Comment by citrin_ru

Populism and popular policies is not exactly the same. I would say NHS is a socialist/left policy but not populism.

I don't know an exact definition of a populism but for me it's when political messages are designed to trigger strong emotions, ignore complexity, promise simple solutions to hard problems. All politicians to some extent lie, over-promise and under-deliver but populists tent to take this on a next level.

Right populists tend to promise tax cuts (which unsurprisingly benefit their sponsors the most) and to balance budget they either increase debt or undermine public services (which is bad in a long term). Left populists promise to tax the rich ignoring that it's can be bad for economic growth and taxing alone would not give enough revenue to significantly benefit poor/middle classes.