Why is Populism on the Rise Globally?
The election of Trump and the rise of right-wing political forces in some European countries have once again made populism a buzzword. The rise of populist movements in the United States began as early as the outbreak of the US subprime mortgage crisis, such as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in 2011, but it was quickly suppressed. Afterwards, it was lulled for eight years by Obama’s slogans of change, which in reality brought no change.
By 2016, Trump, a wealthy businessman, successfully won the election by riding the wave of populism. In May of that year, I successfully predicted Trump’s victory, one of the reasons being that his campaign rhetoric very accurately targeted the segment of lower and middle-class and working class white voters who originally belonged to the Democratic Party. Research after the election also found this strategy to be remarkably effective. In 2024 election, Trump’s populism grew even stronger, and after Biden’s persecution, Trump gained a tragic aura, leading to another successful election.
Similar to the United States, many countries in the world today have embraced populism. In the 92nd episode of this program in 2021, Professor Zhang discussed “Populism Sweeping the West,” pointing out that the core problem of populism is that politicians exploit the irrational emotions of the people without genuinely studying and solving problems, let alone planning the overall and long-term interests of the country. Recently, right-wing populist forces in Europe have also been rising. Some European institutions have recently found that the strength of the far-right in Europe has exceeded pre-World War II levels, considering this a dangerous sign. Therefore, populism has become a key to understand the politics of various countries in the world today.
Western liberal scholars and media have extensively criticized the dangers of populism, and some liberal intellectuals in China have also vehemently denounced it. However, at the same time, there are many voices defending populism. What exactly is populism? Is it progressive or harmful? First, let’s look at the etymological development of the concept of populism.
Populism originated in Europe and the United States in the mid-to-late 19th century. One source is from Russian. In the 1860s and 1870s, Russian intellectuals formed a populist movement, advocating that Russia could bypass capitalism and directly reach socialism. The second source is from English. In the late 19th century, the United States saw the emergence of the People’s Party, which claimed to represent the interests of southern farmers and small industrialists, resisting the rule of Washington elites and East Coast financial capital. In addition, various populist movements also emerged in continental Europe at that time, some of which even later developed into fascism.
The term “populism” has had both positive and negative connotations since its inception. On the one hand, it represents the interests of ordinary people and has a certain legitimacy. For example, the European left-wing populist movement was later gradually replaced by the socialist movement, and many demands of the American populist movement were later absorbed by some progressive policies, especially by the Democratic Party, promoting American progressivism. For instance, Democratic presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Carter, Obama, etc., all used populist rhetoric and a populist image. Similarly, the Republican Party also competed in this regard. Figures like Nixon, Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump, many of whom were wealthy businessmen, also vied to portray themselves as representatives of the common people.
When populism was first introduced to China, it also had positive connotations. During the May Fourth Movement, it was once translated as “common people’s doctrine.” Li Dazhao’s “The Victory of the Common People” and Cai Yuanpei’s “The Sacredness of Labor” both belonged to this concept. On the other hand, after World War II, the concept of populism underwent a process of pejoration. Many American scholars began to deny the legitimacy of populism, viewing it as an irrational phenomenon of farmers opposing modernity, etc. Therefore, when we discuss it today, we usually use the term in a negative sense. However, even in this process of pejoration, Western discourse has encountered significant problems and fails to be logically consistent.
For example, in the United States, any country that does not conform to American interests, even if its regime was democratically elected through legitimate procedures, will be labeled as populist. On the other hand, those countries that obey American orders, even if they are truly populist, such as Zelenskyy, are touted as democratic. It’s just that now Trump wants to revoke Zelenskyy’s democratic status. Even some dictatorial regimes are packaged by the United States as so-called models of human rights. For example, President Roosevelt once commented on Nicaraguan dictator Somoza, saying, “I know he’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Therefore, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov specifically quoted this sentence to describe Zelenskyy. This sentence well illustrates the double standard of the United States, which “only talks about enemies and friends, not right and wrong.”
Although the United States is very skilled in its rhetoric, it has left behind a conceptual trap: what exactly is populism, what is democracy, and what are the standards? Next, let’s look at the standards behind democracy and populism.
I believe that both concepts involve a very important theoretical issue: the question of the majority and the minority. By definition, democracy represents the will and interests of the majority, with the minority obeying the majority. Populism also represents the will of the majority, so isn’t populism democracy? Here, we must first examine the Western concept of democracy.
Western democracy itself is a typical false concept. Since the birth of modern capitalism, it has established a state ruled by a minority of capitalists. However, with the rise of the European workers’ movement and the communist movement in the 19th century, as well as the expansion of civil rights and voting rights, capitalist countries gradually had to put on the guise of democracy. Wanting to use the facade of democracy but unwilling to genuinely represent the will of the majority, capitalist countries had two methods: one was to design various systems to constrain democracy, such as through constitutionalism, liberalism, the separation of powers, etc., preventing the people from holding power; the other was to rely on playing conceptual games to confuse people’s thinking.
This involves the dialectics of the majority and the minority. The Western system, simply put, relies on the rhetoric of the “majority within the minority” and the “minority within the majority” to maintain itself, which is very interesting.
First, what is the “majority within the minority”? If we look at all countries in Western history that have claimed to be democratic or republican, they have actually been governed by a very small number of people who possess political rights, and among these few, the majority decision procedure is adopted. This has been the case from ancient Greece and Rome to medieval Florence and Venice, and to today’s Western countries. For example, the Italian city-states in the Middle Ages were democratic to the extent that all groups eligible to participate in politics were selected by lot, a completely equal form of democracy.
