Nobody Asked Me

I shared this draft essay at the Creative Colloquy reading on July 21st. I’m working to expand it into a more complete essay.

Why populism scares me

I got hooked on reading the news in high school. Fascinated by the layers beneath each headline, I followed my curiosity through history and context. I came to understand that democratic solutions require compromise and a willingness to evolve. So when populism exploded in 2016, I looked for a strong defense of democracy—and policies that addressed the real frustrations caused by decades of neoliberalism prioritizing business growth over everyday life.

Instead, I saw a Democratic Party torn between centrists defending the status quo and progressives trying to fight populist fire with more populist fire. As the scales tip toward progressive populism, my sense of personal danger grows.

Populism is pitched as a remedy for broken systems—an urgent, moral response to a corrupt elite that’s lost touch with everyday life. Beneath that appeal, populist movements draw a hard line between different groups, commonly framing issues as “us” versus “them.”  Once that boundary is drawn, the logic escalates. What starts as a call for justice evolves into a politics of control, where autonomy gets sidelined in the name of loyalty and purity.

At the core of populism is a story of a virtuous, unified people on one side, and a corrupt, self-serving elite on the other. It’s not just political—it’s moral. Populists don’t argue that their opponents are wrong; they argue they’re illegitimate. This framing flattens difference, silences dissent, and narrows the definition of who counts as “the people.” These messages echo what every queer person hears throughout their life: You are an outsider. You don’t belong here. This isn’t for you. Over time, that narrowing grows severe. Journalists, teachers, judges, and protestors—anyone who challenges the dominant narrative—can be cast as adversaries.

This escalation is not accidental. It’s baked into how populist movements sustain themselves. Once in power, populist leaders often run into the limits of their own promises. Structural problems—like inequality, inflation, or climate breakdown—aren’t easily solved with slogans or scapegoats. When quick fixes fail to materialize, blame becomes the currency of survival. The list of enemies grows: first the establishment, then the media, then marginalized communities, then anyone who won’t toe the line. The movement turns inward, and loyalty becomes the ultimate test, as we see in the attacks on career Republicans who refused to back Trump’s election denial.

And with that shift, control takes precedence over autonomy. Populist governments centralize power, sideline independent institutions, and restrict the space for disagreement. Courts are stacked or ignored. Journalists are harassed. Civil society groups lose funding or face surveillance. In the name of serving the people, a lot of people lose their ability to speak, organize, or live freely. Autonomy—personal, political, or cultural—becomes a threat. Consider Florida’s laws restricting classroom discussion of gender and sexuality: framed as parental rights, but functionally suppressing queer autonomy.

And for people like me, the consequences aren’t theoretical. Growing up queer in the late 20th century meant knowing you were deviant, dangerous, and destined to live and die miserably. The news underscored those messages but also offered a thread of hope—hope rooted in democratic institutions built to protect against the tyranny of the majority. There was always a path to appeal injustice. That protection now feels under threat from populist movements on both the left and right.

While right-wing populism tends to move fastest toward authoritarianism, left-wing populist movements aren’t immune. The central danger isn’t ideology—it’s the idea that one person or party uniquely embodies the will of the people. When this belief prevails, dissenting voices are seen as obstacles instead of contributors to a healthy democracy, and any population can be sacrificed as the scapegoat to any problem.

It’s worth noting that not all populist energy is misplaced. These movements stem from real economic, political, and cultural exclusion.  But when that frustration is funneled into a rigid binary and fused to a single charismatic leader, the outcome is rarely empowering. Instead, it often leads to a political culture where control masquerades as representation and autonomy is sacrificed for the sake of unity. Even in democratic populism the structure itself leans toward exclusion unless checked by strong pluralist protections. That’s why populism is dangerous – not just because it challenges elites, but because it frames disagreement as betrayal. Democracy requires room for disagreement—for conflict, competing visions, and the messy, pluralistic work of self-governance. Populism offers a shortcut: one voice, one will, one truth. But that shortcut leads away from freedom, not toward it. And that’s what scares me.