When Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway in 1949, the titular salesman, Willy Loman, was instantly recognizable as the archetypal everyman of the postwar period. The character was so appealing to the theater-going public because he represented the ordinary individual beaten down by a capitalist system that treated him like an expendable cog in the profit machine. Today, the same is true of Walter White in TV’s Breaking Bad, another loser at rock bottom. Like Willy Loman, he was bullied and betrayed by the liberal order. He can’t catch a break. But where Willy accepted defeat, Walter fought back, taking his piece of the American dream by hook or by crook. Today, the people who have been knocked around won’t be denied. If they have to break the system to get what they believe they’re owed, then so be it.

The ethos of populist politics is one in which flawed characters have the moxie to beat the system and the drive to win the affection of the rest of us. We weep for Willy and cheer for Walter because we fear the same impersonal economic forces that drove them to such lengths will also steamroll us. Voters cheer for Bernie Sanders or Evo Morales because they represent the average person going up against the system, like Sarah Connor in Terminator or Frank Castle in The Punisher. The goal is to beat the rigged system or die trying, like Thelma and Louise or Bonnie and Clyde. Of course, the fact that all of these tragic figures are brought down by their own flaws tells you a lot about the narcissistic logic of identity politics in which populist strong men masquerade as competent leaders because appearance matters more than substance and character.

We need to ask one very essential question: If these leaders are so flawed, incapable, and corrupt, how have populist movements convinced so many people to rally around their cause? Populist activists tell a good story about how the system has been brought low by the unscrupulous elite. The populist leader responds by portraying himself as the opposite of those supposedly corrupt leaders. He wears the guise of the everyman, who is reviled by his betters but loved by underdogs everywhere. The thing about a good lie is that it contains a kernel of truth. And this is particularly true of the everyman persona. Most populist leaders are the sort of people who really believe themselves to have the common touch, like India’s Narendra Modi or Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and for the most part they do. Like-minded voters are seduced by their charisma and charm. Those who like them idolize them, and those who dislike them revile them. But there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even hatred has its uses in identity politics.