This is an article which tries to theorize how populist politics works out, and why it works despite it being bad for people. It doesn't lead to practical answers straightaway, but does probably help. (There's a good chance some of you'll feel offended for the classification system it uses on who's elite and who is not, but I think it's absolutely fine and my observations about people have been same. At least, I haven't found another way all of this can be explained.)