Ben Ansell, "Twilight of the Populists? Perhaps it's possible that, despite it all, we have reached peak populism" https://benansell.substack.com/p/twilight-of-the-populists

The first time I read someone who seems to concur with me that we (may) have reached #peakfascism. Nice. Still, there are differences.

For one, Ansell speaks of "peak populism" and I won't use that term as he only names the populism and authoritarianism from the right while ignoring the populism from the left.

And second, Ansell places the change his hunch tells him is in the air with the advent of Trump's "chaotic authoritarianism" which puts European rightwing and authoritarian parties in an uncomfortable bind of siding with Trump and with Putin – a no go for countries like Poland.

I do think we are in times of #peakfascism and that as Ansell suggests it is Trump who lately made the parties of the middle in Europe stronger. But at least in Europe this tendecy has started long before Trump

Anyway, unless we're blown asunder over the next months or years in one way or the other, we may look back at our present time at one of risks, turmoil, and struggle – like every profound change always is.

«Defeating populism in democracies requires an enemy. But it can’t be the populists themselves. That is their very fuel. Of course, they will say, the elites want to destroy us to protect the corrupt swamp. So populists alone won’t do the trick as an enemy.

Populists who actually side with an existing foreign enemy though. Well that clarifies matters. Now every decision the populist takes can be tied to the foreign enemy. It becomes harder for populists to deflect, to dissimulate effectively. They become glued to the very thing they usually denounce - an outside, foreign force. And they cannot easily unstick themselves. The old lines lose their impact. The mainstream parties see a weakened populist opposition. And they go in for the kill.

That’s one story. Perhaps not the most likely. But over the past weeks it has become a possible narrative. And if there’s anything that the mainstream parties need, it’s a narrative. With good guys and bad guys.»