{"id":5459,"date":"2025-11-15T16:56:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5459"},"modified":"2025-11-22T17:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T17:25:15","slug":"opinion-populist-politicians-are-threatening-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5459","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Populist Politicians Are Threatening Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Populism is on the rise, and democracy is under threat. From Washington to Westminster, politicians claim to have the interests of the \u2018everyman\u2019 at heart. But what could this mean for democracy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Populism\u2019 refers to politics that empowers the ordinary people by working against the elites. Both Trump and Farage employ this narrative to reach people who feel disenfranchised with the state of their country. By looking at what Trump\u2019s rhetoric has done to democracy in America, we can hypothesise what Britain under Farage could look like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump tweeted in 2014, \u201cPeople often ask me the secret to my success, and the answer is simple: passion, focus and hard work<\/a>\u201d. What he mysteriously leaves out of his recipe for success is that he has received \u201cat least $413 million from his father\u2019s real estate empire<\/a>\u201d, much of which was obtained through tax loopholes and \u201coutright fraud<\/a>\u201d. Trump is a man born into incredible wealth, and one with a controversial track record when it comes to business success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Trump effectively deceives his voters by downplaying the real reasons for his accomplishments.  Across three voter surveys (2016\u20132018), up to half of Americans didn\u2019t know that Trump was born into wealth<\/a>. This narrative is fed to working-class Americans through Trump\u2019s speeches and tweets. The myth that they, too, can share his wealth and success is a manipulative move to keep them voting red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such populist tactics allow politicians to exert power in questionable ways. By inflating national issues, whether it’s immigration or economic woes, populist politicians position themselves as the only hope. With their sheer hard work, patriotism, and determination, they will save the working class from a crippling nation. Under the guise of being a messiah, these politicians lay the groundwork for democratic erosion. Backed by data, \u201cpopulist governments are about four times more likely than non-populist ones to harm democratic institutions<\/a>\u201d. Democracy can then be undermined and overstretched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we see this effect taking place in America?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has carefully crafted his image over the past 10 years. He is the American Christ reincarnate, truly the only one who can \u2018make America great again\u2019. The very first amendment of the American Constitution<\/a>, in short, upholds that Congress will never threaten freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the freedom to protest peacefully, and the freedom to petition against the government. Yet since Trump\u2019s second term in office, he has continuously bullied protestors, censored the press and turned executive power <\/a>into a tool for personal revenge. But it\u2019s for the sake of the nation, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand the severity of the effect Trump has had on America, The New York Times compiled 12 key indicators of democratic erosion. Its findings <\/a>show that the United States have regressed on every single one<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t just political theory anymore; it is a threatening reality. The same rhetoric is being seen with Nigel Farage. Farage poses as a man of the people, with a pint in one hand and patriotism in the other. He tears down the opposition\u2019s image to build up his own. He asks, \u201cWhat does Starmer know about people getting up at 5 am to go to work, pay their taxes and still not have enough money to pay the bills?<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Farage was educated at Dulwich College, a private, fee-paying boys\u2019 school. Farage attended from 1975 to 1982<\/a>. The cost to send a child there for the 2025-2026 academic year ranges from \u00a310,164 to \u00a321,422 per term,<\/a> depending on age and whether the child is a day student or a boarder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as seen with Trump, this doesn\u2019t tend to be common knowledge among Farage\u2019s fans. Reform voter Chris <\/a>claims, \u201cEton and Harrow types\u201d, \u201cThey\u2019re not the same as us\u201d, \u201cThe everyman on the street,” yet unknowingly votes for an \u2018Eton and Harrow\u2019 type<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem doesn\u2019t lie with how expensive Farage\u2019s education was, but with the false image he presents to his voters. This misleading tactic is dangerous, and research<\/a> shows that populist politics <\/a>hurts those it claims to save.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voters need to wake up to the tactics of populists like Trump and Farage!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Populism isn\u2019t politics as usual; it\u2019s democracy\u2019s slow undoing. If Britain doesn\u2019t take the populist rhetoric of Farage seriously, we may soon find our own freedoms slipping from our fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

America is the land of the free, and Britain is the mother of parliaments. But under populist threat, democracy might not be here for much longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by: Rida Ali<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image: Official White House Photo by Shealeah Craighead<\/a>, Public domain<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>
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Populism isn\u2019t politics as usual; it\u2019s democracy\u2019s slow undoing. Voters need to wake up to the tactics of populists like Trump and Farage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":5460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,12,30,414],"tags":[444,216,149,596,192,81,436,218],"class_list":["post-5459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british","category-latest","category-politics","category-us-politics","tag-british-politics","tag-democracy","tag-economy","tag-nigel-farage","tag-opinion","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}