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"#Populism" isn't intrinsically left or right. The distinction between the two is often obscured by jargon, but there's a simple litmus test (courtesy of #StevenBrust): "ask what's more important: human rights, or property rights. If they say 'property rights are human rights,' they're on the right."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Cory Doctorow 2y ago

Which is to say, both the left and the right can be populist, but the populist left seeks to improve peoples' lives, no matter what that takes, while the populist right is *only* willing to make the world better when that doesn't interfere with the interests of property owners.

This is how you get the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire equating publicly produced, free insulin with forcing enslaved Black people to pick cotton in the fields:

https://newrepublic.com/post/174485/libertarian-party-suggests-former-black-lawmaker-pick-crops-free

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Cory Doctorow 2y ago

For right populists, the property rights of pharma giants are human rights, so anything that interferes with those rights is equivalent to any other human rights violation.

This is not only wrong, but it's also a huge vulnerability in the right populist mindset. It's a button that, when pushed, produces a reliable and reflexive outrage.