We are not fooled: Democracy versus populism

Comment published on New York Times online blog, in response to op-ed piece, “It’s time to depolarize ‘populist’,” 7/13/18:

The term fills a need. What populism most often means is some leader selling himself and his policies to a voting public by claiming (a) to be against "elites" and (b) to somehow represent "the people" against these elites.  

In the US, the two parties are linked to different elites: the Democrats to universities and their law schools, the Republicans to business elites without such ties. 

Bosses and leaders are elites by definition.  Often, one group of elites is empowered at the expense of another.  Trump's cabinet is a billionaire's club.  His claims to aid the ordinary are worse than dubious.

Populism could feed a broad attack on the university-educated classes; this would serve certain interests today, as education is disdained other than as job training, and universities are being gutted.  Indeed, Trump's base is the non-university educated.   (Underemployed college graduates lean not right but left).  

Populists appeal to "the people" or the common people.  This may be a revolt against privilege, with not having it conferring an ironic moral privilege.  (Liberals often say this, too).  It is an alternative to both democracy and reason (which go together), and so can be authoritarian.  Its structure is partly rhetorical, as we see with Trump.  "The people" need only be the object of a representation.  The term helps describe both the present regime and certain tendencies that may well prove fascist.  

The opposite of populism is not "elitism" but democratic socialism.