Roberto Stefan Foa, Rachel Kleinfeld

Thinking of populists as left or right is a misunderstanding. Populists care little about ideology — what they want is power. To get it, they build their popularity by polarizing populations. Fanning division between “us” and “them” creates intense loyalty from a base of supporters, who are easily convinced that things that stand in the leaders’ way — including independent institutions and laws — are illegitimate obstacles to the will of the majority.

With the support of this base, populists centralize and personalize that power. They gain control over once-independent institutions that could serve as checks, such as central banks and courts. They undermine others that could contradict their claims, like independent statistical bodies.

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