Likewise, consider the term “liberalisation”. By giving this name to its reform agenda, Right-wing bourgeois theory suggests that anyone opposed to it is “illiberal” and hence implicitly “authoritarian” and “anti-democratic”; this is despite the fact that “liberalisation” has precisely the opposite effect of unleashing primitive accumulation of capital, effecting mass deprivation, suppressing the rights of petty producers, all of which are virulently anti-democratic. This is why we have, ironically, statements like “Bolsonaro (who is actually a ruthless anti-democrat) is pursuing ‘liberal policies’!”

The Uses of “Populism” | Peoples Democracy