populism" has very different definitions. I'm pretty sure that the definition you have in mind is pretty di

While "liberal democracy" has a very clear meaning, "populism" has very different definitions. I'm pretty sure that the definition you have in mind is pretty different from the ones I know, if you say that democracy "is fundamentally populist".

somenameforme 9mo ago
How would you define it? Or would you disagree that democracy, in its nominal form, is a political system where political action is driven by the will of the masses?
- danmaz74 9mo ago
  In a liberal democracy the "will of the masses" is applied indirectly, through the election of representatives, making laws, and then applying those laws and governing in accordance to those laws. To get elected, politicians and aspiring politicians tell electors all sorts of things. Some of them tell electors that their problems have simple solutions, which go against what the intellectual elites (scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers etc.) recommend or say is doable. Those are what are usually defined populists. Some of them actually believe that "experts" lie for some agenda. Most of them know perfectly well that those simple solutions won't work, but say what they think electors want to hear. Not all politicians/parties act like that, even if it's common to have some populists in all most parties - because populism works.
  - somenameforme 9mo ago
    It's unclear to me how the definition you're using isn't biased to the point of meaninglessness. Let me use an example. Politicians know full well we stand no chance of meaningfully impacting climate change for a practical reason - most emissions are coming from relatively adversarial countries. If we try to encourage them to reduce emissions via some form of ongoing compensation then we asking them to impair their development in exchange for accepting putting themselves into an exploitable dependency relationship with us. They will simply never accept this, so at best it will be superficial gestures that have no real chance of having a meaningful impact. So is the rhetoric around climate change, and politicians/parties running on claims of being able to impact it, populist, in your usage? I'd imagine not. But is there a 'clean' way to explain how this is excluded while maintaining any degree of meaningfulness of the term as you are using it? --- As for 'my' usage, I view populism as appealing to the genuine views of the masses, mostly in contrast to efforts to suppress or reshape them. It can certainly include demagoguery (which is largely what you're describing, but with a peculiar sort of bias built in), but it can also simply include leaders whose worldviews, or at least the worldview they espouse, happening to align largely with that of 'the masses.'
    - danmaz74 9mo ago
      There is no such thing as "genuine views of the masses" which aren't shaped by anybody. "The masses" are made of people, all of which shape each other both at a micro and at a macro level, but the latter is disproportionately affected by mass communication - and, today, by digital social networks and their algorithms. Everybody has people who they look to for reference (ie, leaders) and that they trust on things which they don't know personally very well. Some leaders truly believe that you can eat your cake and have it too, and they tell their followers "trust me, and you'll have your cake and eat it too" - but usually these don't last long, because they're simply too stupid and/or ignorant. And this isn't an exclusive of the right or of the left: you have people who don't believe that carbon dioxide has a greenhouse effect, but you also have people who believe we can simply install solar panels and magically solve the mismatch between energy needs (temporal and geographical) and Sun irradiation. Some other leaders know perfectly well that you can't eat your cake and have it too, and that in reality you need to make compromises between various things you would like to have - but they tell their followers the opposite, because they only care about reaching and then maintaining power. These are the demagogues, but they ally with the people from above and, together, form populist movements. Then there are leaders who try to find the best compromise between the various things that "the masses" want/care about, and what reality allows to the best of our knowledge. Those are the non-populist, and they exist.
      - somenameforme 9mo ago
        Well that's a rather political answer in that you're saying a lot, but avoiding the question, unless I'm expected to read into what you're saying, which can be interpreted in either way. I won't push it beyond to emphasize that I'm not picking particularly fringe arguments, as per your examples, I'm picking completely mainstream and normal rhetoric that you would hear from effectively 100% of politicians of a certain leaning. As for 'genuine views' - contemporary politics is full of endless issues that if each person, absent any awareness of where we ended up, were to rank the importance - would end up nowhere remotely near the top. An obvious example is transsexual stuff. It's also comparably full of gaslighting on issues that may benefit the country, but hurt the people. For instance low skill immigration reduces wages of low-skill workers, while simultaneously 'growing the economy.' This is something which has been studied and confirmed endlessly, yet politicians and the media will do things like misrepresent studies or cite localized studies from 46 years ago to try to implicitly, sometimes explicitly, argue that it increases wages. It's complete gaslighting. I view populism as stepping away from these sort of deceptions. Many if not most great presidents of the US in the past would certainly be derogatively framed as a populist now a days. JFK telling people we can go to the Moon if we truly focus on it, that America's resources can be spent better than trying to meddle in every single country around the world, and that a great country can only stay great if both the country works for the people but the people also work for the country? That certainly seems to fit the typical usage of the term now a days.

