The Grim Logic of Sadopopulism

Politics in which the central satisfaction comes not from one’s own improvement but from someone else’s suffering

By Mika Horelli, BRUSSELS

When was the last time you saw a populist party introduce a policy that genuinely aimed to improve life for all inhabitants? Not just its own supporters. It does not define just those as “real people.” But the whole community.

Today’s populism has little interest in building a common good. Its energy is consumed by the search for enemies to humiliate, restrict, and push aside.

I write this column in English, but as well I run a Finnish-language literary blog that reviews books worth reading. In one of my recent entries, I came across a concept that struck me with unusual clarity. The American historian Timothy Snyder, in his book On Freedom, names this phenomenon sadopopulism (sadistic populism); politics in which the central satisfaction comes not from one’s own improvement but from someone else’s suffering.

Nowhere has this been more visible …