Words matter.
Trump has been called a “populist.” The Brexit movement has been called “populist.” Marie LePen, who ran for president of France on an anti-immigration platform, was called a “populist.” Bannon and his anti-Establishment movement funded by the billionaire Mercers are called “populists.” No doubt, someone thinks the Koch brothers are “populists.”
None of these people are populists, not in the literal sense of representing ordinary folk, nor in the historical sense of connecting to a movement that surfaced in the late 1890s.
Populism as a movement means “for the people,” for the ordinary people, for working people. It should not be confused with appeals to nationalism, racism, and chauvinism. Demagogues appeal to base instincts, but they are not populists by doing so.
If you support a plan to take away health insurance from millions of people, you are not a populist. If you support tax reform that cuts the taxes of the richest people in society (for example, by eliminating the estate tax and by reducing the tax rates for those with the highest income), you are not a populist. If you support the privatizing of public services so that they can be transferred to private ownership, you are not a populist. If you support the privatization of public education, you are neither a populist nor a progressive, because both movements fought to expand government services, not to privatize them.
The Populist Party of the late nineteenth century emerged to fight against the rich and powerful interests of the day on behalf of working men, farmers, and the powerless. The Populist movement of a century ago–also known as the People’s Party–genuinely wanted leftwing reforms that favored the great mass of people, not the rich. It wanted the protection of government, not its destruction. It defended common folk and farmers against the bankers, the railroads, and powerful capitalists. It allied with the labor movement. It was a leftwing movement for the empowerment of the voiceless. The Populists were part of an agrarian revolt against the powerful interests that ruled their lives, especially the banks and the railroads.
Bannon and his billionaire buddies, including Trump and Mercer, are subversives who want to destroy the government and destroy programs that protect the neediest among us.
When Trump rails against the elites, it is a joke. He is a billionaire, not a farmer or a dispossessed laborer. He does not speak for the poor or for working people, though he sometimes pretends to. A populist does not live in mansions with a large staff of servants. A populist does not own golf clubs, hotels, and casinos. A populist does not play to ethnic and racial hatreds. A populist seeks to unite the common folk to advance an economic agenda that protects them from being preyed upon by people like Trump and Bannon and the Koch brothers and the Mercers.
Calling them “populists” not only distorts the actual and historical meaning of the word, but gives them the veneer of sympathy for the working poor that they cynically manipulate.
In Europe, those who are wrongly called “populist” are more accurately referred to as nationalists, or in extreme cases, as fascists who want to purify the ethnic stock of their country.
Disagree if you will, but read more about Populism before you do.
Here is the Populist Party Platform Of 1892.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
TRump’s party = The DENIERS & LIARS party.
You had me at “Words matter.” It has long irked me (actually, what’s a more irksome way of describing feelings that irk?) that this term is applied to these destructive charlatans. Note that support levels of, for example, reasonable gun regulation approaches 90% of the population, but it does not merit a common description of populist. The fact is that the word, in the context in which it is now used, is more of indictment of a lazy, uneducated mass media and the ignorant population that accepts it without questions.
Amen to that, Brother GregB
You hit upon a very dangerous spot these days if we stop to understand that those running our mass media (not to mention our public school classrooms) are more and more likely to be young, and more and more likely to be uneducated or under-educated: So much historic fact ignored, so much research nonchalantly bypassed.
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse.
Very nicely done, and this is a long overdue clarification of the issues in political science that characterize these strains of thought. I wonder what that paragon of populism, William Jennings Bryan, would make of Trump, Breitbart, et al….
William Jennings Bryan was the inspiration for the Wizard in the Oz stories. I think he has more in common with DJT than we realise: “no, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
All we need now is a Toto to unmask (“uncurtain”?) the fraud!
A populist would not win the White House through the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by almost 3-million.
The majority of the people would support a populist issue but when the voters are allowed to decide on publicly funding private schools through vouchers, tax credits or corporate charters and closing traditional public schools, the majority of people vote against those issues repeatedly. The only way the privatizing profiteers and frauds get what they want is to lie and buy elections to get their puppets elected.
Populism is when more than 70-percent of the people think the wealthy should pay more tax.
“Americans’ top concern about the tax code is that they want corporations and wealthy individuals to pay more taxes. Even among rank-and-file Republicans, soaking the rich is at least moderately popular.”
https://www.vox.com/2017/4/14/15297488/tax-poll-rich-pay-more
A majority of Americans think Abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That is populism.
“Currently, 57% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.”
http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
The majority of Americans think there should be stricter gun laws in the U.S. That is populism. And the U.S. can have stricter gun laws without breaking the 2nd Amendment. That amendment doesn’t say all types of weapons but only citizens are allowed to own firearms but not what type or caliber.
http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm
“Most Americans — 71% — do not think the federal government should try to prohibit the sale and use of marijuana in the many states where the drug has been legalized in some form. And 88% favor medical marijuana use.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/politics/marijuana-poll-legalization/index.html
The majority of Americans support feminism. That is populism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/feminism-project/poll/
Who stands in the way of all of these issues – mostly Christian Fundamentalists and/or far-right millionaire and billionaire oligarchs that belong to ALEC and the Walton Family.
