Democracy, Populism, and the Production of Superfluousness: Three Lessons from Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism

Recent publications warn of populism’s threat to democracy. Largely absent is a critique of democracy itself. This article turns to Arendt’s Origins and her claims that democracy contains the preparatory elements realized by imperialism, elements that crystallize into the event of totalitarianism. To ignore these democratic elements, she argues, is to misidentify the real threat confronting us today, namely, the production of superfluity, of which populism is an effect. This article argues that Arendt’s understanding of political action contains a new principle of democracy, a principle of “enduring renewal,” that addresses the superfluousness at the heart of modern democracy.