"Brendan, I like this piece but it does have a flaw. What your really saying is that Populism is popular. That the fear of the elite is that they are not popular. And that this popularity of the populist scares them. So far so good. But the genuine popularity of populism does not render it a positive, or indeed give it some limited positives. To see populism as the potential first step on the long road to real consciousness is a little naive. It can just as easily manifest itself in the opposite. There are great historical examples of this - for example Iranian leftists belief that the anti-shah movement was positive despite its focus on Khomeini as its symbol;ic leader. What you are doing here is separating form (populism) from content (extreme nationalism and anti-foreigner sentiment or both). This separation is not real. they are tightly bound. I for one see nothing positive in this." - Keith Teare