Right-wing and left-wing populism

Populists narrow the concept of "the people" to themselves, following the motto "We are the people," and discriminate against others. Right-wing populists tend to belittle and more or less violently persecute groups they consider weaker, such as migrants, women, sexual minorities, and people with disabilities. Left-wing populists, on the other hand, identify with groups they consider oppressed and argue about which minorities are particularly legitimate in the fight against oppression. In doing so, they do not shy away from belittling others in racist, sexist, and ageist terms, such as old white men.

Right-wing and left-wing populists differ in their stance on equality: While the political right justifies inequality or even exalts it as a guiding principle, the left is guided by the guiding principle of equality. However, both right-wing and left-wing populists think in a narrow-minded power-based way. Accordingly, both groups do not value constitutional democracy much, or even oppose it. There is a fine line between mutual opposition and alliances between them.

It is not the primacy of right or left that decides the fate of democracy, but whether it is protected and defended together.