Read more: The impeachment inquiry is fully legitimate

More legitimate, in his mind, is his role as the putative voice of the people. Populism is a disposition, rather than a fully worked-out theory of government. Its essence is that the voice of the people is the true voice of democracy, but that voice is corrupted by elites. What’s needed is a populist leader to speak for the singular and commonsense understandings of the people. Trump proclaims to his supporters, “ I am your voice! ” and casts himself as the only person capable of speaking for them and solving their problems.

Now, it may seem odd that a president who won fewer votes than his opponent, who has never had an approval rating that captured a majority of the population, and who led his party to lose seats in the last congressional election, positions himself as the true voice of the people. But populism is distinct from simple majoritarianism or direct democracy.

Unlike simple majoritarian democracy or a pure version of direct democracy where the people represent themselves and vote directly, populism proffers an imagined vision of the people. The Princeton professor Jan-Werner Müller explains: The “core claim of populism” is that only “some of the people are really the people.” Populists such as Trump pit “real” Americans against both a corrupt elite and those portions of the population who are suspect—usually for racial, ethnic, or religious reasons—and therefore not considered true Americans.

I won’t rehash the whole litany, but Trump delights in demeaning minorities who are not, in his eyes, properly part of the people. Recall Trump’s reluctance to distance himself from a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, even while those marching chanted “Blood and soil,” “You will not replace us,” and “Jews will not replace us.” Trump has characterized Mexican immigrants in ugly and divisive terms, spoken of immigrants and refugees as subhuman “savages,” called for the surveillance of Muslim Americans, and promised to ban Muslims from entering the country.

Over the summer, Trump turned his ire to a handful of congresswomen of color. Rather than criticizing them, Trump suggested that they go back to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” It happens that three of the four women were born in America, making them citizens from birth. But birthright citizenship—the long-standing mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment, which Trump has pondered undoing—is not enough to truly make one part of the people, according to Trump. The fourth congresswoman is a naturalized citizen whose family fled political and religious violence in Somalia to find sanctuary in America. Her aspirations for American citizenship were not unlike those of the refugees from Somalia whom Trump defamed at a recent rally in Minnesota. For Trump, these women are not true Americans. They are no part of the “people” for whom he speaks.