The Story of Populist Rhetoric and Image in the Age of Information

By Morgan Reed-Davis, Political Theory

 “Eat the Rich.” “Power to the People.” “Make America Great Again.” These populist slogans pop up everywhere, from graffiti under an overpass to TikTok “For You” pages. The basic populist message—“the people” versus “the elites”—isn’t new. It was used by American revolutionaries in the 1700s, rebellious farmers in the late 19th century, and even anti-communist politicians in the 1950s (Gillon 2025). But over the past half-century, populist rhetoric has dramatically increased on both the right and left.

So what changed? While there’s no definitive answer, there are plenty of questions worth exploring. This article tackles four of them: What is populism? What does populism look like in 2025? What caused its rise, and how is it related to the phones in our back pocket?

What is populism?

Unlike other political ideologies, populism has a fluid definition. Its rhetoric splits society into the “people” and the exploitative “elites” (Pappas 2019).The message is fundamentally anti-establishment, and revolves around concerns of social and economic change, government corruption, and uplifting the voice of the “common people.” What makes the definition fluid is that these factors change depending on who defines  “the people” and  “the elites.”

On the left, the “elites” are typically billionaires, corporate giants, and hard-right conservatives (Ruth-Lovell 2025). Left-wing populists tend to push progressive policies like taxing the rich and affordable healthcare (Macedo and Mansbridge 2019). The “people” are often the working-class, minorities, and other leftists. On the right, “the elites” are usually framed as government insiders, the liberal media, and cultural outsiders like immigrants (Nadeem 2021). Right-wing populists champion economic policies such as deregulation and tariffs, as well as social issues related to national identity and traditional values. In this case, the “people” are often conservative blue-collar workers, most of whom are nostalgic for the traditionally conservative America of the past.

It’s important to note that political theorists often use the term  “populist” pejoratively. A historic ultra-nationalist flavor of populism that has made the term synonymous with authoritarians and double-dealing demagogues. However, populism in the modern day, at least, in America, challenges that definition.

Case study: Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump

Let’s start with Zohran Mamdani. The 34-year-old former assemblyman from Queens shocked the nation when he won the NYC mayoral race in November (NBC 2025). Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist, setting him apart from the democrat-led establishment. Mamdani led a successful grassroots campaign, personally walking with supporters on the streets of New York, eating with locals, visiting gay bars, and connecting with a diversity of NYC communities (Cuevas 2025). His message—that NYC had become unaffordable and he could fix it—resonated with New Yorkers who’d been struggling to afford the city’s skyrocketing cost of living (Mamdani 2025). Mamdani’s promises include rent freezes for rent-stabilized tenants, new affordable homes, universal childcare, and a faster public transit system (McKurdy 2025).

On the right-wing side of populism is President Donald Trump. His first significant political swing was his 2016 presidential run, and he casted himself as no-nonsense outsider with a business expertise that could fix the American economy (Duignan 2025). Worried about China, immigration, and loss of American industry, Trump pushed economic and social policies like tax cuts, deportations, and aggressive tariffs. His 2024 campaign repeated this formula, focusing on deportations, tariffs, and undoing the damage he said the previous administration caused (Esomonu 2025). In both instances, he gave working- and middle-class conservatives a romantic vision: he could “Make America Great Again” (Volle 2025). Trump and Mamdani may land on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they share an outsider status, charisma, and an anti-establishment message that makes them populist.

What caused the increase in populist rhetoric?

There are plenty of theories. Neoliberalism’s effects on labor markets and income inequality, the loss of national identity, and even the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 are all considered by political theorists as possible starting points (Cox 2018). However, in light of today’s social-media-savvy politicians, one theory seems the most plausible. The theory posits that politics, entertainment, and information began to blend in the age of television. Populism– which requires a showmanship almost adjacent to entertainment – not only survived but thrived in this new environment.

Television became the dominant medium in the 1960s, forcing politicians to adapt to its emphasis on convenience and performance. Television is a medium for entertainment that centers around an oversimplified, dramatized, emotion-driven “logic of mass media” (Gianpietro 2008). As the “logic of mass media” became more widespread, more of the public began measuring a politician by their image and simplistic message rather than their merit. What that means is that politicians and political debate needed to have some sort of entertainment value (i.e., showmanship) to “survive” on television, which had become the ultimate medium to get the attention of potential voters. 

