What is a populist?

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. I disagree with significant portions of this academic description

I have no problem with the insight that Populism is a "thin ideology", that is a useful and accurate insight. In the abstract Populism does not entail a standard checklist of policy positions or a specific ideological orientation, which is why there are those who can be described as "Populist" from each side of the political spectrum, and even from the center. There do not tend to be populist theoreticians, though individual theoreticians of differing ideologies can have "populist tendencies"

Democracy at its essence is a populist model for political organization. Democracy has no specific ideology beyond core populism, and in that regard it differs from many other forms of government in that Democracy is inherently organized so as to identify and reflect the "will of the people" in regards to decision making by a society.

Some who espouse populism do so as demagogues, in order to gain political leverage over opposing forces by seeking to rally to their side large elements of the population who have substantial grievances against the status quo. In many cases this type of so called populist holds little or no allegiance to the true interests of those who they claim to champion. It is a pose taken for expedient reasons. Many if not most demagogues pose as populists, but that doesn't mean that they are populists in the true sense of that term. They are demagogues, and the distinction is both real and significant.

I believe that those quoted above tend to conflate populists with demagogues. There is no institute that issues formal accreditation for those who are then entitled to be identified as populists. Demagogues often self proclaim themselves as populists, as that is consistent with their strategy for seizing power. However many great and esteemed positive movement leaders can just as easily (if not more so) be described as "populists". Many of those who built the organized labor movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries can be deemed as populists. Same for many in the abolition and women's suffrage movements. Many would consider someone like Martin Luther King Jr. to be a true populist.

True populists identify real divisions in a society (rather than seek to manufacture them) and then seek to redress significant imbalances that those divisions reflect in the distribution of power, rights and resources among the populous as a whole. They by definition no more "split society" by calling attention to potential injustices relative to the haves and have nots among us than do Black Lives Matter activists split our society along racial lines by calling out the lesser valuation that institutionalized racism places on black lives relative to white lives.