So why is populism something that doesn't support democracy and promotes typically strong leaders and authoritarianism? — ssu

Populism is, essentially, plebeian mentality, and plebeian mentality is antidemocratic, simplistic, black-and-white, thus authoritarian.

It's not that the elites would have become corrupted; it's that (also because of democarcy), plebeian people, ie. people from low socio-economic classes have been able to attain positions of power (in politics, economy, education, art). These people have probably accumulated wealth and obtained higher education degrees, but they still are plebeians at heart.

It just seems that there's no antidote to populism

There is: the traditional class/caste system.

Nations do need some kind of homogenization starting from being equal citizens. — ssu

Equal??
People are not only not equal, people generally despise the very idea of equality.

I think you should watch more popular culture, reality tv, commercials (such as those for beauty products).

I want to post the links to some popular commercials that will dissuade you from ever thinking about equality as something possible or desirable.
(I won't post them for fear or legal consequences.)

Populism is, essentially, plebeian mentality, and plebeian mentality is antidemocratic, simplistic, black-and-white, thus authoritarian.

It's not that the elites would have become corrupted; it's that (also because of democarcy), plebeian people, ie. people from low socio-economic classes have been able to attain positions of power (in politics, economy, education, art). These people have probably accumulated wealth and obtained higher education degrees, but they still are plebeians at heart. — baker

This is a very interesting point you make, @baker.

Plebeian mentality might well be the root of the ideology. Our society, even if there is a democratic republican system, is still very meritocratic. Actually strives to be meritocratic, hence there will be always "the Plebeians". Meritocracy with capitalism creates income inequality, and that is structural, a basic part of simply supply and demand. What we do to erase the worst effects of this inequality is up to the society and the amount of social cohesion the society has. Still, Plebeian mentality won't go away. You will find this kind of thinking in every country, no matter how liberal or libertarian they are.

And when have democracy, it shouldn't be a surprise that actually what people think does matter. Yet if things are generally OK and people are happy, there simply isn't a reason for the juxtaposition and hatred in the way populism tells it. It simply isn't accepted in the public narrative or in the Overton window. Those holding the most radical "Plebeian ideas" simply don't say them aloud as they would be laughed upon.

In a way, populist ideology becomes publicly acceptable. It's the populist politician that changes the Overton window. The populist politician first says something outrageous, which before would have ended a politicians career, and suprisingly to the media that follows politics, he's getting support. And usually it's the media that is bashing him or her that actually makes then people to hear about this new politician. And when you a general dissatisfaction about how things are, these "outrageous" comments are exactly what the dissatisfied want to hear. That he is denounced makes him popular. The denouncement creates the "elite" that is hostile against the people and encourages more to believe in the populism.

And perhaps here is the so-called "elite" formed, because something has been unacceptable in the Overton window, it seems that criticism against breaking the accepted norms becomes "a concentrated effort by the elite to attack the populist". Hence the elite that the populism talks about is formed basically by all those who go to criticize the movement. They are the talking heads, the supporters and the sheeple brainwashed by the "elite".

People are not only not equal, people generally despise the very idea of equality. — baker

Equality in some matters. Legal equality. Equality in voting. Equality with the rights of freedom. Equality in being citizens of our countries.

Not equality in income and wealth as we surely have different kinds of jobs. I can just iddle my time writing here and not work, so why would somebody that works ten times more have equal income?

As I stated above, this inequality cannot be erased away. Only the worst aspects that it might lead can and should be taken care of.

Maybe it's odd that the United States hasn't had more populist movements?

On the one hand, 'the people' have been ruled by a small elite since the beginning. During many of the past 250 years, the elite has run rampant over 'the people'. On the other hand, the elite has successfully convinced 'the people' that there are no elites (against whom to fight). 'The People' rule! God bless the United States of America!"

Better than not having any elites at all, the American (and other) elites have done a good job depicting themselves as an attractive group of people. The Beautiful Rich are over there having a good time. Why should they not?

Why should they, one might better ask, given that their wealth has been stolen from the labor of the working class (either recently or in the past).

