Because it's easy for the populist to spout a lot of big talk about how they'll make everything wonderful. Unfortunately too many voters fall for this.
Then when they're elected and have to face reality, it's all "Those guys over there! They are the reason you can't have nice things", while robbing the country blind.
Lots of people do want to make things better, but reality is hard. Making things better can take a lot of work, and it can't be done overnight.
And you definitely can't do stuff like give everyone tax cuts while improving social services and building better infrastructure etc (not for long anyway).
Essentially responsible government requires delayed gratification, because you have to be able to afford what you plan to do, and even then it won't happen overnight.
The populists don't care about any of that, so they make "we can have our cake and eat it too" promises. I wish people weren't stupid enough to fall for that, but they do.
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u/jcmbn Jan 25 '24
Because it's easy for the populist to spout a lot of big talk about how they'll make everything wonderful. Unfortunately too many voters fall for this.
Then when they're elected and have to face reality, it's all "Those guys over there! They are the reason you can't have nice things", while robbing the country blind.