Is Populism Really Supporting Democracy? Or Does it Undermine Democracy?

In the modern world, populism is prevalent especially in the United States political realm. The ideas of populism are so simple, yet so broad because it can come in different forms and is not associated with one specific political party. According to analysts and academics, “Donald Trump demonstrated populism’s reach by winning the Republican presidential nomination, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders waged what often was described as a left-wing populist challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination”. However, populism is not only found in the United States, it can also be found in the United Kingdom through the idea of BREXIT. With this, some may claim that populism enforces democracy because it brings people together for a cause, whereas I would argue that populism actually undermines what democracy is meant to be, because of how people are so inclined into following those who eloquently speak their view on certain subjects without doing their own research and being skeptical about the information they are given.

Before we begin, I have to define what my form of democracy is so that you know what I’m talking about. When people hear the word “democracy” most would think about the quantity of people and voting. This is a correct interpretation of what democracy is, however it is a very shallow definition. What I believe democracy was meant to be, is the idea that people would form their own ideologies through extensive research, skepticism about information they hear from untrusted AND somewhat trustful resources, and understanding how to prevent oneself from being swayed by misinformation. Democracy, in its ideal form, is about the people being well-educated in certain subjects so that they can decide what is best for them AND others around them. It is not about people being blindly believing in misinformation, believing in conspiracy theories that may seem factual but are not after extensive research, and believing in people who claim to know something that the “elites” don’t want anyone else to know without being skeptical. All of the things that I have said may seem pretty straight-forward, but the misinformation that spreads is quite intriguing and pulls you in quickly. As a result, people are quick to choose the side that either easily sways them through words and rhetoric, or through research and accurate interpretation of information.

Now that you know what democracy is, I have to move onto the definition of what populism means. So, populism is an idea where it can be applied to pretty much any subject. It’s an idea where people have that they are representing a majority in which they would call the “people” or the “us” and they are against a group of elites, or the minority which are called the “elites” or the “them,” so an “‘us-versus-them’” mentality. In other words, the idea of populism brings together a niche group of people for a single cause because they want to change the status quo so that it can benefit the majority. In their eyes, the “elites” are having the time of their lives in expense of the “people’s” time and efforts. As a result, the “people” are now united to change said status quo through the means of a democratic vote.

Populism is quick to make people associate in either side, the “people’s” side or the “elite’s” side. If you do not choose the “people’s” side, then you are immediately branded as someone who supports the “elite”. To make you better understand what I am saying, I shall include two examples of what I mean. On the left wing, populism typically is used in the subject of the wealth gap, as seen by Bernie Sanders in 2020. His goal is to decrease the wealth gap between the “people” and the “elite” by increasing the taxes against the “elite,” because “the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%”. This creates a mentality that a very small portion of the population owns a majority of the wealth, and thus the “people” have to come together and break this status quo against the “elite” so that life can be fairer and finances can become less stressful. To further elaborate the overgrowing inequality between the top and bottom % of Americans, “in 1978, the top 0.1% owned about 7% of the nation’s wealth. In 2019, the latest year of data available, they own nearly 20%”. This gives people an idea of how unequal the wealth is among people in the U.S. Whereas, the right wing wants to limit the jobs that Americans lost to immigrants. To them, the American people are the “people” while the immigrants are the “them” side. They want jobs to prioritize Americans because they are the ones who have been paying taxes and should be given priority over an immigrant. As you can see, populism is an effective way to bring people closer together to vote for a singular cause.

However, this disrupts my ideal version of what democracy should be, the ability of people to do research, form rational ideas that can be backed up by evidence, and being skeptical about public figures whenever they state their stance on a topic with potentially biased evidence. The reason that populism prevents people from developing these abilities is because public figures are doing the research for Americans and giving them potentially skewed information that may not be 100% accurate. As Americans continue to use the public figures as their source of information, they no longer have a need to perform their own research and develop original, rational ideas that can be backed up by evidence from a primary source, rather than a biased secondary or tertiary source.

