A populist politics is one that calls upon, and claims to represent, ‘the people’. While this category does not exist as a permanent and immutable entity, what does prevail are parameters that elevate certain kinds of assembly, social trait or capacity. That is why the ‘ethnic people’ is defined by the community of blood and land; the ‘democratic people’ by the shared act of forging legitimate authority through elections; and the ‘ignorant people’ by a benevolent elite who generously keeps them at bay or defends them from themselves. The very essence of populism is to determine who ‘the
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