328\. What is Populism? (English Vocabulary Lesson)
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Hello, I'm Tom Wilkinson and welcome to the Thinking in English podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced level learners of English. Populism is on the rise. Across the world, politicians and political parties are becoming increasingly populist. Today, I want to define populism.

We'll discuss what populism means, think about some examples of populism, both left-wing and right-wing, and then discuss whether populism is a negative thing. I'll also briefly mention my own story with populism. You can find a full transcript for this episode for free on Spotify, Apple and also on my blog. Here is today's vocabulary list.

Populism. Populism. A political approach that claims to represent ordinary people against a corrupt elite. For example, populism has gained popularity in recent years as more people feel disillusioned with traditional political parties. Elite. Elite. A group of people seen as having the most power or influence in a society.

as in, the elite often control major decisions in politics and economics. Establishment. Establishment. The ruling or influential group in society, such as the politicians, the media, or large organisations. For example, critics of the establishment argue that it prioritises its own interests over those of ordinary citizens.

Ideology, ideology, a set of beliefs or ideas that guides political, economic or social systems. For example, socialism and conservatism are examples of ideologies. Simplistic, simplistic, treating complex issues as if they are much simpler than they really are.

For example, the politicians' simplistic explanation of the economic crisis failed to address its deeper causes. Complex. Complex. Consisting of many interconnected parts. Not simple. As in, the global economy is a complex system. I just finished reading the book Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart.

Stuart was a Conservative Party member of Parliament, a politician in the UK, for about 10 years. He was on the more moderate side of the Conservative Party. At university, he was actually a Labour Party member and was also a Liberal Democrat voter, the centrist party in the UK, before he became a politician.

The book was extremely readable. Stuart has a smooth, engaging and often amusing way of telling the story of his life in Parliament. While I have never been a supporter of the Conservative Party, Rory Stuart seems relatively likeable. He attempted to become Prime Minister in 2019 when Theresa May resigned, but he was defeated by Boris Johnson.

While reading his book, one of the themes that kept coming to my mind was the growth of populism in the UK and around the world. A large part of Stuart's story revolved around Brexit, the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

He discussed the lying politicians who were promising the British people impossible things to get elected and framing Brexit as something that was for ordinary British people. Over the past decade or so, we have seen the rise of populism, populist movements like Brexit and populist leaders like Donald Trump across the world.

Today I'd like to explain and define populism. It is a very important topic that is probably relevant in your countries too. I'm also likely to annoy some of you, some of the listeners with this episode, as I'll describe popular leaders, including the US president, as a populist. But hopefully after listening you'll realise that populism is present in politics across the world.

It doesn't matter if a political party is left-wing or right-wing, if a politician is a racist or a progressive, they could use elements of populism in their political campaigns. Populism is a term that appears in discussions about politics all of the time, but it can be challenging to define clearly because it takes on different forms.

Populism is a political approach or style that claims to represent the interests and desires of ordinary people or the common people against the elite or the establishment. Populist leaders and movements argue that society is divided into two main groups, the people and the corrupt elite.

Let's take a deeper look at the features of populism. Populism is built around the idea of us versus them. But who are us and them? Who are the people and the elites? The people are the honest, hardworking citizens of a country.

They go to work every day, raise their families, pay taxes and try their best to make a good life. They are people like you and like me. The elite, on the other hand, are seen as corrupt, selfish and disconnected from ordinary citizens. What is most difficult to comprehend about populism?

is that the elite can refer to completely different groups in different situations. In many countries, the elite are the super wealthy, the billionaires and the large business owners. They are seen as having too much power, too much influence and as exploiting ordinary people.

In other countries, the elite could refer to all politicians and people involved in making decisions. It could be the media, the newspapers and the TV news channels. Or it could even be academics at universities. Think about the USA. Donald Trump has just been elected again. During his first election campaign in 2016, his main slogan was Drain the Swamp.

Drain the swamp meant he was going to clear out the elites and the establishment from Washington DC. He was going to remove the corrupt officials, the career politicians, and instead represent normal Americans. However, Trump is a billionaire property developer that has spent his life exploiting normal people.

His supporters include Elon Musk, the world's richest person. And at his inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, the CEO of Google, the owner of Amazon, were all sat in the front row. In another context, these people would be the elites. Another key feature of populism is a simple solution to a complex problem.

