For many journalists, the meaning of the term populism is a matter of personal taste. “My preferred definition is that it’s a style of politics offering unworkably simple solutions to complex problems,” writes the Sydney Morning Herald’s political editor, Peter Hartcher.

A more objective approach draws on historical precedents. Journalist and historian Thomas Frank charts the course of populism from its inception in Kansas in 1891 to the present in his excellent recent book, People Without Power: The War on Populism and the Fight for Democracy.

Frank details the key demands of the original People’s Party populists who coined the term, noting the ways in which Franklin D. Roosevelt later took up this tradition in building the New Deal Coalition. He also links it to Martin Luther King Jr in the latter stages of the Civil Rights Movement and, more recently, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.