Brexit is often explained as populism, but it is driven more by what Timothy Snyder in The Road to Unfreedom calls ‘sadopopulism’, in which people are willing to inflict pain on themselves so long as they can believe that, in the same moment, they are making their enemies hurt more: ‘such a voter is changing the currency of politics from achievement to pain, helping a leader of choice create sadopopulism. Such a voter can believe that he or she has chosen who administers their pain, and can fantasise that this leader will hurt enemies still more. [This] converts pain to meaning, and then
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