For example, take the first televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. Appealing to an audience accustomed to sitcoms and hour-long newscasts, the Nixon-Kennedy debate was scheduled for only an hour and interrupted by advertisements (Library of Congress). By comparison, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 were three hours long with no intermission. Kennedy was composed and well-spoken; Nixon, on the other hand, spent the hour looking shifty and out of place. Nixon himself pointed out his fatal mistake: “I paid too much attention to what I was going to say and too little to what I looked” (Time 1968). In the age of television, politicians were incentivized to take on a specific role: a man of style, a celebrity of sorts. This “role” became a reality. 1981, Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood star, became the first celebrity president and the prototype for modern American populism (Lundskow 1994). 

The fusion of politics and entertainment continued as information became more abundant in the 1980s and 90s.  Before the 1990s, the big three media companies (NBC, ABC, CBS) controlled the television industry (Allen, Stevens, Thompson 2025). However, the 90s saw the multiplication of news channels, the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle, the rise of multiple TV households, and the rise of the computer (Blumler and Kavanagh 1999). Americans had far more choices in information and entertainment, meaning that media organizations had adapted to the public’s expectations to keep their attention. News broadcasters made efforts to make politics palatable, while politicians began acting more personable on screen. Along with this, new stations that wished to inform and persuade had to compete with “infotainment” (i.e., cooking shows, talk shows, and magazines) designed to merge information with the fiction of TV personalities (Diehl 2024). Competing with the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, politicians had to sell their image—their “brand”—just as much as they had to sell their message. 

As a result, presidential campaign strategies leaned heavily on marketability and media appearances. For example, news coverage of an alleged 12-year affair nearly ended Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. After an interview on 60 Minutes, his popularity rebounded, and he resumed his campaign under the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid” and the self-given nickname “comeback kid” (Levy 2025). While the media has influenced politics in the past, in this digital age, it can immediately destroy and revitalize a career; politicians who could charm some of the public and the press, such as Bill Clinton, had a better chance of being the latter.

In the 2000s to 2020s, the boundaries between politics, entertainment, and information continued to blur as social media changed people’s perceptions of information, creation, and attention. In the early 2000s, information proliferated at an unprecedented rate, with content jumping from news channels to Wikipedia articles to blog posts. The invention of the iPhone in 2007 made a surplus of information available to users at any time and place (Britannica 2025).  As for the creation of political commentary, journalists weren’t necessarily intermediaries anymore. With social media, users could be both producers and consumers of political discourse; someone could skim a CNN article, latch onto a detail, and publish it for the world (or their 15 followers) to see. 

In the 2020s, fifteen-second short-form content like TikToks and Instagram reels fracture and decontextualize political information. It’s not uncommon to scroll through a For You page, stumble on footage of a political violence, and then, not even 15 seconds later, see A.I.-generated brainrot. In the age of social media, millions of people (i.e., influencers, journalists, celebrities) and millions of pieces of information (i.e., articles, TikToks, ebooks) compete for people’s attention. There are so many choices and clamoring voices, one is dizzied by the thought of having to decide what information is worth paying attention to. In a way, attention is a form of currency. It’s easy to make a bad investment if one can’t predict the rate of return. 

At face value, populism is a safe bet. Its rhetoric is palatable and attractive, and doesn’t require any mental gymnastics to understand. Populists provide a checklist of promising policies, have the flair of a celebrity, and often share the public’s disdain for the stiff, over-media-prepped politicians of the current establishment. Not to mention, social-media-savvy populists like Mamdani and Trump (or at least Trump in his first term) connect to their supporters directly and immediately, almost becoming one of “the people” by sharing a digital space. One doesn’t need to exert too much time or energy deciding which politicians are worth their attention; populists catch their attention naturally. 

Perhaps, this is what makes populism so alarming. The “people versus the elites” rhetoric appeals to emotions—to anxieties of the future, frustrations with the present, love for the past. Populists may be well-intentioned or they may be deceptive, but either way emotion-driven rhetoric and a celebrity image define their campaigns. Emotion may be important for political dialogue, but logic and attention are essential. And in an age where logic and attention is hard to come by, and political dialogues are becoming increasingly contentious, populists are stealing both. 

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