Second, what is the “minority within the majority”? The wave of democratization in Europe since the 19th century made it impossible for the bourgeoisie to openly monopolize power. Therefore, they had to play some tricks of the “minority within the majority,” which is that they tamed and bought off a portion of the “aristocracy of labor” through elections and parliamentary politics, allowing a minority of elites from the vast majority of the working class to sit at the capitalists’ table. For example, the trade union movement in the United States after the 1950s and 1960s was also like this. Some minority leaders among the majority of workers sat at the capitalists’ table while using the wealth exploited from around the world to give a small share to the American union members. The welfare states in Europe after World War II were also similar.
Thus, Western workers, women, black minorities, and various marginalized groups could all share in the exploitation of the world, and thus abandoned their resistance to capitalist despotism. At the same time, a minority of elites among them were intentionally cultivated, decorating the facade of democracy, while the real majority, once they voiced their opinions or took action, would be labeled with the immoral label of populism.
Therefore, as soon as they engage in organized movements, they will be quickly suppressed, bought off, or tamed. The struggles of the lower classes in Western society cannot possess organized strength, cannot generate orderly movements, and cannot adopt effective strategies, ultimately degenerating into disorderly and unorganized impulsive actions and destructive emotional outbursts, just like the “Occupy Wall Street” and France’s “Nuit Debout” movements, which were quickly suppressed and resolved.
Or, as depicted in some Western films such as “In Time,” “V for Vendetta,” and “The Matrix,” a pessimistic prospect intertwined with fantasy and confusion is presented. This result precisely proves the pejorative connotation of populism. Therefore, capitalist countries disguise the minority as the majority, while raising the “minority within the majority” as specimens to decorate a facade of majority rule, creating a performance of democracy. The actions of the real majority are always accused of being populist, and populist actions are often instigated by demagogues, conspirators, and adventurers who emerge from the capitalist elite, causing most populist movements to become tools for the capitalist elite’s reshuffling game, ultimately serving the interests of the minority capitalists.
Third, let’s look at why socialist democracy can transcend populism.
If we look at the world socialist movement, there is also a dialectical issue of the majority and the minority. For example, the modern European proletariat suffered barbaric exploitation and oppression, triggering widespread resistance movements with populist characteristics. However, under the guidance of Marxism, it gradually embarked on the scientific path of the socialist movement. During the First International, Marx stated a very important principle: facing the ruling machine of the bourgeoisie, the workers have only one factor for success, which is their numbers. However, numbers alone are useless. Only when workers organize and receive intellectual guidance can their numerical advantage be transformed into a real advantage and play a role.
There are two key points here: first, “organize,” and second, “intellectual guidance.” These two points are a vivid expression of the principles of proletarian party building in the “Communist Manifesto.” Later, the First International failed, and then Marx and Engels considered the reasons for this. They then proposed a new proposition: that each country should establish an independent proletarian party. Under the leadership of the party, the proletariat can carry out violent revolution or engage in peaceful parliamentary struggle. In his later years, Engels specifically pointed out that the proletariat could turn the deceptive tool, namely the bourgeois parliament, into a tool for liberation, but at the same time, he also reminded workers not to unilaterally rely on parliamentary struggle and abandon violent revolution.
The success of the Russian Revolution later also successfully resolved the dialectics of quantity. Lenin once said that the proletariat has no other weapon in the struggle for power than organization. Therefore, under the leadership of the party organization, the Russian workers, on the one hand, had to win over the majority of the masses to gain an absolute majority, and on the other hand, within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the Bolsheviks, who supported Lenin, defeated the minority Mensheviks, achieving the mission of the revolution through this dual majority.
The Communist Party of China further developed the theory of the proletarian vanguard, clarifying the dual vanguard nature of the Communist Party of China as both the vanguard of the Chinese working class and the vanguard of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.
In summary, socialism can transcend populism by relying on a party composed of a minority of outstanding individuals who emerge from the proletariat and the masses, establishing a system that reflects the will of the majority under the leadership of the party, and implementing policies that conform to the interests of the people. Compared to Western liberal democracy, I believe this is a genuine democracy that successfully resolves the issue of the relationship between the majority and the minority that I mentioned earlier. I believe that at the current stage of human history, this is the only true means of achieving democracy.
Finally, let me summarize: the various populist movements in Europe and the United States in the 19th century went in different directions. Those with scientific theoretical guidance and organizational leadership embarked on the socialist road, while those obsessed with bourgeois parliamentary politics were ultimately tamed by capitalism. Although they experienced a brief and illusory period of prosperity after World War II with American so-called progressivism and European welfare states, the status and interests of the working people have continuously declined since the 1970s, ultimately leading to the populist outbursts of today.
Today’s populist movements and populism in various countries are essentially still a petty-bourgeois ideology, rooted in the fact that Western false democracy cannot accommodate the genuine demands of the people. Populism, under the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, is a disorderly and blind action of the masses lacking scientific theory and organizational leadership. It can only oscillate between radicalism and defeatism, and ultimately is often exploited and instigated by ambitious individuals.
Regarding the global populist trend, I believe that a scientific attitude for us is to neither completely deny its realistic rationality nor simply emphasize its justness, because populism itself is not the root cause; it is merely a symptom of capitalism. This trend will inevitably affect China, especially in the internet public opinion space, where various populist-like phenomena can also be seen. But we don’t need to worry, because as long as we adhere to advanced theory, advanced organization, advanced systems, and advanced policies, a society can effectively overcome and resolve populism and eliminate the soil that produces it.
Editor: yanghanyi
