To be a populist is to be a victim and to be a victim is to lack agency, blameless for your own terrible choices. The elites have failed and so the people can’t be held responsible for not merely ignoring their advice but doing the opposite. If we end up with a measles outbreak next year because parents won’t vaccinate their kids, that’s not the parents’ fault. It’s Anthony Fauci’s fault for having misled them early in the pandemic about masks.