Is there a difference between a leftish populist (maybe Bernie Sanders) and a socialist committed to revolutionary goals? I think so. The socialist revolutionaries may not be in close touch with reality, but they do have a plan, a method, a goal which encompasses the whole population. Where socialists have dry, cold plans, it seems like populists have hot steamy resentments--directed at any number of deserving groups: muslims, immigrants, welfare mothers, women, gays, etc. etc. etc.

The problem with this discussion may be the various understandings about what counts as 'elite'. Does it mean the rich and powerful - the corporations and their privileged servants, or do we mean the educated and professional classes, whose expertise used to matter? The former are less likely to be the latter. In Australia we have often had educated progressives labeled elites by right wing politicians. Mainly because their views required nuance. I think this has neatly distracted people from the real debate; who are the people in charge?

Any thoughts about this distinction?

Some movements are slippery and pinning them down is difficult. One author said that the behavior of fascists (how they operate) is more important than what they believe. If Huey Long, George Wallace, Ross Perot, Sarah Palin, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump can all be defined as "populists", then apparently what is unique about populists is how they engage in politics Bernie Sanders and George Wallace are far apart ideologically, but both of them had a mass appeal (just not 'mass' enough to win). They were both 'insurgents'. So was Donald Trump, who did get enough votes (once and never again we hope).

Long, Wallace, and Trump also smelled more than a little like fascists, something I wouldn't say about Perot or Sanders.

The language of "elites" is as screwed up as the language of "class". A sociologist looks at society and sees classes -- working class, middle class, upper class, ruling class, etc. Class is definable by various features (blah blah blah -- you know this, so I won't go on). "Elite" is a familiar adjective when applied to athletes--think gold medal olympians. "Elite" also applies to those who have, guide, and execute power--the Power Elite of money, military, and politics. The power elite is a fraction of the wealthy top class. There may be 5 million people in the wealthiest class, of whom maybe 50,000 compose the power elite. Some of them are technocrats; quite a few of them are extremely successful capitalists; a few of them are politicians (politicians usually come from below the elite classes, but serve the elite if they want to stay in office); some of them are military elite; there are artists who are elite in their field--most of them nowhere near as wealthy as Taylor Swift

The elite class supports both political parties, more or less consistently, but not strictly; they occasionally support counter-cultural movements like the civil rights movement which was bucking the Jim Crow system 70 years ago.

So much of what goes on in society is managed by the power elite directly or indirectly. How much will we give to Ukraine? How much to Israel? Taiwan? How many millions of asylum seekers/border crossers/migrants will we accept? How much will the rich be taxed? How oppressed will the poor be? How much are we going to do, or not do, about global warming? So on and so forth.

The elite are not sitting up there pulling strings; they aren't puppet masters because the masses are not puppets. It's much more a trickle down process, where the stated interests of the elites flow downward from on high through various academic and institutional channels until it reaches the pavement.

It is important to bear in mind that the Elites are not necessarily nice. It may suit them to have someone like Donald Trump stumbling around in the china store; maybe some of them feel that the liberal establishment needs to be braked. One thing IS quite certain -- the ruling class has class consciousness, and they know (in detail) what is good for them. They don't like chaos, loss of control, uncontrolled violence, and so on. They prefer to operate in an orderly society where people do what they are told to do, so up about it, thank you very much.

So, a lot of the discourse about privileged elites, progressives, populists, authoritarians, fascists, and so on is just peripheral chatter.

G. William Domhoff has done extensive research in the American Ruling Class, the power elite, and how it maintains and perpetuates itself. Here is aYouTubetalk by Domhoff. He did his main research and writing decades ago, but got it right. In his later hears he has turned his attention to neurocognition and dreaming.

That's a good wrap up of the issue. :up:

Maybe it's odd that the United States hasn't had more populist movements? — BC

There are reasons for this. Many ideas about America that Americans have have been against it.

On the other hand, the elite has successfully convinced 'the people' that there are no elites (against whom to fight). 'The People' rule! God bless the United States of America!" — BC

I agree. This is something that is drilled into the minds of Americans of the exceptionality of America and the American dream. You should know just how difficult is for many Americans to talk about there being classes in America. Some think of the word as being similar as "caste" and start a monologue of how the US is different from other nations.

