Abstract:

“Populism”is a relative concept with“elitism”.Many social fields have emerged populist thinking and practice, but its concept is fuzzy. The People’s Party movement in the United States and the Russian populists practice is the classic image of populist discourse. From the perspective of evaluation, populism is a thinking and practice which is grass-roots or populist civilian value oriented and is rich in emotional and critical. The core of populism as following: first, it advocates the “mass” as the center, and pursues the “people first”;second, its ideological system is constructed from the perspective of “elite”;third, it is a paradox.

Key words: populism, elitism, the masses, emotional, democracy, reason