Populism is not a complicated thing.
The recipe for it is straightforward: Populism presents itself any time the public loses faith in the wisdom and integrity of its elites.
Times are interesting when populism is in the ascendant, as it is today in Canada and the United States. In both countries, there is a growing sense that the elites have lost their way and that the system itself has failed in important respects.
What's happening in Toronto at the moment is a cautionary tale for politicians across Canada. Toronto elites long ago dismissed maverick city councillor Rob Ford as a buffoon and a blowhard, yet he has a commanding lead in the race to replace outgoing Mayor David Miller.
Ford is a penny-pincher with a history of speaking out against perks, high taxes and wasteful spending. His message resonates because voters are fed up with elites who are either unable or unwilling to control taxes, spending and the bureaucracy. The establishment didn't help its cause when it put Torontonians through a gruelling, five-week garbage strike in the summer of 2009, only to cave in the end to most everything the union demanded. The stench of that ordeal remains fresh in the nostrils of an angry public.
The failings south of the border are even more egregious. The upstart Tea Party movement is poised to capitalize on them in the November midterm Congressional elections.
The United States has fallen so badly on its face it's hard to know where to begin. But the average American does know this: The Wall Street and Washington elites together, through greed and incompetence, cratered the economy two years ago. Voters, many of them on the verge of retirement, had their investments wiped out. The value of their homes has steadily declined since then while millions lost their employment and can't get it back thanks to a jobless recovery. And guess who got bailed out courtesy of the American taxpayer? The very people who caused the misery in the first place. Couple this with a nightmare oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from an industry that gouges at the pumps and you have a population that is loaded for bear.
Populism begins as an impulse to smash the status quo. It is the bastard child of elite behaviour gone awry. The powers-that-be ignore it at their peril.