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