ABSTRACT
Bernie Sanders may term himself a socialist. And he could never have said many of the appalling things which Trump said. But some of his targets – most obviously the corporations whom he claimed had sold the American worker short and the Wall Street financiers – were not such dissimilar enemies to those identified by Trump. Populism would thus seem to defy easy political pigeon-holing. But on one thing most writers on the subject seem to be united. Populism has to be taken seriously he agrees. But it has no intellectual coherence. It is merely a rhetorical ‘tactic’ that demagogues around the world have always used, and will continue to use, to gain power and then hold on to it. A crucial component part of what might be described as the materialist interpretation of populism has more recently been provided by James Montier and Philip Pilkington. They do not deny the fact that globalization has important downsides.
