If you agree with decision taken by the majority then it's "democratic". If you disagree, it's "populist".

I'm from India where we have a similar term in the political lexicon - "vote-bank politics". It's means a policy that a plurality of voters (the "bank") like and want, but you don't. If you're within the vote bank, then it's no longer vote-bank politics, it's democracy in action.

The bad kind of populism is when an elite says they speak for the masses without actually consulting them. The public at large in such populism is a passive entity. The masses become a strawman used to pretend a majority support the autocrat's actions even if you cant find any particular person who does.

The sort of "populism" without a leader discussed in this article is nothing like that. But there are political powers that wish to ignore that a lot of people can be legitimately angry at the same time.