Then there's the unique history.

Of course there's a simple reason why the "founding fathers" didn't see themselves as part of an elite. That time the elite was the aristocracy, which had inherited it's rule thanks to feudalism. And not many of them had immigrated to America. I think those that had been governors had titles and hence were part of the aristocracy, but these people weren't usually on the side of the rebels. Perhaps it would have been different if feudalism had come with the British.

Then there's the American admiration of the rich, especially the "self made man". This can be seen clearly in American politics where billionaires just being billionaires get admiration for the "obvious talent" in getting rich. Mr Trump wouldn't had at all that support if he had been just a guy with 10 million dollars (which he might have in net wealth or something far less than he says). Obviously you can see this from the fact that richest women don't get such a say as the majority of them have got their wealth in either a divorce or their husband dying. I think only the 7th wealthiest woman in the US has made her money herself.

Also the whole idea of the "American Dream" and the focus on individuality actually has worked in favor of the people accepting the elite. Americans do listen to their billionaires and take them seriously. And if some are foreign born (like Elon Musk), that just shows that the US is still the "land of opportunity".

Of course now things are little by little changing. And I think this is the reason why populism has only know got a firm place in American politics. The Overton window has changed.

I'd say, looking at the current situation, the idea that there are elites who are getting more and more power and undermining democracy is correct. The problems with populism can coexist with this being true. IOW the situation could be populism leads to bad and things and the analysis is wrong about the current situation. Or it could be that populism leads to bad things, despite the analysis being correct.

A disorganized response:
1) as said I think the analysis is correct. There is more and more concentration of power in government, media corporations, banks and other financial institutions and corporations in general. Power and money are getting more concentrated and things like government oversight of industry, for example, or equal treatment under the law are now going back to less fair times and practices.
2) populism is not restricted to the politicians who get labelled this way. In the US both Republicans (who were career politicians and not considered fringe by most) and Democrats (also having those characteristics) have run with significant degrees of implied or stated populist rhetoric.
3) which hints at the problem for me: the people running as populists are part of the elites. They may claim outsiderness, but at most their sort of black sheep of the elites. Trump and Clinton for example have been attending the same events and power groups for decades. So, you get a slightly to significantly loose cannon elite member when you vote for a populist. Why is this so? Well, you just can't be some kind of (merely seeming) outsider with any chance of winning without having tremendous power and connections. But given the myth of outsiderness, now you have a mandate to make changes, sweeping and deep changes. Well, that's autocratic. Of course, it could be a benevolent dictatorship and there are a few rare instances where people came in made big changes and allowed other factions to take over when voted in. But it's rare.
4) Not enough people are willing to face the fact that the system is messed up and getting worse. Which means that how to make fundamental changes and all the negotiation and analysis that needs to go into that, and a broad set of players engaging in the process is ruled
out.
5) And then we want to get rescued by a strong daddy (or, now, potentially, mommy).

Trump and Clinton for example have been attending the same events and power groups for decades. So, you get a slightly to significantly loose cannon elite member when you vote for a populist. Why is this so? — Bylaw

From my perspective anyone who can be in a position to become president is an elite. Left and right mainstream are just differently wings of the same neoliberal elite.

I would imagine that one form of populism might also embrace wanting to end wars, invest in schools, housing infrastructure and health care, reduce military spending and tax the wealthy, That form of populism seems to be quashed.

Either Bernie Sanders' worldview is not rightfully called "a populist" one, or the title is refuted.

I think so.

From my perspective anyone who can be in a position to become president is an elite. Left and right mainstream are just differently wings of the same neoliberal elite. — Tom Storm

I hoped I got that idea across also, but in any case, I agree. I don't think of them as the core of the elite and I am not sure how organized the elite is, but they need elite approval to get in and they have obligations to (and common interests with) the elite.

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, it was often remarked how the US Republican Party had far more "discipline" than their rivals. That is, they were very good at voting lock step on issues, which gave them significantly more leverage than their electoral success would necessarily entail. The Democrats, by contrast, had frequent problems with defections, people being unwilling to vote for party prerogative.

