I generally don’t like populist messages or at least have been unsettled by them. They are often ignorant of the facts, or at their best will seek to destroy something awful, say a dictatorship, without a clear replacement. What are some examples of when populism is a good thing?
Thanks,
Rob
I think it’s OK to bump this now.
Are you sure none of the respondents have been banned?
No one ever responded. (or is that a whoosh?)
Generally speaking, a populist movement is trying to convince the general public that there’s some minority that is acting against them. It can be bankers or immigrants or big business or elitist liberals or black people or Asian store owners or rich people or poor people. But overall, it can easily lead to abuse when you target some group like this.
Populism is almost always good when it’s ‘punching up,’ so to speak. Unfortunately, sometimes ‘populism’ is just an excuse for one crowd of people to punch down at some other group further down the totem pole that they don’t like.
It depends on what you define as good policy. I have been (and still am) swayed by populism despite the fact that I rationally know it is full of half truths, manipulative emotional appeals and persecutory narratives (although there tends to be some truth in the narratives, if not they wouldn’t have emotional appeal). It is good for civics? Probably not. But if it motivates the public to get involved in civics to support policies that are good then it is not so bad.
But what are good policies? Populism seems like it has the most appeal for the hard left and the hard right. In the US, the hard left is social democrats/progressives and the hard right is the tea party. In some less developed nations the hard left are communists and the hard right is fascists. Do communists and fascists promote good policies? I seriously doubt it. Communists have done some good in the US though (anti-lynching efforts, labor efforts, civil rights efforts) but again it depends on your persuasion. Some people were swayed by the populism of George Wallace who was anti civil rights.
When your gore is doing the oxing, instead of the other way around. 
That’s generally been true in the United States. But there certainly have been popular movements in other countries that went far overboard in eliminating “enemies of the people”.
This might not be the greatest answer, but populism has got many Europeans involved in politics again. Parties like the National Front in France, UKIP in the UK or Podemos in Spain have gained the support of sections of the population that were previously too disillusioned to take part in the political game. I guess more people voting is a good thing, right?
“More people voting is a good thing,” is probably a populist fallacy itself.