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Founding of the People's Party (Populists), Columbus, Nebraska, 1891.
In my last comment I recalled the career of the great American progressive Robert La Follette. La Follette and the Progressive Party of 1924 bring to mind political populism. The term “populist” is frequently used by the defenders of the status quo to disparage progressives and their causes. A bit of research suggests that the negative use in Europe copies the emerging practice in the United States.
To take recent examples, a writer for the Bloomberg on-line news described President Obama’s State of the Union address as “newfound populism” that was “mere political posturing”. During the worst of the banking collapse, the never-out-reactionaried Economist bemoaned a “populist backlash” that was threatening to overwhelm sensible discussion about the long-suffering banks. The use of “populist” as a term of insult is not limited to the right of center. Moving along the left wing, it is used with equal intent to insult, frequently in the context of anti-immigration and crime. Recently in The Guardian, Polly Toynbee refereed to Tory "populism" on prisons policy (not as a compliment, I suspect).
I strongly urge that progressives stop using “populist” and “populism” as pejorative terms. The negative connotations that the words evoke reinforce the reactionary discourse of capital and its surrogates. It fosters the impression that the political views of the masses of the population are volatile, potentially dangerous and more easily manipulated that those of the better educated and more sophisticated. This specification of populism is historically incorrect and analytically superficial.
The political philosophy of Populism treats society as divided between a small, wealthy and powerful elite, and the vast majority of working people. Its political agenda seeks fundamental change to redress the imbalance in power between the two. To quote from the Cambridge English Dictionary, populism supports “political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people's needs and wishes”. The CED has it right and critics have it wrong.
When I was at the University of Texas, there was an economics professor, Robert H. Montgomery, who had been called before the state legislature in 1936. Doctor Bob (as he was universally known) was asked if he was a member of any subversive organizations. His answer was the essence of Texas populism, “Yes, Senator, I am a proud member of two: the Methodist church that tells people they can speak directly to god without a priest, and the Democratic Party that says people can rule themselves without kings and queens.”
One would think that supporting “political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary people's needs and wishes” would be viewed as a political philosophy worth support rather than denigration. It is obvious why capital and its agents seek to discredit populism. Representing “ordinary people’s needs and wishes” is not high on the reactionary agenda. Why do people of progressive views join in this project to discredit populism? A recent article in The Nation suggested that it arises out of elitism on the part of “liberals” (i.e., anyone one left of center in the United States). This is also an argument frequently made by reactionaries, famously so by the odious Sarah Palin ("real Americans", “effete intellectuals”, “Hampstead liberals” and all that).
The “liberals/socialists are snobs” hypothesis to explain the negative treatment of Populism by progressives I find not very compelling. It is a thinly disguised re-statement of the view that the masses are unsophisticated and volatile. We are urged to abandon our snobbery and embrace our soul mates among the great unwashed in Wolverhampton and Dime Box, Texas (there is such a place, go to Google maps).
There are several reasons why progressives use populism as a term of insult. First, and especially in Western Europe, the ideology of class, capital versus labor, dominated politics of the left of center. Political movements not based on this class distinction were viewed as either pro-capital or prone to the reactionary camp in moments of intense political conflict. While there is some validity to this view, it comes from a context of strong trade unions. It fails to appreciate the social context of US populism, that played a very progressive political role.
Cross-class Populist movements arose in the American South, mid-West and (to a lesser extent) the Southwest after the Civil War. These were societies in which most working people were small farmers, whose natural enemies were the banks that held their mortgages and the railroads that exercised a de facto control over commercial transport. Because progressive movements consisted in large part of people who were self-employed, they targeted capitalist monopolies rather than capitalist employers.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the coalescence of several regional small farmer organizations led to the creation of a national political organization, the People's Party. Commonly known as the Populists, the party's candidate for president won seventeen percent of the popular vote in 1892 and electoral college votes from five states, drawing on an industrial labor and farmer alliance.
Mary E. Lease, Populist Party member and later support of Eugene V. Debs.
The presidential candidate, James B. Weaver, ran on a platform that included strict control of banks, a progressive income tax, the eight hour day, and government ownership of railroads and telecommunications. The party leadership actively recruited women, one of the most famous being Mary E. Lease (see photograph). In the South the Populists include blacks, though the party was deeply divided over race.
Some might concede that the Populists had progressive aspects, but would dismiss them for their backwardness on social issues. This confuses the Populists, a movement of farmers and workers, with the pre-Civil War No-Nothing Party which was extremely anti-immigrant and racist with a base in the well-to-do. The direct descendents of the No-Nothings were the Klu Klux Klan, the John Bitch Society, George Wallace (racist governor of Alabama and third party candidate for president in 1968), and the Tea Party. These were not populist movements. They were overly racist and anti-union, and funded by wealthy reactionaries.
The lineal descendents of the populist People's Party were the American progressive third parties at the state level: the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (1918-1932) that elected a governor in the 1930s calling for pubic ownership of bankrupt companies; the Wisconsin Progressive Party (1934-1946); and the Vermont Progressive Party (1999-present).
Finally, much of the dislike of so-called populism stems from the negative stereotyping of some its most famous representatives, most notably William Jennings Bryan and Huey Long. Bryan strongly supported progressive causes during his three campaigns for president of the United States, as a Democrat, endorsed by the People's Party in 1896. He is primarily remembered for his appalling religiosity, manifested in his support for the prosecution in the infamous Scopes Trial in 1925. Among his progressive causes were pro-unionism, anti-imperialism, breaking up monopolies, and, most famously, against the gold standard. Despite his religious views and support of the outlawing of alcoholic drinks, he is rightly owed a place among great American progressives.
Long, governor and senator from Louisiana, 1928-1935 (until his assassination), is almost universally shunned as a demagogue, a threat to American democracy with a home-grown fascist ideology. In my view, this loathing of Long is the result of his uncompromising opposition to wealth and privilege (especially the power of the Standard Oil Company that dominated Louisiana), his anachronistic moderation on racial issues, his radical proposals for redistributing wealth, and his lack of gentility when dealing with the rich and powerful.
Huey Long (center, straw hat) supports demands for a bonus for war veterans, 1932.
Populist politicians in the United States have consistently been progressives, though always limited by the constraints of their historical contexts. The use of populism as a term of insult is rhetoric to discredit progressives by alleging that pandering to popular sentiment is the source of a range of reactionary policies over immigration, ethnicity and crime. We are warned to be careful of "populist" demands for action against banks, because to encourage them is to foster dark forces that could stalk the land.
The reactionary dark forces that threaten us do not come from the volatility of popular sentiment. They come from their obvious source, the reactionary project of capital, propagandized by the Rupert Murdochs and Fox Newses of the world. Pandering to the masses might also be called "representing ordinary people’s needs and wishes", Populism. The cross-class alliances represented by Populism in the past show us the way out of the current rule of reactionaries. Populism, sign me up.
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