Populism may not need to be manufactured. An overwhelmed communication system already rewards simplification, antagonism and recurrence, while those best placed to change it profit from the resulting volatility.
A civilisation increasingly governed by visibility mistakes popularity for substance.
A technologically-mediated civilisation has built planetary systems of prediction and control around biological reflexes still calibrated for tribe, threat, status, and symbolic belonging.
Across many countries, the current wave of populism looks like a political shift. It is, but it is also something deeper: a change in how communication systems select and stabilise meaning.
