Marginalium

The populist phantom:

The emergence of populist parties as significant electoral players in many parts of the world has been a shock to the unusually stable party systems of the decades since the Second World War, but in the longer arc of democratic politics it should hardly be surprising. Across Europe, for example, the average vote share for right-wing populist parties has increased by less than half a percentage point per year since the turn of the century. The rise of social democratic parties in many of these same countries in the early twentieth century was far more dramatic.

I’ll also pull out:

In most of the places where populist parties have made significant electoral gains, the explanations have been similarly prosaic; the scandals and failures of mainstream parties were often paramount.

It’s long, but some people probably need a long, feel-good article.