How real the rise of American populism?

UNITED STATES: "Populism: Will there be blood? The revival of American populism is partly synthetic, but mostly real," The Economist, 28 March 2009.

Why it's hard to tell:

It is hard to answer this question in a country in which anger is a form of entertainment and where the political parties have turned partisanship into a fine art.

Buddy, you said a mouthful.

85% of Americans say big business has too much influence on politics, reflecting society's long-standing preference (since the end of the Cold War, really) to cast big, soulless corporations as their preferred villains.

The populism of America at the end of the 19th century featured people worried about a prolonged ag depression putting large segments of the population at risk to the voracious appetites of Wall Street types, yielding a land of "tramps and millionaires." We got a repurposing of such popular anger by FDR during the Great Depression, but nothing really since, especially after cultural populism, promulgated by the Boomers, edged out economic populism in the 1960s.

Neat little history, there.

Comments

[Seth]

The real "populist" sentiment is aimed at big government more than big business. Even the chart in the article expresses that most are angry at wasteful spending (a relative term to be sure). The protest against AIG were organized and funded by Unions. Most people weren't necessarily upset that they got bonuses it was that those bonuses were paid by tax money.

[stuart abrams]

American populism has always been primarily a cultural phenomenon, not an economic phenomenon, going back to Jackson. Class solidarity has rarely existed in American politics. Sure, there has been plenty of rhetoric based on "class warfare", but if you look at actual political alliances throughout American history, they are almost invariably based on cultural-religious-ethnic-regional factors, not economic class. Attacks on "elites" are usually codes - the "elites" are the other guys. I greatly fear populism right now because if it comes, it will almost certainly have a right-wing, not a left-wing, tilt, heavily tinged with stuff like racism and anti-semitism. We have had a hint of that already, with attacks on Obama for being "controlled" by people like Soros, Emmanuel, and Axelrod. I find the attacks on "Wall Street" to have similar coded references - perhaps I hear more attacks on Goldman Sachs than on Merrill Lynch just because Goldman makes so damn much money, but I can't help but suspecting that there is another reason why it has become the target of choice for populist attacks. Hopefully, I am being paranoid.

[Sean Meade]

at first blush, this comment itself appears classist, Stuart. what would be the dangers and excesses of left-wing populism?

[stuart abrams]

Sean -Not sure what you mean by "classist." Obviously, left-wing populism, if it ever had any traction, would cause all kinds of damage, like protectionism, over-regulation, misguided "soak the rich" tax policies. However, I don't see that as much of a danger, because I just don't think that there is really much of a constituency in the US for left-wing populism. I see people like Rachel Maddow calling herself a "populist" and it is ludicrous. These are well-educated affluent people who are hardly representative of "the masses". I do fully expect Obama to face a left-wing challenge in 2012 (probably Kucinich), but since African-Americans are the only major group in America that might be prone to support "left-wing populism" in large numbers, I think Obama is pretty well insulated from such a challenge. As I said, "left" vs. "right" politics in the US does not correlate to "poor" vs. "rich" - it has to do with other types of group identification. However, historically in America, when politicians do start slinging around populist rhetoric, it generally is successful only in promoting a right-wing agenda. Notably, the article refers to FDR as having used populist rhetoric. However, FDR really can't be seen as much of a populist. His use of populist rhetoric in 1936 was largely a defensive measure against a potential challenge coming from Huey Long and Father Coughlin, who IMO, were more representative of true American populism. Had Long not met his fate, who knows how things might have turned out - not well, IMO.

[Louis Heberlein]

Adam Smith showed that big business and big government went hand in hand at the expense of the public, most labor, and entrepreneurs. At one time populists read his simple language and illustrations to see he made 'cents' for them.