Ideological emptiness in populism is itself a performative act with social rationality

Evidence

The task is not so much to compare systems of ideas qua ideas as to explore their performative dimensions. Populism’s relative ideological simplicity and emptiness, for instance, which is in most cases the prelude to its elitist dismissal, should be approached in terms of what those processes of simplification and emptying attempt to perform – that is to say, the social rationality they express. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 50

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Discourse fuses language and action, dissolving any ideology-movement split — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 45; Rhetorical devices become instruments of social rationality, not mere decoration — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 42; Populism is social democracy in times of group disorganization — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 297