Well, today it seems like the opposite is true, but it got me thinking that in electoral systems there is a benefit to pooling votes, something like "I will vote for things I don't like for you if you will vote with me on things regardless of what you think of them." The centralization of decisionmaking allows votes to be used for more effectively. People can essentially trade autonomy and the ability to have a voice in all votes for political power, i.e., a greater ability to get their way on some key issues.

This has the effect of shifting to locus of power away from votes in the legislature and into the more shadowy realm of internal party politics, which is sort of the opposite of "populism." However, it also has an application to popular support for authoritarianism. Here, people are willing to give up on having input in all issues for getting their way on some key issues that are more important to them. So, they might support giving significantly more autonomy to a single leader, reducing their own power, in exchange for getting progress on some key issue like immigration, welfare expansion, etc.

Counterintuitively, delegating your political authority to a centralized decision-maker is a way to increase your political power, even as it reduces your individual input into decisionmaking. This strategy works as long as enough other people are also willing to delegate decisionmaking authority.

Populism is inherently unstable in democracies though because people can always pull out of such tacit agreements and because this sort of agreement entails that legislators don't actually represent their voters, but instead the "party-line." The current state of the GOP is a good demonstration of this tension.

2) populism is not restricted to the politicians who get labelled this way. In the US both Republicans (who were career politicians and not considered fringe by most) and Democrats (also having those characteristics) have run with significant degrees of implied or stated populist rhetoric. — Bylaw

There naturally is both right wing populism and leftist populism. Perfect example of far left populism in our time is Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

the people running as populists are part of the elites. They may claim outsiderness, but at most their sort of black sheep of the elites. Trump and Clinton for example have been attending the same events and power groups for decades. So, you get a slightly to significantly loose cannon elite member when you vote for a populist. Why is this so? Well, you just can't be some kind of (merely seeming) outsider with any chance of winning without having tremendous power and connections. But given the myth of outsiderness, now you have a mandate to make changes, sweeping and deep changes. Well, that's autocratic. Of course, it could be a benevolent dictatorship and there are a few rare instances where people came in made big changes and allowed other factions to take over when voted in. But it's rare. — Bylaw

I agree. The populist leader has to create the myth around him (or her) that he either has had this awakening or that from the start he has been fighting against these elites. As you said, the black sheep are in the perfect position here as they have nothing to lose, they are already out from the 'in-crowd'. And it surely gives that personal drive for the revenge against them.

But let's think this through, because it comes to core of populist belief and narrative, the idea of the evil elites and the good people. So, do we want our political leaders be unexperienced, even not well educated? Are those really traits that we want from our leaders?

Because if a person is very experienced in leadership roles, he or she is surely part of the elite, isn't it so? Even if the person is highly educated, seen the World, has studied the problems the society has and so forth, aren't those kind of persons also part of the elite?

For the populist, they surely are. The only saving grace can be if the person is onboard with the populist cause. Then suddenly, they are accepted, because there against the elites. And here you can see just why populism leads to authoritarianism and to leader cults. Even if we have democracy, our society is a meritocracy and specialization of work. Meritocracy creates elites, just like a division system in sports creates the sporting elite, where the highest league has professional athletes and the 5th division teams have people whose hobby is sports. Now if you would mix the players of all the divisions meaning that the best and the worst players would be distributed in all teams randomly, then ask yourself, would you be willing to spend money to see such great 'democratic' sports games?

Since populism at it's core is against this specialization that structurally causes elites to be formed, it has a permanent glitch in it's thinking as populism is a prisoner of it's own narrative. It's against elites and sees everything from this focus. You might argue, that this isn't something important, but it is. Because once the populist leadership is in power and if it fails, gets clogged in the democratic process with dealing in parliamentary politics, the opposition in the movement can always cry wolf and say that the leadership has betrayed it's goal and is now simply part of the elite that it once was fighting against.

