Müller argues persuasively that a necessary but not sufficient condition of populism is to be critical of elites. In addition, he suggests, populists are always anti-pluralist, claiming they and they alone represent the people. Populist protest parties, he argues, cancel themselves out once they win an election as they can’t protest against themselves in government but they can govern as populists, which he suggests goes against the conventional wisdom. Müller explains that any failures of populist movements can still be blamed on elites acting behind the scenes. Populism distorts the
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