This papers uses Trumpism to illustrate populism in power. It analyses it in its rhetorical style; in its propaganda, tropes, and ideology; and finally in its aims and achievements. It shows how the representative construction of the people is rhetorical and is independent of social classes and traditional ideologies. The paper argues that populist democracy is the name of a new form of representative government that is based on two phenomena: a direct relation between the leader and those in society whom the leader defines as the «right» or «good» people; and the superlative authority of the audience. Its immediate targets are the «obstacles» to the development of those phenomena: intermediary opinion-making bodies, such as parties; established media; and institutionalized systems for monitoring and controlling political power. Populist leaders compete with other political actors with regard to the representation of the people and use electoral victory in order to prove that «the people» they represent is the «right» people and deserves to rule for its own good. The result of these positive and negative actions delineates the physiognomy of populism in power as a «majority» that is tainted by an undisguised —indeed, an enthusiastic— politics of radical partiality: the institutions are used in the interested of the «winning» part against the other.

