I agree with you that populist movements are a natural result of systems like ours that are not fully democratic. Whether or not you think the system is "rigged" depends on what you think the system is. If "the system" is the form of government we've had since at least the end of the civil war (but really, since close to the beginning), with a strong non-representative bureaucracy, a powerful judiciary, and powerful private political parties, then it isn't "rigged", it just has components that don't answer directly to the people at large. But if you think "the system" is a pure democracy, then yes, it has been "rigged" from the start. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of our system with all its checks and balances between competing interests than I would be of the more democratic system that a lot of people seem to think we have.
