Populism': we used to know what it meant. Now the defining word of our era has lost its meaning | Oliver Eagleton

"Populism may well have been the defining word of the previous decade: a shorthand for the insurgent parties that came to prominence in the 2010s, challenging the dominance of the liberal centre. But no sooner had it become the main rubric for discussing both the far left and far right than commentators began to question its validity: worrying that it was too vague, or too pejorative, or fuelling the forces to which it referred."

"The difficulty of separating the real nature of populism from the fraught discourse that surrounds it is telling, because among the only confident claims we can make about the populist phenomenon is that it places an enormous stress on language. Indelible slogans, silver-tongued leaders, a direct address to the people: these were common elements in the otherwise disparate range of electoral projects that surged after the great recession of 2007-2009, rejecting bromides about unity and consensus for the hard semantic distinction between us and them."

Populism served as a shorthand for insurgent parties in the 2010s, uniting far-left and far-right projects through a rhetoric of us-versus-them. The term became contested for being vague, pejorative, and potentially empowering the movements it labeled. Divergent political fortunes have exposed the label's limits as the right gains ground while the left struggles after repeated defeats. Populist politics places enormous stress on language through indelible slogans, charismatic leaders, and direct appeals to 'the people.' The mode of politics flourished when political expression was more verbal than active, evident in social media flare-ups and heated private conversations. Decline of mass parties, unions, and associations left fewer channels for collective action.

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