Superficial Populism

The division of a country into "the people" and "the elites" is one I have encountered many times in the last few years, and perhaps this kind of language has become even more common in the wake of COVID-19 and the affiliated nonsense from all across the Western political divide.  The concepts behind these words are the heart of populism, a political philosophy that emphasizes the distinctions between these two sometimes vaguely described groups.  Not all elements of basic populism are inherently irrational.  One such part is populism's tenet that an upper class of the wealthy or of politicians (though the two often overlap quite a bit) does not deserve to trample on lower classes just because of the difference in wealth and power.  The strands of truth in populism can be rationally affirmed, but it is when the so-called people are given unconditional endorsement that problems arise.

What if "the people" want contradictory, unjust things to happen?  What if "the elite" have not done anything truly abusive?  If a populist would still say that the masses deserve allegiance and ideological support without regard for the truth, consistency, and justice of what they want, he or she only wants to appease the emotions of a multitude.  There is no ambiguity if this is the case that the populist in question is not an intelligent person.  They simply let their feelings and those of others pull them along politically no matter how invalid what the people think and hope for might be.  It is not that the wealthy and the politicians have some special epistemological or moral advantage over the lower classes, but that the validity of what the people believe is just as irrelevant to their social standing as that of the elites.

"The people" do not deserve any more automatic approval than "the elite"; that is to say, no one's social or political class defines the veracity of their worldviews.  Their worldviews, in turn, influence their actions, however inconsistent those actions might be, so it should be rather obvious why just yielding to the "people" or "elites" by default shows a disregard for truth, the only thing that could make political stances valid to begin with.  Besides this, populism can so easily reduce down to appeals to popularity and thus hide behind the brittle shield of just giving people what their own consensus demands.  In this way, it amounts to little more than an emotionalistic, superficial misunderstanding of issues that could actually have philosophical significance.

Calling out to "the people" without any sort of more specific ideas in mind is just a clear appeal to emotion to stir up useful political passion.  The moment the passion of the masses leads them to irrationality, it does not matter what the elites do.  When it comes to whatever idiocy the elites might embrace, it does not matter what the people do.  Both the populist and the aristocrat ironically have to appeal to non sequitur fallacies, emotion, or popularity in order to have any sort of direct attempt to prove the validity of their political stances.  Each person might despise the other, but the fallacious basis of their ideas is a common ground that spans any sort of philosophy which treats the members of either the masses or a ruling class as deserving loyalty by default.