Trump, Bolsonaro, Meloni and the New Wave of Populism

When Donald Trump was elected US president in 2016, he rode a new wave of populism that saw upstarts upsetting the established order to win power in democracies around the globe. Voters ejected Trump in 2020 after a single term, but neither his political influence nor the broader movement went away. Not all the candidates he endorsed in the November congressional, state and local elections won, but some did, and Trump proceeded with an announcement that he’d run for president again in 2024. Elsewhere, populist parties swept to power or increased their support in 2022 from Italy to Sweden, in what some see as encouragement to would-be autocrats and a threat to the acceptance of democracy worldwide.

There’s no single definition of what makes a populist. Indeed the term is often thrown around as an insult. Generally it involves opposition to the principles of liberal democracy, including respect for individual and minority rights and checks on the powers of government. Benjamin Moffitt, associate professor of politics at Australian Catholic University, identified three characteristics: