The doctrine of populism strongly argues that not all types of populism are the same. For some, populism is protective, regenerative and democratising, because its political proposal is to incorporate people who have been excluded, omitted and/or forgotten by the power/state. For others, populism is a movement that undermines democracy because it apparently uses flags that supposedly promote democracy, but in reality incorporates exclusion, xenophobia and racism into its discourse. The former would be called ‘left-wing populism’, the latter ‘right-wing populism’. This chapter aims to discuss the central model of populismPopulism in the face of the permanence of democracy, rather than the fact that it is located between left and right. To do this, we take stock of Brazil and the EU (Portugal). The methodology used has a transdisciplinary approach, and is based on logical, social–historical, cultural and legal methods, assuming a combination of the social and legal sciences in particular. As a result, it is concluded that populism presents itself in any of its variants as a threat to democratic institutions. The contribution of the study is based on an analysis of the Brazilian and European reality in relation to the current democratic context.