The Demagogue’s Cocktail of Victimhood and Strength

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our “Democracy Undone” series about the erosion of liberal democracy around the world.

WARSAW—For the European demagogue, victimhood and strength go hand in hand. In the agitators’ worldview, a host of powerful forces—domestic and foreign—is targeting their people, their nation, and their values; and only a single leader, or party, has a chance of holding off these threats.

Take Europe’s diversity as an example. To the liberal democrat, the continent’s greatest strength is that it is home to an array of cultures, each with its own history and language, packed tightly next to one another. For European populists, however, diversity is a handy propaganda tool: Any person or group standing in the way of their power is labeled a threat, either because they belong to a minority—and are thus defined as not representing the country—or, if they belong to a majority, because they have been coerced into their beliefs by