Think about right now in the USA again. There is an incredibly complex situation regarding immigration, illegal immigrants and the various legal issues around this. For decades, politicians and governments have tried to solve this issue with money, experts and various policies. And it is something that definitely needs to be addressed. It's an important issue. Trump

has a simple solution. In 2016 it was build a wall. If there was a wall on the border, no one could get into the country illegally. A very simple solution to a difficult problem. No one seemed to care that it would be incredibly expensive, did nothing for people already in the country, or that it was basically impossible to secure. This time, Trump has a different solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

mass deportations. Another simple solution: kick everyone out to a complex problem. The book I read by Rory Stewart also shows elements of this. He discussed the 2019 Conservative Party leadership race, where he attempted to become leader of the party and therefore prime minister. Every candidate in the election, apart from Rory Stewart,

promised that Brexit would be completed by October 31st 2019. Stewart complained that this was literally impossible. The only way it could be done would be to close Parliament, which was illegal and undemocratic. This didn't matter to any of the other candidates though. They continued to state that they guaranteed it would be completed and that they would find a way.

Populism reduces these complicated political and economic and social issues to simple, easy-to-understand solutions. And this is obviously popular with most people. Imagine there is an unemployment crisis in your country.

The crisis is likely related to business conditions, inflation, social policies, demographic challenges, education and much more. It's not simple to solve an unemployment crisis. A traditional conservative might say something like, we will reduce unemployment by creating tax incentives for businesses to grow and hire more workers.

A traditional left-wing politician might say we'll tackle unemployment by investing in public infrastructure projects and increasing funding for social programs. These are not instant or simple solutions, but they are practical and realistic ways that you could try to fix unemployment. They might not work, but they could work. How would a populist respond?

Well, a left-wing populist might say, we will eliminate unemployment by taking back control from greedy corporations and guaranteeing jobs through government programmes. A right-wing populist might say, we will end unemployment by stopping immigration and putting our own citizens first in the job market.

These are much quicker and simpler to understand solutions to the problem, stop immigration or guarantee public jobs.

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Available for a limited time at participating restaurants. Tax not included. Prices may vary. Not valid with any other offer, discount or combo. I think it would be better to describe populism as a political style rather than a fixed ideology. Unlike ideologies such as socialism, liberalism, conservatism, populism doesn't have a set of principles. Populism is often present in left-wing politics.

Left-wing populism focuses on economic inequality and criticises wealthy corporations or capitalists as the elites. Examples include Bernie Sanders in the USA, who blames big business and billionaires for the problems in the country. Quite a few left-wing political leaders in South America include populist elements in their policies.

In left-wing populism, the elites are the wealthy, the business owners and the corporations. In 2015, I joined the UK Labour Party to vote for the left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn was not a populist, not a full populist anyway. There were lots of articles online discussing whether he was or not.

But he definitely appealed to populist sentiments and had some populist elements in his politics. If you don't know, Jeremy Corbyn was a long-time Labour MP, a pacifist and a left-wing peace activist. He was one of the most left-wing members of the Labour Party and was only nominated to be Labour leader because no one thought he would win.

However, in the election, Corbyn won easily because he was different. He grew the Labour Party to be one of the biggest political parties in Europe. I actually read an interesting article that argued that Corbyn wasn't a populist, but he was selected as the leader of a populist movement by a group of people who wanted a populist leader.

I think this is true. I was fed up with British politics being controlled by the same people and I wanted someone different. I wanted someone who cared about the world to be elected. So I joined the Labour Party. I voted because I thought Corbyn was a simple solution to a complex problem, even though he never promised any simple solutions.

In recent years, right-wing populists have undoubtedly been higher profile and more successful. Right-wing populism emphasises issues like immigration, national identity and national culture.

An article from Foreign Policy in 2019 stated that every European country, apart from Ireland, Malta and Portugal, had populist politicians in their parliaments. And I think now every country does. The Freedom Party in Austria, Marine Le Pen in France, AFD in Germany, Brothers of Italy, Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Law and Justice in Poland, the Reform Party in the UK...

There are so many examples of right-wing populism in Europe right now. Basically, modern politics across the world has been dominated by populism. Whether the political party is left-wing or right-wing, they are probably using elements of populism. They are campaigning against a corrupt elite. They are promising quick and simple solutions. And they are against the current establishment.

