What you've described often goes hand-in-hand with a two-party system. That way everyone finds themselves voting for what they believe to be the lesser of two evils.

Alternative voting systems (e.g. ranked choice systems) aren't some sort of political panacea, but they could help a lot with this issue. A populist thrives in an environment that does not support nuance. It would be harder for them to be successful if they were running against, say, 6 viable opponents rather than 1.

I hope we can address some of these major problems with democracy, because the alternatives generally aren't great.