Frank Furedi on the Case for Populism

I don't think Trump is a populist. I mean he's the very opposite of a populist in everything that he does. And now the good fight with Yasha Monk. I have had many guests on this podcast who are very worried about the rise of populism around the world and who think that populism is a genuine danger to democracy. For I try to

have a wide range of guests. I haven't had many guests who explicitly make the case for populism, who explicitly want to say that this is in fact a solitary political movement that might make things better. Well, Frank Furadi is an interesting figure. He was a Trotskyist in his youth. He is now a defender of what he calls a form of politics, of uh national defense, of trying to uh hold on

to certain cultural traditions and he has written a book called In Defense of Populism. We open the conversation with me, leaving him the floor to define what exactly he means by populism, why he thinks there's a necessity for it and how he thinks it might make the world a better place. We then enter into a more robust debate about questions like what a coherent definition of populism might be, whether some of the populist politicians he defends engage in a form of anti-pluralism, in an unwillingness to accept political opponents as a legitimate part of the political system. And in particular, whether some of this has led to democratic backsliding.

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