let's call communism communism instead

I do not think populism is a useful term for understanding a political position, as it seems more to describe aesthetic presentation rather than what kind of policy is actually being advocated for

that you switched so effortlessly between applying it to Trump's most fervent supporters and applying it to communism demonstrates this lack of meaning

Trump is populist, Maduro is populist, Modi is populist, Mao was populist, Julius Caesar was populist, so many totally different things are labeled as populist that attacking or defending something on the grounds that it is populist is weak as hell

I'm not saying "populism bad" or "populism good", and that's because I don't see the point in taking either side of that argument