RE “WALLS against the wave’’: The subhead of Joshua Macht’s Ideas piece, “How to manage the dark undertow of a populist surge,’’ makes populism sound quite sinister.

But my dictionary defines it as “a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.’’ That does not sound sinister at all.

It seems to me that we are seeing, here and now in the United States, two versions of populism. The Bernie Sanders version is based on the fact that many of our representatives in Congress vote with the people who give them a lot of money, rather than with the common people. As Sanders says, we are dangerously close to oligarchy.

The Sanders message sounds like true democracy to me. Contrast that with the Trump message, which, as Macht suggests, is similar to what we are seeing in some other countries. An example is the near-election of Norbert Hofer in Austria. This form of populism is characterized by xenophobia and chauvinism. The similarity between “America first’’ and “Deutschland uber alles’’ is striking.

As Hillary Clinton said, quoting Franklin Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’’ Fear of terrorists may be reasonable, but general fear of Muslims, Arabs, etc. is irrational.

Augustin H. Parker

Marblehead