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Flavors of Populism
For years, we've been hearing both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders described as "populists". As Wikipedia points out, the word "populist" is extraordinarily ill-defined, more often used as an accusation than as a self-identification, but its various meanings all line up with "favoring the interests of the virtuous ordinary people against the evil elite", where "elite" is defined as whatever the politician in question opposes. There's also a connotation that "populist" politicians will promise, and perhaps even give, the people whatever they ask for, without regard to whether it's achievable or a good idea in the long run. That definition certainly applies to Donald Trump, whose policies seem dictated by what lines drew the most applause at a rally.
Most recently, Vice Presidential nominee J. D. Vance is described as a right-wing populist, but not in the same way: Vance adds an actual ideology to Trump's genetic-algorithm approach. Both have said some things I (and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC and...) agree with, such as that "the system is rigged against ordinary people", although they differ on who's doing the rigging: in Trump's case it's "Democrats" and anybody who's ever dissed him, while for Vance it includes billionaires and large corporations. (Although considering that one is a billionaire, and both have gotten a lot of support from billionaires, I don't expect any policies from either that hurt the best interests of billionaires.)
Another thread in some flavors of populism is the notion that "the people" are not only virtuous but homogeneous -- politically, religiously, ethnically. The Communist Soviet Union and Communist China both leaned into this, paying particular worship to the traditions of their predominant ethnicities, while pretending that other ethnicities didn't exist. And both were/are renowned for cracking down on political dissent from the party line. (Both also created their own "elites" of Party officials who, despite egalitarian pronouncements, somehow always ended up with all the material goods.) Right-wing (but not left-wing) populism in the US does the same thing, cozying up to neo-Nazis, Christian fundamentalists, and overt white-supremacists. Both left-wing and right-wing populism sometimes "cancel" people for expressing politically incorrect views, but only the right-wing side seeks racial and religious homogeneity.
Another difference has to do with proposed remedies. (Parts of) both left-wing and right-wing populism agree that billionaires and multinational corporations represent an "elite" that has too much power, and both propose counterbalancing that power with the power of government, but they differ on the specifics. For FDR and perhaps Teddy Roosevelt, this required the rule of law exercised by a strong man not hemmed in by too many procedural quibbles. More recently, this strategy has split in two: the left emphasizes the Rule Of Law, while the right has emphasized the Strong Manly Man who can cut through red tape and Do What Needs To Be Done without regard to niceties like the law, individual rights, or anybody else's opinion. The left wants to strengthen government to build a nation of laws, not of men, while the right wants to strengthen government to build a nation of men, not of laws.
Both of these approaches have practical problems. On the right, as the saying goes, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The more power you concentrate in one individual, insulated from accountability, the more likely that individual is to become (first) self-justifying, and then utterly self-serving and corrupt. Since Donald Trump was already utterly self-serving and corrupt, giving him the power of the Presidency was like pouring kerosene on a campfire.
On the left there's a different problem: legislative capture. The more power the law has, the more incentive billionaires and multi-national corporations have to buy it to serve their own ends rather than the people's ends. And any individual billionaire or corporation has a much stronger interest in controlling the law than "the people" do. (If a cheetah loses a predator-prey contest, it misses lunch; if a gazelle loses the same contest, it misses the rest of its life. So selection pressures are much stronger on the gazelle, with the result that gazelles and other "prey" usually win.) "The people"'s interest balances that of a billionaire or corporation if lots of "the people" each do a little bit, which runs into "tragedy of the commons" free-rider problems. Alternatively, you need a relatively small number of officials whose job is to protect "the people"'s interest, and these officials have to be accountable to the people in order to avoid falling into the "corrupt power" trap.
Most recently, Vice Presidential nominee J. D. Vance is described as a right-wing populist, but not in the same way: Vance adds an actual ideology to Trump's genetic-algorithm approach. Both have said some things I (and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC and...) agree with, such as that "the system is rigged against ordinary people", although they differ on who's doing the rigging: in Trump's case it's "Democrats" and anybody who's ever dissed him, while for Vance it includes billionaires and large corporations. (Although considering that one is a billionaire, and both have gotten a lot of support from billionaires, I don't expect any policies from either that hurt the best interests of billionaires.)
Another thread in some flavors of populism is the notion that "the people" are not only virtuous but homogeneous -- politically, religiously, ethnically. The Communist Soviet Union and Communist China both leaned into this, paying particular worship to the traditions of their predominant ethnicities, while pretending that other ethnicities didn't exist. And both were/are renowned for cracking down on political dissent from the party line. (Both also created their own "elites" of Party officials who, despite egalitarian pronouncements, somehow always ended up with all the material goods.) Right-wing (but not left-wing) populism in the US does the same thing, cozying up to neo-Nazis, Christian fundamentalists, and overt white-supremacists. Both left-wing and right-wing populism sometimes "cancel" people for expressing politically incorrect views, but only the right-wing side seeks racial and religious homogeneity.
Another difference has to do with proposed remedies. (Parts of) both left-wing and right-wing populism agree that billionaires and multinational corporations represent an "elite" that has too much power, and both propose counterbalancing that power with the power of government, but they differ on the specifics. For FDR and perhaps Teddy Roosevelt, this required the rule of law exercised by a strong man not hemmed in by too many procedural quibbles. More recently, this strategy has split in two: the left emphasizes the Rule Of Law, while the right has emphasized the Strong Manly Man who can cut through red tape and Do What Needs To Be Done without regard to niceties like the law, individual rights, or anybody else's opinion. The left wants to strengthen government to build a nation of laws, not of men, while the right wants to strengthen government to build a nation of men, not of laws.
Both of these approaches have practical problems. On the right, as the saying goes, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The more power you concentrate in one individual, insulated from accountability, the more likely that individual is to become (first) self-justifying, and then utterly self-serving and corrupt. Since Donald Trump was already utterly self-serving and corrupt, giving him the power of the Presidency was like pouring kerosene on a campfire.
On the left there's a different problem: legislative capture. The more power the law has, the more incentive billionaires and multi-national corporations have to buy it to serve their own ends rather than the people's ends. And any individual billionaire or corporation has a much stronger interest in controlling the law than "the people" do. (If a cheetah loses a predator-prey contest, it misses lunch; if a gazelle loses the same contest, it misses the rest of its life. So selection pressures are much stronger on the gazelle, with the result that gazelles and other "prey" usually win.) "The people"'s interest balances that of a billionaire or corporation if lots of "the people" each do a little bit, which runs into "tragedy of the commons" free-rider problems. Alternatively, you need a relatively small number of officials whose job is to protect "the people"'s interest, and these officials have to be accountable to the people in order to avoid falling into the "corrupt power" trap.