When a Political Movement Is Populist, or Isn’t
Though the movements express different grievances — social and economic change in France, corruption in South Korea — they share a belief
that the state has sidelined the people it is supposed to serve.
President Trump, in his inaugural address, said, "We are transferring power from Washington, D.C.,
and giving it back to you, the people." Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, positioned herself as a champion of the people against the European Union rather than the French government.
So did recent memory of South Korea’s popular uprising to install democracy, a history
that makes protest feel like a healthy check on the system rather than a disruption — and a collective rather than a divisive activity.
This sentiment can arise when political systems are dominated by a small circle of elites seen as in cahoots, often
because of corruption scandals like those in Brazil and South Korea.
In both South Korea and France, the movements arose because they saw the state as ignoring the needs of the people.
In South Korea, outraged protesters helped prompt the impeachment of the center-right president, Park Geun-hye, over corruption charges
and the election on Tuesday of Moon Jae-in, who will become one of the few left-leaning leaders in the country’s history.
