And here’s a tip - you can’t combat it by deriding the people who embrace it. If anything, that just makes them double down on it, since, to them, that’s just further evidence that you’re an elitist piece of shit who doesn’t care about them or their needs, so they’re going to turn to these other people over here who (say they) do.
Too often the ones who blame the working class for not understanding that (some) populist solutions don’t work, have been conditioned to support economic and/or political views that further the interests of the wealthy few, while themselves being a part of the working class, while not realizing it. For example the working person who advocates for centrist policies which keep distributing money from them to the top, because “the left’s” idea to tax the rich “doesn’t work.”
Again, there’s one and only one way to counter populism - governmental reform. The problem is that people see that the government isn’t doing enough to serve their needs. The solution is for the government to do more to serve their needs.
While this is true, I’m not sure if it’s possible or likely to come about through the electoral process in places where democracy has been captured by the upper class. That’s probably not the case in France, yet, but it very much is in the US. I think in such cases the process can only start at the labor level where labor takes a bigger chunk of the profits through labor action. Thus reducing the money flowing into democratic and regulatory capture. Thus making more money available to elect or “buy” politicians that represent that payer - labor. In other words - the majority.