Let us go back to Bernie Sander’s “war” on the wealth gap. He claims that increasing taxes on the rich would decrease the wage gap. At first glance, this idea sounds perfect, may even be 100% fool-proof, however if people actually took the time to understand why the wage gap is growing and do research to whether his idea may actually work, people would quickly find out that this plan is not as good as it seems. After doing a quick google search of “wealthy dodging taxes,” I quickly found out that according to the U.S. Department of Treasury, “the wealthiest Americans may be dodging as much as $163 billion in income taxes every year”. The increase in taxes may not even be effective at lowering the wealth gap because the wealthiest of Americans are simply dodging taxes period. An increase may take away wealth from the richest in some areas, but in areas like income, it will have no effect. This is why populism is so dangerous, people are so inclined into believing things that sound good, especially when the public figure gives evidence of corruption, then a solution that sounds logical. The ability to do simple research and forming your own, rational ideas is undermined through populism. As a result, democracy is in the process of being destroyed, since democracy is a form of government where individual ideas are promoted, but without individual thought, democracy is no more. It is only a matter of who people are willing to believe, rather than being self-conscious and developing your own ideas. If people are this easily swayed into believing anything that they hear, you cannot imagine what harmful misinformation can be spread.

Populism on the subject of COVID-19 vaccines places people on either sides, for the vaccine or against the vaccine. Information on COVID-19 vaccines from anti-vaxxers are harmful because it leads to an increased spread of this virus and allows people to become very sick after contracting COVID19. One example of an argument that an anti-vaxxer may use is that “‘you can still transmit the virus even if you are vaccinated,’” which is true, but it gives the impression that the vaccine is 100% useless. After doing research, the vaccine was at the beginning was about 95% effective at preventing the risk of transmission, however with the delta variant it is now about 50% effective. This number may seem low, but a 50% protection is very high when considering public safety. To make an analogy, getting the vaccine is like wearing a bullet-proof vest, it is very helpful at saving your life, but it is not 100%. The vest does not cover your whole body, so it is not 100% effective, but it covers the body where most shots would land. Another argument that I often hear, personally, is that we don’t know what the long-term effects of the vaccine is, however there are already evidence that COVID-19 may induce long-term effects. According to John Hopkins Medicine, “one study showed that 60% of people who recovered from COVID-19 had signs of ongoing heart inflammation,” whereas the COVID-19 “vaccine monitoring has historically shown that side effects generally happen within six weeks of receiving a vaccine dose”. After doing simple research, not even extensive research, will allow people to find evidence and information that can be easily understood. Having your own rational mind will prevent you from falling to skewed information presented by public figures like Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, and Donald Trump (now Trump encourages people to get vaccinated).

As you know, populism puts you on one side of a spectrum with very little room in siding with the other. However, this is exactly the problem with populism and why it is so dangerous, it prevents people from looking at the other side’s argument and “tunnel visioning” rather than seeing the “bigger picture”. Once someone chooses a side, they are more inclined to stick with the ideas of that side without doing much research on other topics because they are already comfortable with associating with their side, the left or the right. For example, on the topic of anti-COVID-19 vaccine rhetoric, anti-vaxxers are inclined to stick with their stance instead of believing in medical research, because they already have the idea that the research is “fake” because Trump would typically claim news media as “fake news” when accurate information that is presented goes against his populist ideas. This is then picked up by people who follow his ideas, and thus continues the process for other topics like the vaccine. This is dangerous, because trustworthy sources are now “systematically hollow[ed] out and undermine[d],” which means their only source of information are these public figures who often present skewed evidence. Now, another question arises, “how do we counter this?”.

To go against populism, you have the obligation to do your own research and understand a topic so that you can determine what is best for the country. Your needs should be accounted for, but it should not be so unfair that it hurts those who are struggling more than it hurts you. Next, you should learn how to differentiate from misinformation, and information that is skewed to support someone’s words. By understanding and being skeptical of possible misinformation and skewed information will allow you to better decide rather than blindly listening to what is being said. Lastly, vote for the people whose ideas are in line with yours after having done extensive research.

Overall, populism does bring into light problems that needs to be addressed like the wealth gap, but at the same time it prevents a person from constructing their own ideas and supporting said ideas with trustworthy evidence, and allows them to choose a side based on arguments that seems indisputable. Obviously, not every answer is black and white, but with a rational mindset, you can determine which answer is the better option.