Populism's Success, in Plain English

Populist and “alt-right” causes have lately seen some setbacks, including the centrist electoral results in the Netherlands, the victory of Emmanuel Macron and his party in France, the poor showing of the Five Star Movement in local Italian elections, and the split of the True Finns party in Finland. Yet the U.S. election of Donald Trump and the vote for Brexit remain, at least so far, and so a new question arises: Are these political movements primarily an Anglo-American phenomenon, and if so why?

Financial Times columnist Edward Luce recently suggested a number of explanations for the English-language success of populism, including that the U.S. and U.K. were the nations that most embarrassed themselves during the Iraq War. We are also nations with high income inequality, and were hit relatively hard by the financial crisis, compared with much of Western Europe. I would add another factor, namely that the U.S. and U.K. are especially open societies where the norm of deferring to elites is relatively weak.