The term ‘populism’ has had a long and checkered history in politics and is experiencing a resurgence recently, used to describe many political developments. In the past it was adopted as a term of pride, but lately it is used as a pejorative. As a result, its meaning has become so muddled that some scholars suggest abandoning the term altogether.

A common framework for interpreting populism is known as the ideational approach: this defines populism as an ideology that presents “the people” as a morally good force and contrasts them against “the elite”, who are portrayed as corrupt and self-serving. Populists differ in how “the people” are defined, but it can be based along class, ethnic, or national lines. Populists typically present “the elite” as comprising the political, economic, cultural, and media establishment, depicted as a homogeneous entity and accused of placing their own interests, and often the interests of other groups—such as large corporations, foreign countries, or immigrants—above the interests of “the people”.
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Other scholars of the social sciences have defined the term populism differently. According to the popular agency definition used by some historians of United States history, populism refers to popular engagement of the population in political decision-making. An approach associated with the political scientist Ernesto Laclau presents populism as an emancipatory social force through which marginalised groups challenge dominant power structures.

More recently, it has been used most often to describe the rise of right-wing movements that have sought mass support by appealing to nationalistic, xenophobic, and even racist sentiments. In the US, creepy Donald Trump’s nativist appeal to voters have been characterized as populist, as was Boris Johnson’s in the UK. In contrast, Kamala Harris and Keir Starmer have tried to portray themselves as ‘sensible’ leaders, seeking practical solutions to their respective countries problems, and eschewing demagogic appeals to divisive popular sentiment.

But not all populism is bad. Alex Yates discusses the difference between left-wing populism and right-wing populism. He says that the efforts by so-called anti-populists to portray both as equally undesirable extremes is wrong. He uses Starmer’s lackluster performance in the first 100 days in office and says that the his problem can be traced to his ‘anti-populism’ stance.

In Britain, populism is dead, or so claims much of the country’s pundit class. The Brexiteer wave has subsided, Corbynism has been crushed, and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party only won five seats in July’s general election. Keir Starmer’s premiership, then, is said to mark a return to politics as usual. After a painful populist interlude, the adults are back in the room.

Yet, if populism is no more, its specter seemed to haunt the Labour Party Conference in late September. As Starmer took the stage in Liverpool, he proclaimed that British politics remained marked by “people who still hanker for the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly fantasy of populism.” His government will, he insisted, take necessary tough decisions to remedy the economic mess left by the previous Conservative administration and move beyond the “politics of easy answers.”
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It has become a cliché in academia to refer to populism as a contested topic, with competing definitions trying to make sense of the notoriously slippery concept. Nevertheless, a growing consensus has emerged to define populism as a politics that pits “the people” against “the elite.” As such, this term can take on both left-wing and right-wing ideological content. Where left-wing populists tend to position “people” against “elite” in socioeconomic terms, right-wing populists chastise elites for ignoring the cultural grievances of “the left behind” or “white working class.” Right-wing populism, then, promotes an exclusive politics, in contrast to inclusive left-wing populism.

Anti-populism, however, ignores these ideological differences. For anti-populists, all populist politics is a threat to democracy. Liberal political theorist Jan-Werner Müller and Blairite acolyte Yascha Mounk, for example, warn political elites of the danger of divisive rhetoric. They give short shrift to the notion that left-wing populism could reflect a legitimate response to growing wealth inequality. As others have noted, anti-populism poses a greater threat to democracy than the populism it opposes. Not only does it engage in lazy horseshoe theory, presenting the Left and the Right as equally threatening to sensible centrism, it also aspires to a politics without “the people.” For anti-populists, the unwashed masses cannot be trusted with the complexities of government. Instead, politics should be the domain of experts, unimpeded by the whims of the lower orders.
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As political theorist Jonathan Dean has pointed out, however, anti-populists don’t actually need populists to oppose. Instead, they label all perceived threats to the status quo as dangerously “populist,” using a deliberately vague term. For Starmer and his outriders, “populism” is a useful slur to throw at his political rivals to delegitimize them.

This could not be clearer than in Starmer’s recent conference speech, where the term “populist” was used to insulate his austerity program from criticism. When describing populism as “the politics of easy answers,” Starmer presented all those who oppose his plans to slash the Winter Fuel Payment (which helps pensioners pay their energy bills) as fantasists. If one argues that there are other ways to address the supposed £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances, such as by increasing taxes on the wealthy, well, that’s simply “populism.”
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For Starmer, the demands of the young, those counted as minorities, and the poor are illegitimate “populism” — these people want something for nothing and don’t understand the tough choices governments have to make. Yet calls for more extreme policing of migration are positioned as entirely reasonable. Starmer and other middle-class elites imagine this is what the “white working class,” “left-behind,” or “Red Wall” want. Clearly, this fails to account for the fact that the better-off hold far more reactionary views than their working-class counterparts. Nevertheless, this fantasy of a backward working class sustains the increasingly authoritarian bent of Starmerism at the expense of those who carried them into power, hoping for the “real change” that was repeatedly promised.

This is a pattern that we see repeatedly in the US. Republicans run up huge deficits in the service of their goal of providing tax cuts to the wealthy, knowing full well that their predicted resulting huge economic growth that will more than pay for those cuts, the supply-side economics fantasy, will never materialize. But when Democrats get into power, they take pride in being ‘sensible’ and ‘responsible’ and tend to try to reduce deficits by cutting programs that actually serve the needs of people rather than increasing taxes. Spending more on the real needs of people and improving public services and getting the wealthy and corporations to pay for them is seen as catering to the big-bad ‘populism’.