Elites can and many times are corrupt and incapable and don't worry much if anything about other people, but the fact remains that in politics there's always going to be an elite. States and societies are simply too large for anything else. As @Tom Storm above said the obvious:

From my perspective anyone who can be in a position to become president is an elite. Left and right mainstream are just differently wings of the same neoliberal elite. — Tom Storm

This is why the narrative of populism is so hollow. It really becomes a problem when the populist movement gets to hold the power. Who is then the evil elite? Either populists then have to go with the idea that the evil elite are foreigners, the international conspiracy of the bankers,
or something like that, and now it the populist country against the elites, or they have to simply to fortify their position against the elites now driven off from power, but scheming always for the ouster of the populists. Or likely do both.

The problem is that in this juxtaposion of people against the elites, there is no room for democratic consensus, of making coalitions with other parties. Populists have an enemy. You don't team up with the enemy. Hence democracy isn't the way forward. Authoritarianism is. It's a battle.

5) And then we want to get rescued by a strong daddy (or, now, potentially, mommy). — Bylaw

And here the seductive populist narrative works very well. With it's brash rhetoric populism sounds so different and the supporter of populism thinks he or she is making changes to politics.

I think it may be possible to distinguish between two basic types of populism: let's call them "cause populism" and "power populism". Cause populism gets behind an ostensibly moral cause, could be worker's rights, climate change, corporate reform, free speech, etc. Or it could be a combination of these. But essentially a cause populist should be driven by and be able to articulate an ideological goal that determines a coherent set of responsibilities that their leader is bound to carry out while in office (and be judged by his or her ability to do so). The social framework is situated in the idea of the building of a better society by removing special interests in the establishment that have heretofore prevented this from happening.

I think Bernie Sanders is a good example of a cause populist. I don't think cause populism leads to authoritarianism. The mandate of the leader is conditional not absolute and the conditions of success are pragmatically defined. You can ask a group of fellow cause populists about what policies they want implemented and get fairly consistent answers.

I see power populism on the other hand as resting on the promise of power without responsibility, of the resetting of power dynamics as an end in itself with the audience being those who believe that power has been wielded irresponsibly and unjustly against them. The social framework of the power populist is society not as a cooperative among interested parties but as an arena where one party must dominate (and whoever currently dominates is the elite). But the wish of the power populist is not really to rid society of elites, but to become their replacement (an elite by any other name). And the means are virtually irrelevant. Nor does the leader have any particular responsibilities except to wield power against those who his followers see as previously wielding it against them.

I think Trump is a good example of a power populist. His mandate is considered absolute and the conditions of his success are not clearly defined. In fact, they are almost anything he or his followers (but mostly him) decide them to be in the moment because the power is itself the success. People get confused why nothing Trump does dents his popularity. The solution to the conundrum lies in recognizing that he was always popular with those for whom he is an almost pure projection of a need for power. To criticize him would be an almost performative contradiction as long as he appears confident (powerful) in what he is doing. Which he does. It's obvious then how power populism is married to authoritarianism. And it's predictable that asking a group of power populists about policy matters and expecting consistent answers on substance (rather than e.g. slogans) is futile.

Cause populism gets behind an ostensibly moral cause, could be worker's rights, climate change, corporate reform, free speech, etc. Or it could be a combination of these. But essentially a cause populist should be driven by and be able to articulate an ideological goal that determines a coherent set of responsibilities that their leader is bound to carry out while in office (and be judged by his or her ability to do so). The social framework is situated in the idea of the building of a better society by removing special interests in the establishment that have heretofore prevented this from happening.

I think Bernie Sanders is a good example of a cause populist. — Baden

(Is Bernie a populist? He might be popular, but I'm not so sure he is a populist. But let's keep this more to the lines of political philosophy.)

Here I think it's important to make the separation with ordinary "non-populist" political movements and a populist movement. Let's say your objective is workers rights or tackling climate change. Here the issue is that you have a political agenda that you want to implement and basically anybody that agrees with your demands is an ally in this cause, even if in other policies they might not be. This is how democracy should work. Those who are against your climate change initiatives or even the corporations that oppose your work reforms aren't a class of people...because they hold these views. People understand that there's lobby groups that are against your ideas and promote different views. To say these groups exist isn't in my view cause populism: in a democracy you surely will find people that have different opposing ideas to yours. Above all, your focus is your agenda, not being against those that oppose certain people. Hopefully you see the difference here with a specific corporate lobby group and the people against the elite juxtaposition.

