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Comment by alva | Hacker News Reader

Out of interest, why is populistic commonly used as a pejorative? It seems to be the best friend of democracy.

Because democracy and "people voting" are all fine and dandy until the outcome is one you don't like. So "populist" gets thrown out when the outcome is the majority deciding on something that is seen as "wrong", but popular. It's quite a disconnect from the definitions themselves. As most people think democracy means "everyone get's a say, and the leading opinion is the one that the ruling-body should take".

On the other hand, when people complain about "populism", they expose another problem with democracy I've long complained about. Opinion gets swayed by all sorts of reasons, actions and emotions.

E.g. In the Brexit vote, the vote-stay side is trying to use fear and no-doubt some will be swayed by that. Does that mean that they actually want it? Would they have voted it if they weren't exposed to that influence? Must we keep the voters in a sterile-bubble until they decide? What about making informed decisions? Who decides what is fear-mongering vs informing the voters?

Next up, you have influential persons. This can be everyone from your local community activist, your overbearing and opinionated family member, to public figures such as actors and artists. You can see it now with Donald Trump's campaign. Every single person that has any wide "reach" to the public is using it to promote their view of Trump, whether good or bad. I call them vote-multipliers; their singular vote means a whole lot more than yours or mine, no matter how valid or factual our arguments are. When opinion and emotion sways voting, the "one-person one-vote" mantra doesn't hold up anymore.

I mean, we have to recognise that democracy can, and (in some cases) does, produce bad results (to a given definition of bad). For democracy to truly work, people need to vote based on more than just something being good for them. If you are not a slave, slavery probably benefits you (again, this can be argued against, but at least in a short term simple view of things), etc...

Generally the term seems to be used by people worried about knee-jerk reactionary voting, "it's what I want, therefore force everyone to do it", or "it's good for me, so yes, even if it is bad for others".

> In the Brexit vote, the vote-stay side is trying to use fear

Both sides are using fear almost exclusively. The in side claim the economy will collapse without the EU, the out side claim it's doomed if we stay in, and these are hardly the only examples - the out side shamelessly perpetuates the 'all immigrants are criminal freeloaders who want to take over' that is basically pure racism, the in side will gladly paint anyone who wants to leave as a racist.

It's really terrible, and is hardly surprising - the exact same thing happened in the AV referendum, where the two major parties (who use AV internally) came out with what was essentially 'you are too stupid for AV, stick with nice simple FPtP'.

Populism is just another name for the very basic feature of democracy: giving everyone the right to vote means that the country is effectively governed by idiots, because they always outnumber smart, reasonable people.

Not sure if being sarcastic or not. Do you believe that holds up on a purely statistical basis?

Poll after poll decade after decade has shown the average American to be quite ignorant. The fact we live in a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy is lost on the vast majority of the citizens. Only 40% can name the three branches of government, and far less than that can correctly describe the powers enumerated to the branches by the Constitution.

http://www.alternet.org/story/90161/ignorant_america%3A_just...

Easily! First we can agree that about 50% of the population has an IQ below 100. Let's call them idiots for the arguments sake. Then remaining 50% will most certainly have different views on things, let's say we can agree that at least another 10% have views so radically different from ours that we can call them idiots. That's at least 60% idiots rights there. QED

Dictatorships tend to be populist. Theocracies tend to be populist. For example, the Islamic regime is highly populist. Chavez was populist. Golden Dawn is populist. Nigel Farage, Marie le Pen are populist politicians. Etc etc.

It might demonstrate that ~50% of the population currently agrees with the current message of a person or group of people

"Populist" in the pejorative sense usually implies exploiting public discontent with or distrust of the status quo to propose something far worse.

It's used in a negative sense when liberals don't like the outcome of a direct democratic decision.

And also every other political group, in any situation. And, in this context, eg the dangers of pure democracy, almost every political thinker that's ever existed.

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