Laut einer Studie aus den USA und Großbritannien werden Politiker, die eine populistische Sprache verwenden, die den Willen „des Volkes“ betont und korrupte Eliten kritisiert, tendenziell eher als Anhänger bestimmter politischer Positionen wahrgenommen. Man geht eher davon aus, dass der Politiker konservative Positionen vertritt.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-experimental-political-science/article/can-thin-populism-be-manipulated-without-manipulating-host-ideology-evidence-from-a-conjoint-validation-approach/A4E58B9114DA8304ED6094D994A1E55F

From the linked article:

**Politicians who use populist language that emphasizes the will of “the people” and criticizes corrupt elites tend to be perceived as more aligned with certain policy positions**—even when no explicit policies are mentioned. That’s one of the central findings of a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Political Science. The research provides evidence that common ways of measuring populist attitudes may also unintentionally affect perceptions of politicians’ broader ideological positions, such as conservatism or support for immigration restrictions.

The findings suggest that the treatments worked as intended in shifting perceptions of thin populism. Politicians who used people-centric or anti-elite language were more likely to be seen as embracing those values. This was consistent across different phrasings and across both the U.S. and U.K. samples. For instance, statements like “politicians should always listen to the people” or “many in the political class are crooked” were more often attributed to the candidates who had used populist language.

However, the effects on perceptions of host ideology were more mixed—and more concerning for researchers aiming to isolate populist language. In some cases, participants inferred that politicians using populist language were also more conservative or more likely to support reducing immigration, even when the descriptions made no reference to these issues. This effect was particularly noticeable when the language included explicit group labels, such as “the American people” or “honest, hardworking citizens.” In these cases, **participants were more likely to assume that the politician was aligned with conservative positions.**

There isn’t really a strong left-populist political bloc in UK or US politics. That’s not to say that there aren’t potential voters for left-populist policies, just that there’s almost no one at the national level championing them. No wonder people have this association, the only nationally-visible politicians with language like that are right-wingers right now.