Populism is now going mainstream

PUNDITS have been speculating recently that the political momentum of the populist insurgencies that we have witnessed in recent years may be slowing down and predict that voters in Western countries would eventually gravitate back to the political centre.

It may be tempting to attach a certain political symbolism to the fact that on the same week in which the shutdown of the federal government was paralysing Washington, the British parliament failed to approve the UK government's proposed plan to leave the European Union (EU).

After all, the two events that had stunned the world and marked the triumph of populism in the United Kingdom and the United States were, first, the go-ahead for Brexit by British voters and then, the election of Donald Trump as America's president.