what is populism

I just finished reading "Understanding Populism" by Jan-Werner Müller, a professor of politics at Princeton University. After reading a lot this year, I can calm down and finish reading this kind of academic political science book. Overview of Populists:

First, populists always claim that they and only they can represent the people, which is the most important characteristic.

Second, populists will set the definition of the people, that is, those who meet certain identities or hold certain political identities belong to the people, and others, especially opponents, are classified as inappropriate people.

Third, populists will place themselves on the moral high ground. For those who criticize or oppose themselves, they will not debate policies or institutions, but will directly degrade and deny them morally.

Fourth, populists, when in opposition or not in power, will harshly criticize the government in power and label them as corrupt elites who are far from the people, but anti-elites are not necessarily populist.

Fifth, when a populist is in power, he will modify the existing system such as control of the judiciary and the media, especially by amending the constitution to ensure that he can continue to hold power. But he will not directly abolish the democratic system, because once democracy The whole is recognized by the public. Secondly, the direct overthrow of democracy will seriously affect the international reputation and even cause international sanctions.

This book sums up populism quite incisively. However, although the author emphasizes that populism has nothing to do with whether its political stance is left or right, he focuses on criticizing populism on the right, such as Trump and Brexit, and on populism on the left (in the It seems to me that there are many) He did not make the same comparison. In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion about the rise of populism in democratic countries, but populism does reflect that many people feel that their interests and demands are not represented. Support populists, so simple criticism will not help to improve the status quo The solution, after all, the essence of democracy is to compromise. Finally, when populism is brought into the CCP, I feel that the CCP conforms to almost every rule, from the founding of the party to the ruling party to the present, so what are the characteristics of China's country, a totalitarian populist country ? However, it seems that it does not even have a basic democratic system. It should be regarded as an authoritarian state that has successfully operated populism.