Under populism, political leaders attribute all election victories to themselves, as do commentators. It's a…

Under populism, political leaders attribute all election victories to themselves, as do commentators. It's a popularity bubble. In reality, people vote mostly according to the material conditions of their lives. This is a critical distinction. 1/5

A politician who slaps themselves on the back for winning an election doesn't understand they were voted in to fix the material conditions of peoples' lives. When they don't do that, retribution is brutal. 2/5

Voters pay almost zero attention to the details of politics, which populists don't understand. Those details are gossip items between politicians and the people who report on them, mostly. 3/5

Very little about material reality changes, as the result of elections. Elections are popularity contests grafted onto those material realities. Nothing should terrify a politican more than a landslide victory. Find one of those that ever ended well. 4/5

Landslides mean material conditions are seriously bad. /end