September 18, 2024
By Daniel B. Klein
Donald Trump and his supporters are often called populists, although Trump himself does not use the term.
In some quarters, calling someone populist implies badness. But is populism inherently bad? Populist comes from the Latin word populus, which means the people. A political movement is populist, however, not merely because it claims to advance the good of the people. All political movements claim that.
A recent New York Times article by Noah Millman drew a connection between populism and charisma, noting that “populist movements from Brazil and Mexico to France and Italy to Turkey and India have been led by charismatic leaders whose authority derives from them personally and not from institutions.” These are far from the only current examples. Millman does not mention Argentina, where Javier Milei was elected president last year. And in Ireland, champion MMA fighter Conor McGregor has announced a run for the presidency.
A movement is not, however, populist merely because there is a charismatic leader at its head. President Barrack Obama was and is charismatic. He also was, and remains, popular. But I wouldn’t say he was or is populist.
Using the sociologist Max Weber, I will explain that there is a relationship between populism and having a charismatic leader, but a charismatic leader is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for populism.
So, what does make a leader or a movement populist?
Populism defined
A political movement is populist when it portrays itself as being in opposition to corrupt elites. The elites that matter here are especially those of governmental structures. Populists suggest that a governing class have ensconced themselves into positions of power, that the elites network with one another to serve their own interests rather than the common interest, that they have abused their powers.
Populism happens when trust sours. Populists lose faith in the set who occupy the apparatus of politics and government. That loss of faith can happen when a narrow elite dominate elected office, the bureaucracies, and the many client organizations and allied interest groups. When a republic has become highly clientelistic, it invites populism.
A political movement needs a sense of legitimacy among its votaries. The German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) argued that all political movements or institutions depend on some kind of legitimacy for their success and survival. Yet a populist movement cannot draw legitimacy from the apparatus that it says is corrupt. It cannot use those structures to provide the guidance and direction required for action within the movement. What, then, provides such focal points?
The cohesive ingredient is often a personality, particularly someone with native charisma. The personality appears. That person’s conduct expresses his purpose and vision. His judgments and leadership coordinate the movement’s messages and actions.
A populist leader often comes from outside the governing structures, but that is not necessarily the case. What is most important for populism is that his stance toward those structures is one of opposition, if not hostility. The populist leader claims to stand up for ordinary citizens, against corrupt elites.
Max Weber’s three sources of legitimacy
Weber said that legitimacy may come from three sources: (1) “modern bureaucratic administration,” as he called it, or established governmental structures; (2) the charismatic leader; (3) tradition, such as a religious, creedal, patriotic, or mythic tradition.
Again, a challenger to the established structures cannot draw his legitimacy from the structure he challenges. That’s why populist leaders often derive their legitimacy from their charisma. Their personalities and charisma supply the basis for allegiance.
A good example is Argentine president Milei, who has credibly been called a populist, since he works in opposition to his country’s established structure and its elites. His personal authority and political movement did not rise out of a traditional political party with a traditional platform.
Native charisma helped to carry Milei to the presidency and the same charisma carries him forward as he tries to govern.
But in Weber’s concept, charisma also emerges as an aspect of any personality that guides and coordinates the actions of a consequential movement. When a personality—even one without native charisma—acts as the movement’s leader, when his personality acts as its governing principle, that aspect itself confers a gravitas, which is another form of charisma. He rises to the occasion. He grows in the position. A leader may lack native charisma and yet win an emergent charisma by being the “real deal” as a leader. Charisma itself, therefore, has different types or sources.
Turning to the Republican Party, suppose that it had nominated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as its 2024 presidential candidate rather than Donald Trump. In that case, DeSantis, the presidential nominee, would have personal authority. In Weber’s scheme, though, that legitimacy would flow from Weber’s third source of legitimacy, namely tradition. That’s because DeSantis is seen as a good solid Republican, promoting traditional, creedal Republican values—and competently, as seen from his record in Florida. But native charisma? For DeSantis, not so much.
It is likely that if DeSantis had gained the nomination, a degree of charisma would have accrued to him as a challenger and a critic of the governing structures.
Trump, however, has more native charisma. What’s more, his charisma has been increasingly channeled toward the populist aspect. Two attempted assassinations, a felony conviction, the Russia-gate hoax, and other abuses and persecutions burnish his image as an enemy of structural elites or, as he likes to call them, “the swamp” or “Deep State.”
Weber writes: “[C]harisma knows no…career, advancement, or salary, no supervisory or appeals body, no local or purely technical jurisdiction, and no permanent institutions in the manner of bureaucratic agencies.” Does that mean that charismatic leaders cannot be subjected to formal rules and structures? Not necessarily. When a charismatic leader wins election, he becomes a reformer and, to one extent or another, must accede to the ways of the structures he seeks to reform. If he is unable to do this, populism is likely to fail to achieve its goals.
To further distinguish between charisma and government structure, as sources of legitimacy, consider President Joseph Biden. He is President of the United States and the Commander in Chief. In that sense, he is the nation’s highest “leader.” But his personality is not a governing principle. Instead, it is the structure, the apparatus, the officials that constitute the governing principle. President Biden is surely one of the least charismatic presidents Americans have recently had. He also is the polar opposite of a populist. He is neither charismatic nor popular nor populist.
One cheer for populism
It will be generally, though not necessarily, true that an effective populist leader is charismatic. But a charismatic leader need not necessarily be a populist. Again, President Barrack Obama was charismatic, but no populist.
In some quarters, the word populist is inherently an aspersion. And it is easy to point to populist leaders who were terrible. Millman, in his New York Times article, correctly notes that “some of the most institutionally destabilizing aspects of populism…may be inseparable from its core appeal.” Millman also notes that “Populism, ultimately, is not a politics capable of governing well or even one focused on trying.”
I say, rather, that populism is not necessarily bad. When established structures and their elites are terrible, when clientelism has set in, and when a charismatic figure, such as Argentina’s Milei, leads a movement that works to correct and improve those corrupt structures, then populism can work to and for the good.
What makes Milei a good populist is his judgment on policy and his direction for reform. In itself, his populism makes him neither good nor bad. Only wise political and policy judgment can make populism work to the good. We may identify three conditions for a good populist leader: (1) clientelism and corruption are extreme; (2) the leader says so and proposes to remedy it; (3) his remedies are actually to the good, at least in a relative sense.
Millman says that, for the Democratic and Republican parties “to quell the populist fever, they…need to rebuild public trust that the system they represent can and will serve the people.” I say that populism may play a salubrious role in a rebuilding of such trust.
Does Trump deserve to be put in the category represented by Milei? Opinions on that vary. My own view is a qualified yes: He’s rather populist and his success works toward, at least, the lesser evil.
But populism is certainly risky. Detractors are right to deny it three cheers, even two. But one cheer is in order, at least in those instances in which the populist leader would make things better than they would otherwise be.
Daniel Klein is professor of economics and JIN Chair at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he leads a program in Adam Smith. He is also chief editor of Econ Journal Watch.