How can a populist movement be anti-democratic?

How can a populist movement be anti-democratic?

What if the majority of the people dispise democrazy?

Peisistratos was a tyrant in Athens, who had the popular support.

Really all you need is being popular, while traditions, customs, forms of government, voting and everything else that involves how you are legitimately supposed to obtain the position can go fuck themselves.

Because people are easily deceived and won over idiots.

So, actual democracy?

Because, while the etymology of democracy hints that it is the government of the people, it's actually just partially true and the reality is more complex. In the end words tend to not literally mean what the etymology suggests.

Pecause you don't have to be directly elected by the people to have their support?
Isn't this like asking how an elitist may be democratic?

I'm trying to think of how to phrase the problem of a large segment of the population effectively voting everyone out of power without the conclusion being that that is just representative democracy anyway.

Not related to your question but why do European leftists claim that only right-wing parties can be populist?

Because mob rule isn't exactly democracy. If a mob consisting of 30 or 40% of the populace installs a despot, and then the despot makes a bunch of decisions without votes, but is still popular then that might be populist, but it's clearly not democracy (as democracy is understood in the West.)

Unless you have direct democracy, the people rule fuckall

Most modern democracies are republican democracies, meaning you elect a representative who will fuck you in the ass for the next 4 years

Caesar was a populist

Under most democracies, power is held by those able to influence the votes of the people, which means that intermediary institutions such as the media, corporations and voluntary associations can have as much power as political parties and social movements.

Turns out, many times these intermediary institutions actually fight for the interests of it's own leaders and other powerful and influential social authorities such as oligarchs and religious leaders, instead of the interests of the "people". The common people, the bottom of the social hierarchy, would be better represented by an authoritarian leader who can suppress the powers and prerrogatives of these middle social authorities.

That's a common historical phenomenom. Greek tyrants had mass support of the people, just like Roman dictators, European absolute monarchs and most dictators in the 20th century. Meanwhile "democratic" regimes, both those oligarchical such as ancient democracies and modern representative mass democracies, can empower social authorities outside the scope of the state.

Because mob rule =/= rule of the people. The mob usually is far from being a majority.

And when the mob is the majority?

You can be popular with the people, without giving them any actual say in governing.

what is "the people" then?

That's just a desperate attempt to defend a self-destructing idea like democracy. You'll see all sorts of excuses and wordplay thrown at you.
It's like people who want to defend free-speech but also want to ban hate speech. Pure nonsense.

That is the main bug of demorcacy

As much as I'm generally not a fan of John Stuart Mill, the tyranny of the majority is a thing

demos - speaking "of the people" must include all, which populist movements often do not (instead levering the "people" to exclude those viewed outside of "the people": see Trumpism, etc)

Democracy is a fragile thing & it's killer is corruption.