In Europe and North America, populists right now tend to be on the right of the political spectrum. They focus on culture and social issues, often immigration, right? For example, Brexit in the UK was a super complex political and economic question about the future of the UK.

But populist politicians like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson turned it into a simple question of who controls the UK's borders. Most British people didn't understand the economic side of Brexit because no politicians talked about it. Customs unions, WTO trade conditions, tariffs, the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland –

These are really challenging concepts and terms for 99% of people, but they were a key part of Brexit. However, the Brexit campaigners didn't mention any of these and instead said that Brexit would allow Britain to control its borders, control its trade and its own policies.

In South America, populism is more commonly associated with left-wing leaders who focus on the economy, like Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The most famous example is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the most extreme example as well I guess, who framed himself as against the traditional establishment and also against the USA and big corporations and promised to use the country's wealth to make ordinary Venezuelans' lives better. You can also find left-wing populist movements in European countries, at the moment in Spain and in Greece as well I think.

So I've talked about populism, discussed its characteristics and probably annoyed some of you by mentioning political parties or movements that you like. So is populism a bad thing? Well, I think right now most people today associate populism with far-right politics. However, populism is a style that can apply to any type of politics. I don't think it's an inherently bad thing.

It depends on how it's being used. For example, there are some elements of populism that I think are potentially positive. Giving ordinary people a voice in politics. Getting them involved in politics is a good thing. Issues like economic inequality and corruption are often highlighted by populist parties. This is also good. The Prime Minister of the UK when Brexit happened was David Cameron.

who went to the famous Eton School. His cabinet, the people in charge of government departments, was filled with people he went to school with, and his personal advisors also mainly went to Eton School. In fact, Rory Stewart, who wrote the book I mentioned earlier, also went to Eton School. It's important to point out that this is the establishment, the elite people.

Businesses, the mega-wealthy and corporations have also had too much of an influence in politics. The fact that populism highlights these is not bad. However, in general, I think there are many negatives about populism. Complex problems are often oversimplified by populist politicians. You can't solve unemployment by just closing the border or by taking control of companies.

These are appealing solutions, but how often do they actually work? Populism also divides people. Families were divided over Brexit in the UK. Trump supporters and Biden-Harris supporters in the US seem to hate each other. I'm sure the same is true in other countries. And finally, populism can lead to authoritarianism.

The media could be considered to be part of the elites, so they may be targeted. Newspapers shut down or the TV channels taken over. Then the courts, the judges, could be considered to be part of the establishment, so they are taken over too. And then other politicians are targeted. Eventually, in the most extreme cases, the populist leader may become a dictator.

justifying their rule because they are the only true representative of the people and all other political parties are just corrupt elites. But what do you think? Hopefully after listening to this episode you understand populism a little better. I talked about the definition of populism, gave some examples and questioned whether it is a good or bad thing.

I even mentioned how I joined the British Labour Party to select Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Corbyn wasn't really a full populist, but he benefited a lot from populist feelings among his voters, including me. At the moment in the UK, most of the populist politicians are on the right-wing side of politics. The Reform Party performed well on anti-immigration platforms in the last election,

And the Conservative Party are still trying to decide what kind of party they will become. How about in your country? Does your country have an issue with populist politicians? Do you think populism is a bad thing? Or can it have some positives? And in your country, is populism mainly associated with left-wing or right-wing politics or both sides of the politics?

And actually something I didn't mention in this episode, but I want your opinions on, is do you think social media is increasing populism? Because I do. I think the fact that we now have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, we have one sentence to explain our thoughts to the entire world, I think that's encouraging politicians to

to use more simple explanations and to make themselves seem like they represent normal people against the elite people because it makes them more popular.

So I'm curious whether you think that is true as well. Thank you for listening. As a former political science student, I love writing about topics like this and I hope I try to be as balanced as possible because I want to make it clear that populism is both an issue on the left and the right, the far right, the moderate right, the moderate left, the far left. They all have elements of populism in their ideas.

Well, they can have elements of populism in their ideas, at least. But thank you for listening, and I'll see you all next time. Goodbye!

As a longtime foreign correspondent, I've worked in lots of places, but nowhere as important to the world as China. I'm Jane Perlez, former Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times. On Face Off, the US versus China, we'll explore what's critical to this important global relationship. Trump and Xi Jinping, AI, TikTok, and even Hollywood. New episodes of Face Off are available now, wherever you get your podcasts.