To fend off populism, we must stop believing in the will of the people

Populists rely on an idea of the people as a single, united force. Unfortunately, argues Luke Temple, traditional conceptions of democracy itself depend on a very similar notion. Unity and concordance is prized. This makes it difficult to challenge the underlying basis of populists’ arguments. But there is another way of understanding democracy – as a series of challenges and discords – and it is one that gives us an intellectual bedrock on which to build an opposition to populism.