I regard swissinfo.ch as basically propaganda but they once made the point that direct democracy can be faster than populism at addressing citizens' (cognitive) needs: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/democracy/direct-democracy-seri...

(The populism here on HN might be tempered by this mechanism too!)

There are only two political systems at the end of the day: authoritarianism (everyone knows who is in charge) and oligarchy. Populism, in a liberal democracy, is basically authoritarianism-lite representing the interests of a particular faction of oligarchs. There's no "populism" in China, that's an American & European invention. Populism is ugly but it's a useful tool that can get things done in an oligarchy.

My reductive take on populism is that it is a consequence of majority of people being unhappy. If the unhappiness is a result of economic struggles, you get right wing populism. If it is a result of social struggles, you get left wing populism. And more often than not, the source of unhappiness is economic struggles.

"More profoundly, the negative dynamic of fragmentation is cultural: mass higher education creates stratified societies in which the highly educated – 20%, 30%, 40% of the population – begin to live among themselves, to think of themselves as superior, to despise the working classes, and to reject manual labour and industry. Primary education for all (universal literacy) had nurtured democracy, creating a homogeneous society with an egalitarian subconscious. Higher education has given rise to oligarchies, and sometimes plutocracies, stratified societies invaded by an unequal subconscious. The ultimate paradox: the development of higher education ended up producing a decline in intellectual standards in these oligarchies or plutocracies!"

The dislocation of the West: what threatens us - Emmanuel Todd

https://substack.com/home/post/p-175377338

There is a lot of irony in this article. There are points he makes where he assumes his political belief is 100% right. On at least one of those points, he is just wrong because of a tiny detail in how the paper he is referencing was setup. Specifically, he doesn't understand how recidivism is calculated. This leads him to think a counter-intuitive thing which is wrong. The simplistic POV is actually right on this specific topic. That leads some some ironic conclusions.

My conclusion is that populism comes about when the "elites" perform badly. The author can't or won't admit this is happening even while unknowingly demonstrating it happening. Populism goes away when either the populist politicians don't improve things or when the elites get their act in order. If either of these happens, things go back to the previous situation. If neither happens, the elites are slowly replaced. We will see what happens going forward.