This is the kind of Dem we need to win in red areas! Super populist FIGHTER for working people!

[Hortensis]

23. What you're describing is NOT populism, though.

It's plain old democracy, not a dangerously negative manifestation.

Populism is a real thing with real meaning. The word's frequently misused, often ignorantly but even more often NOT innocently. If you intended to inflame and control populist anger against the wealthy "establishment" for the express purpose of using it to defeat the Democrats who were threatening to tax great wealth out of existence, would you want people to know what populism was? The Koch alliance certainly didn't when they hired agents to create the Tea Party movement by harnessing and redirecting resentment against the kind of wealthy people who'd taken over the Republican Party.

And yes, good people can lead those in the thrall of populist angers in the right direction, but they seldom are able to because competing leaders who fan the flames of resentment are far more appealing to those who are drawn to negative populist messages. We're talking about the mobs who flock to burn barns, not the peaceable people who come together to build new barns. Very different phenomena.