Opinion Today: A case for “populism”

A powerful new way of thinking about an increasingly prevalent idea.

View in browser|nytimes.com July 10, 2024 By Ariel Kaminer Ms. Kaminer is an Opinion editor. What is populism? The word is an increasingly dominant presence in political discourse, but ask 100 people what it means and you might get 100 different answers. Is it a mood? An attitude toward power? A set of policies? In an essay for Times Opinion, Oren Cass makes the case that populism is something more: It is a political philosophy that follows the principles of democracy to their fullest logical conclusion. Instead of ordinary people deferring to those who wield power or expertise, he argues, it is "the highly credentialed leaders across government, law, media, business, academia and so on — collectively, the elites" who must yield to the goals and desires of voters. "The important feature" of those goals, he writes, "is that they are inherently valid. No set of facts or statistical analyses, to which an expert might have superior access, overrides what people actually value and what trade-offs they would choose to make. Leaders might seek to shape public opinion and alter preferences — indeed, that is part of leading — but they must yield to the outcome. Their obligation is to pursue the community's priorities, not their own." Along the way, Cass, the chief economist of the conservative think tank American Compass, finds remarkable points of agreement between the right and the left. It's a bracing argument that has already generated a lively response from all points along the ideological spectrum. Read the guest essay: Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; images by Mait Juriado photo and Mike Powell/Getty Images Guest Essay This Is What Elite Failure Looks Like A revolution is about to swallow U.S. politics, and it's based on the simplest and most radical theory of power. 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