/lit/ - Literature

Thoughts on this book by Neema Parvini AKA Academic Agent? I think it's a really interesting book which changed my perspective

>The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump unleashed a wave of populism not seen in America since the Nixon era, which carried him into the presidency. Seen widely as a vindication of the people over elites, his failure to bring about any meaningful change was then seen as an aberration, a departure from a natural state where the people are sovereign and their representatives govern by their consent. This is the populist delusion.
>This book explodes that delusion. Beginning with the Italian elite school, Parvini shows the top-down and elite driven nature of politics by explicating one thinker per chapter: Mosca, Pareto, Michels, Schmitt, Jouvenel, Burnham, Francis, and Gottfried. The sobering picture that emerges is that the interests of the people have only ever been advanced by a tightly organized minority. Just as fire drives out fire, so an elite is only ever driven out by another elite.
>The Populist Delusion is the remedy for a self-defeating folk politics that has done the people a great disservice.

What is this book about? What populist delusion does he attack? Where is there a coherent populist tradition espoused that can be attacked?