The populist trinity of communication, ideology, and strategy: A proposal to enhance the analysis of populist discourses

The academic community continues to debate what the best conceptualization of populism may be. Three definitions stand out, populism as a communication style, as a political strategy, and as an ideology. Based on a sample of 21 days of morning conferences given by the Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, we analyze his discourse for content representative of these three conceptualizations. We observe that the analysis of populist discourse is enriched when populism is considered as a product where communication, ideology, and strategy are articulated to work for the political empowerment of a leader, who fuels and manages the anger of a base of followers.