somenameforme 9mo ago

How would you define it? Or would you disagree that democracy, in its nominal form, is a political system where political action is driven by the will of the masses?

danmaz74 9mo ago
In a liberal democracy the "will of the masses" is applied indirectly, through the election of representatives, making laws, and then applying those laws and governing in accordance to those laws. To get elected, politicians and aspiring politicians tell electors all sorts of things. Some of them tell electors that their problems have simple solutions, which go against what the intellectual elites (scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers etc.) recommend or say is doable. Those are what are usually defined populists. Some of them actually believe that "experts" lie for some agenda. Most of them know perfectly well that those simple solutions won't work, but say what they think electors want to hear. Not all politicians/parties act like that, even if it's common to have some populists in all most parties - because populism works.
- somenameforme 9mo ago
  It's unclear to me how the definition you're using isn't biased to the point of meaninglessness. Let me use an example. Politicians know full well we stand no chance of meaningfully impacting climate change for a practical reason - most emissions are coming from relatively adversarial countries. If we try to encourage them to reduce emissions via some form of ongoing compensation then we asking them to impair their development in exchange for accepting putting themselves into an exploitable dependency relationship with us. They will simply never accept this, so at best it will be superficial gestures that have no real chance of having a meaningful impact. So is the rhetoric around climate change, and politicians/parties running on claims of being able to impact it, populist, in your usage? I'd imagine not. But is there a 'clean' way to explain how this is excluded while maintaining any degree of meaningfulness of the term as you are using it? --- As for 'my' usage, I view populism as appealing to the genuine views of the masses, mostly in contrast to efforts to suppress or reshape them. It can certainly include demagoguery (which is largely what you're describing, but with a peculiar sort of bias built in), but it can also simply include leaders whose worldviews, or at least the worldview they espouse, happening to align largely with that of 'the masses.'
  - danmaz74 9mo ago
    There is no such thing as "genuine views of the masses" which aren't shaped by anybody. "The masses" are made of people, all of which shape each other both at a micro and at a macro level, but the latter is disproportionately affected by mass communication - and, today, by digital social networks and their algorithms. Everybody has people who they look to for reference (ie, leaders) and that they trust on things which they don't know personally very well. Some leaders truly believe that you can eat your cake and have it too, and they tell their followers "trust me, and you'll have your cake and eat it too" - but usually these don't last long, because they're simply too stupid and/or ignorant. And this isn't an exclusive of the right or of the left: you have people who don't believe that carbon dioxide has a greenhouse effect, but you also have people who believe we can simply install solar panels and magically solve the mismatch between energy needs (temporal and geographical) and Sun irradiation. Some other leaders know perfectly well that you can't eat your cake and have it too, and that in reality you need to make compromises between various things you would like to have - but they tell their followers the opposite, because they only care about reaching and then maintaining power. These are the demagogues, but they ally with the people from above and, together, form populist movements. Then there are leaders who try to find the best compromise between the various things that "the masses" want/care about, and what reality allows to the best of our knowledge. Those are the non-populist, and they exist.
    - somenameforme 9mo ago
      Well that's a rather political answer in that you're saying a lot, but avoiding the question, unless I'm expected to read into what you're saying, which can be interpreted in either way. I won't push it beyond to emphasize that I'm not picking particularly fringe arguments, as per your examples, I'm picking completely mainstream and normal rhetoric that you would hear from effectively 100% of politicians of a certain leaning. As for 'genuine views' - contemporary politics is full of endless issues that if each person, absent any awareness of where we ended up, were to rank the importance - would end up nowhere remotely near the top. An obvious example is transsexual stuff. It's also comparably full of gaslighting on issues that may benefit the country, but hurt the people. For instance low skill immigration reduces wages of low-skill workers, while simultaneously 'growing the economy.' This is something which has been studied and confirmed endlessly, yet politicians and the media will do things like misrepresent studies or cite localized studies from 46 years ago to try to implicitly, sometimes explicitly, argue that it increases wages. It's complete gaslighting. I view populism as stepping away from these sort of deceptions. Many if not most great presidents of the US in the past would certainly be derogatively framed as a populist now a days. JFK telling people we can go to the Moon if we truly focus on it, that America's resources can be spent better than trying to meddle in every single country around the world, and that a great country can only stay great if both the country works for the people but the people also work for the country? That certainly seems to fit the typical usage of the term now a days.