You really have to be Marxist and assume the juxtaposition of the proletariat against the capitalists and this to be part of the struggle against capitalism to have similar ideas as the populist. The juxtaposition between the proletariat and the capitalists is quite similar to present day populism, even if naturally Marxism has lot more than this populist idea. You can also see the obvious populism in German Nazism.

I see power populism on the other hand as resting on the promise of power without responsibility, of the resetting of power dynamics as an end in itself with the audience being those who believe that power has been wielded irresponsibly and unjustly against them. The social framework of the power populist is society not as a cooperative among interested parties but as an arena where one party must dominate (and whoever currently dominates is the elite). But the wish of the power populist is not really to rid society of elites, but to become their replacement (an elite by any other name). And the means are virtually irrelevant. Nor does the leader have any particular responsibilities except to wield power against those who his followers see as previously wielding it against them. — Baden

In my view your definition of Power populism is what populism really is. Cause populism is more like a classic political movement, which naturally has those against it that are happy with current situation and the present status quo.

As the populist is against the existing power elite, the game isn't as in normal politics. If your are pushing an agenda (workers rights, climate change etc.), you would be OK with the elite if the elite accepts your agenda and goes along with it. But as the populist starts from the idea that the people are being downtrodden by the existing elite, then that elite has to go. There's no other answer. Drop dead isn't a constructive proposal to reach some consensus. It's not about individual policies, it's about that evil group of people themselves. And replacing them the populist movement simply have to guard against the old elite from taking power again. And if you think the democratic system doesn't work, the legislature, the judiciary system and the executive branch are all corrupt, then the easy solution is authoritarianism. You see simply democracy as the reason why everything is so bad.

So it's no wonder that populists just love conspiracy theories. The bigger, the nastier, the better.

We're basically in agreement except for the nomenclature I guess, but fwiw I see Bernie as a kind of extension of occupy, which was more clearly populist and I at least think it's worth recognising a spectrum of populism with what I call power populism and what you see as populism proper the most virulent form of the phenomenon.

I see Bernie as a kind of extension of occupy, which was more clearly populist and I at least think it's worth recognising a spectrum of populism with what I call power populism and what you see as populism proper the most virulent form of the phenomenon. — Baden

I think Bernie has been in Congress since the 1990's and is so old that he participated as a young man in the civil rights movement.

Yet Occupy Wall Street was surely populist. The Occupy Movement hardly was looking for a leader, which basically made it disappear, so it really doesn't fit perfectly in the mold of a populist movement. Of course the Tea Party (that started originally from Ron Paul's campaign) was also populist. As this following venn diagram from years ago shows:



Yet the division between the left and the right is so successful that Americans didn't notice that both were against the obvious corruption that happened during the financial crisis. And Ron Paul, just like Bernie (or people like wasn't a populist. Both are quite OK trying to use the democratic system and understand they aren't the majority view.

If some Houdini of a politician can join both leftist populist and right-wing populism, that's it. Can break up firm political institutions very, very quickly.

The easy part is of course to notice the obvious things that are wrong, the more difficult what to do about. Yet populism has the answer that we've know seen again and again: Vote for us, and we'll fix it! Yep, that's enough that you have to say. It's enough because explaining lengthily how you will do something isn't the populist way. It's short, snappy sentences that people can easily remember and chant. Being undiplomatic and rude to others to show you aren't an appeaser, but tough.

If some Houdini of a politician can join both leftist populist and right-wing populism, that's it. — ssu

Some Houdini would have to bridge the psychological divide between those spheres first. The cognitive linguist George Lakoff describes it in terms of use of metaphor. The dominant metaphor for liberals and leftists is authority as "nurturing parent" and for conservatives and rightists it's authority as "strict father" and social expectations from the micro to the macro get built up around that, so even when an obvious problem becomes a common source of antipathy the two generally can't get together because the frameworks differ so much.