Populism is often dismissed or ridiculed, but its rise reflects decades of policy choices that have deepened inequality and left many Australians behind.

In his 1963 book _The Making of the English Working Class_, EP Thompson highlighted the value of researching the experiences (and sufferings) of working class people – interpreting “history from below.” It was innovative alternative to the conventional ‘great men in history’ (and the occasional ‘great woman’) perspectives of many conventional historical narratives (“history from above”).

Populists are among the most misunderstood and denigrated participants in contemporary politics. In their MAGA form they were loftily dismissed by Hilary Clinton as a “basket of deplorables.” Her comment reflected the prevailing view among many so-called ’liberal’ ruling elites and their Greek choruses around the world. Their slavish belief in the efficacy of neoliberal and related policies blinds them to the consequences that those policies are wreaking on middle and working class people.

It’s time for serious people to try to understand the world from the populists’ point of view, not to defend populism but to understand what motivates it. While so many of the populist prejudices and demands are indeed deplorable, far too little attention has been paid to what provokes them.

The most devastating provocation arises from the rapid growth in socio-economic inequality in all of the so-called ‘advanced’ economies. This is true of Australia where inequality has grown exponentially over the past four or so decades. The growing ranks of the poor are the most worrying features of this toxic development. Few policymakers and commentators accept the fact that the roots of the present-day cost-of-living crisis are deeply embedded in neoliberal polices stretching back........

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