Populism is a dangerous misnomer. It suggests that the populist leader speaks for the majority, when in fact populist rhetoric rarely reflects the broad consensus. Instead, it thrives on fears and anxieties, offering the comfort of belonging while reducing complex social issues to sound-bites and slogans that reward loyalty over thought. In such a climate, silence becomes complicity. When people suppress their convictions to avoid conflict or social pressure, public debate shrinks, truth is drowned out by volume, and the moderate, quiet voices, the true majority position, is lost.
Resisting populism does not require status, power or authority. It requires only that individuals (citizens, employees, family members) have a clear set of personal beliefs and the moral courage to defend them. This might be explaining to a colleague why you disagree with their views; or challenging your manager about their behaviour; or reminding your children to explore both sides of an argument.
These acts of individual leadership differ in context, but are consistent in their requirement for moral courage. It is moral rather than physical courage that differentiates the leader from the follower … It is also disappointingly rare and as populism takes root, increasingly precious.
In a populist world, conviction is not the danger – unexamined consensus is. So it is the frequency of these small acts of moral ambition by individual leaders that will determine the quality of the society we live in.
