Why is populism on the rise now?

American political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently wrote an interesting article about the root of rising populism in so many countries recently. Experts of all kinds have often hypothesized about the sudden rise of populism in countries like America, Hungary, Poland, Argentina, The Netherlands, Brazil, and many more. 

Some experts discuss possible drivers like economic inequality, growing sociological differences, the inability of conventional parties to deliver, a backlash to leftist progression, and obviously the internet. The problem with studying such factors is that it is often hard to prove which are behind what. One doesn’t get the opportunity to isolate and compare different countries in laboratory conditions and societies are complex structures with many intertwining processes. 

So what Francis Fukuyama did was turn it around; instead of which one can we prove – which one can we eliminate? After going through nine popular explanations, he concluded that only one was left to explain the rise of populism everywhere: the internet. 

That does not mean the other factors aren’t relevant of course, but every explanation has to deal with the timing question: why now? Why did populism take off so fast roughly in the middle of the second decade in the 21st century?

A couple of decades ago the internet was privatized and it caused a so-called democratization of reach: everyone was now able to broadcast their own ideas to the world without traditional gatekeepers like journalists and scientific journals that determined what was the truth or not. 

And even though these gatekeepers weren’t perfect, they did a somewhat decent job of deciding which information needed to be amplified. Social media, on the other hand, is driven by engagement. And you don’t get clicks and likes online by being reasonable, calm and nuanced. Algorithms pick up extreme and divisive content because people can’t help but interact with it. To see the results of these incentives, check out a recent analysis by John Burn-Murdoch in The Financial Times.

We are living in an online world that is increasingly separated from reality. While we live, in many aspects, in very safe and prosperous times, we feel like our countries are failing. Our institutions are breaking, migration is out of control and crime is surging. Trump told his base [if this continues] “you’re not going to have a country any more.” 

Many people feel threatened by problems they might not even know existed without the constant reminder of online doom prophets that are blowing problems out of proportion for likes, clicks or votes. If we are to keep our democracy healthy and resilient, we need to find a way to grapple with a radically different information age. 

First of all it’s important for people to be critical towards the information they consume, as more and more people are already becoming aware of the negative impact of social media on their lives, but also society at large. But brands also have an important role to play. Whether they can stop sponsoring harmful platforms through advertising or can allocate resources or knowledge towards the pursuit of objective information in their field, it can make a difference towards a stronger democracy.