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Comment by scott_w | Hacker News Reader

That's an overly reductive definition. Alistair Campbell defines it to include a deliberate turning "the people" against "the elites" and to exploit the ensuing discord.

It's an important part that this isn't a genuine concern, it's 100% manufactured by the populist for their own benefit. Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, two populists, are both very much part of the "elite" they claim to rage against.

It's also important that this is done specifically to cause social problems they can exploit. They have no intention of actually fixing the problem they "identify" and will continue to blame new "elite" groups to obtain or maintain power.

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Instead of turning the people against the elites, you might more accurately describe it as mobilizing popular anger as a political force.

Obviously this is dangerous to those in power, and is therefore demonized by them.

Your last paragraph is simply wrong: populists have effected major development and social change. Huey Long in Louisiana is a good example.

> mobilizing popular anger as a political force.

> Obviously this is dangerous to those in power

This is a disgusting falsehood and I genuinely think you need to be ashamed of yourself for saying things like this. This "popular anger" is regularly directed against the most powerless in society. Look at the demonisation of LGBT+, ethnic minorities, refugees, Jews and traveller communities to name just a few.

To hold any notion that this "only a danger to those in power," you'd have to completely ignore huge swathes of recorded history. You'd also have to completely ignore the actual examples I gave of populists like Nigel Farage. The man who right now makes his career out of demonising refugees drowning in the English Channel.

I think you mentally inserted 'only' into that sentence.

Yes, certainly populists can be dangerous to all of those groups, as can elites. Political violence is certainly not limited to populists: indeed their contribution is small in historical terms.

> certainly populists can be dangerous to all of those groups

This is why you should be ashamed: that use of the word "can."

Populists always target vulnerable people. They're the easiest groups to direct public anger without fear of reprisal against themselves.

> indeed their contribution is small in historical terms.

You then follow up with this gem. This, again, is to completely ignore multiple genocides that populists directly caused. Simple example: The Holocaust.

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