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A review by ballisticbaylor
Populism: A Very Short Introduction by Cas Mudde, Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser
4.0
“Unlike thick-centered or full ideologies, for example, fascism, liberalism, socialism, thin-centered ideologies such as populism have a restricted morphology which necessarily appears and is attached to and is sometimes even assmilated into other ideologies. In fact, populism almost always appears attached to other ideologies."
Yet another VSI I started because I kept hearing a word in the news and thought, “okay, but what is that really?” So what did I learn?
Populism is a cynical view of a country’s status, usually led by a charismatic leader who casts themself as a political outsider and uses that to divide the country into “the people” and “the elites.” Unfortunately, this usually carries a somewhat Manichean undertone of the “good” or “pure” vs the “evil” or “corrupt.” The charismatic leader plays the savior role in returning the country to the general will of the people.
On a potentially positive side, “By giving voice to constituencies that do not feel represented by the elite, populism works as a democratic corrective.” However, on the negative side, “Populists often do this by politicizing issues that are not discussed by the elites, but are considered relevant by the silent majority."
All this sound familiar? Yeah, well, weirdly this book was written at the very beginning of Trump’s rise and therefore has little to say about him. Instead, the author provides an abundance of examples from other nations that were so foreign to me that I admittedly glazed over much of it.
All in all, I feel I have a basic grasp on populism now. Though this one gets in the weeds with potentially unfamiliar examples, I recommend it.
Yet another VSI I started because I kept hearing a word in the news and thought, “okay, but what is that really?” So what did I learn?
Populism is a cynical view of a country’s status, usually led by a charismatic leader who casts themself as a political outsider and uses that to divide the country into “the people” and “the elites.” Unfortunately, this usually carries a somewhat Manichean undertone of the “good” or “pure” vs the “evil” or “corrupt.” The charismatic leader plays the savior role in returning the country to the general will of the people.
On a potentially positive side, “By giving voice to constituencies that do not feel represented by the elite, populism works as a democratic corrective.” However, on the negative side, “Populists often do this by politicizing issues that are not discussed by the elites, but are considered relevant by the silent majority."
All this sound familiar? Yeah, well, weirdly this book was written at the very beginning of Trump’s rise and therefore has little to say about him. Instead, the author provides an abundance of examples from other nations that were so foreign to me that I admittedly glazed over much of it.
All in all, I feel I have a basic grasp on populism now. Though this one gets in the weeds with potentially unfamiliar examples, I recommend it.