Yes. ^^This.^^
A simpler rule that I follow is that be very wary of any group that calls itself “populist.”
From the Populist Party platform of 1896:
http://college.cengage.com/history/ayers_primary_sources/populist_partyplatform_1896.htm
Of course, and unfortunately, the Democratic party probably wasn’t much better in this regard.
Republicrats and Demoplicans. Might as well use one term: Repugnicans.
I know William Jennings Bryan (the last Dem. candidate of the 19th century) was quite big on the problem of the “European money-changers.” Not sure about the Republicans (Grover Cleveland?).
Grover the Groper? I don’t know. Where is GregB when you need him?
If not the Groper, then McKinley. I have a mnemonic to remember all the presidents up to the start of the 20th century, and it ends with “Cleveland Has Climbed McKinley.” (Cleveland = Grover Cleveland, Has = Benjamin Harrison, Climbed = Grover Cleveland, and McKinley = McKinley.) Had to be McKinley in 96.
Heck of a voice.
John Renbourne. One of the finest guitarists of late. Recently passed. A magnificent interpreter of Scots and British ballads.
Yes, the axe work was great. Not very familiar with his work. It’s going in the pot tonight.
Check out his version of O Westlin Wind. Breathtaking. It’s been a difficult time of late for great guitarists. We lost Paco de Lucia. Heaven sent, that one! OK, I can’t resist. This gives me chills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOvEob7j7qs
Sorry, Brother Bob, I was AWOL. Yes FLERP! is correct, it was the McKinley-Bryan election. And please don’t disparage Grover, for all his faults, he was one of the most unscrupulously honest presidents we’ve ever had—not the best, but very upright. And if I may add another guitarist to the pile, here’s Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood playing a composition Steve Reich wrote for him (not for everyone):
Written for Pat Metheny and performed by Jonny.
If you want to maintain control, the easiest way of doing so is co-opting a term then applying it in such a way that it conflates both sides of your competition. By applying “populist” to the Trump administration, banking on the likelihood the majority of the audience hasn’t a clue what the word means or its history in US politics, and then applying it as well to Bernie Sanders and the people who are working hard to advance the People’s Platform…
Well, do I really need to explain? And please note this conflation is mostly being done by the corporate media, as the real anti-establishment journalists now use “progressive” to refer to Sanders and his supporters. And, to no surprise, the corporate media have been trying very hard to conflate that term with establishment Democrats, just as they did during the election campaigns.
You know I obviously agree with everything you said. So we have two problems.
A) The identity of Populism in some Orwellian twist has been adopted by a fascistic right wing movement.
B) Long before the right was able to capitalize on the “increasingly down scaled working class “. Populists were portrayed in a negative light by “ESTABLISHMENT ” voices in the political and media world mainly aligned with the “party of the people”(LOL). The other party was content to be the party of the Oligarchy.
Somehow the interests of the ruling elites are portrayed in positive lights . While the real fears and suffering of the” PEOPLE ” are dismissed. Long before Trump and Bannon seized on the issue of disastrous trade agreements ,the Battle of Seattle Occurred.You would be hard pressed to find a righty on the streets of Seattle. Probably hard pressed to find a Trump supporter who even heard of it. No less knew who was at those demonstrations and why. That is not an accident.
The LIBERAL (not) NYT and Washington Post are fawning in praise over the French President Emmanuel Macron. Who is going to attack the problems in the French economy by first going after those French Labor Unions “holding the economy back” .
Repeat after me; President Marine Le Pen
chilling. both
So you see Macron as paving the way for the likes of Le Pen? I do.
When since the election . Macron is the French Obama, after the slogans are laid bare.When hope and change turn into more inequality ……
I think neo”liberals” label everything they oppose as populist because it sets apart their elitist money-meritocracy from everything else. In this perverted version of reality, all things neo”liberal” are “smart” merits and everything else is the stupidity of the unwashed masses. Then, when an elitist corporatist like Trump gets elected, they get to continue their greedy pursuits while pretending the masses actually have a voice. It’s a sham. It’s a shame. It’s time for a revolution.
They are fake populists. Or bubblegum poppers.
Here is an irony:
Some of the most “populist” policies were put in place by politicians who were Democrats who didn’t come in as so-called “populists” — for example: FDR and LBJ.
Other populists like Huey Long and Charles Coughlin sometimes veered a bit toward supporting ideas that seem closer to fascism. So perhaps Trump is a “populist” who veers toward fascism, too
Or maybe populist has just lost whatever meaning it had and there is a new one. And it means to be a right wing demagogue.
It’s like “liberalism”. Obviously, when people in the US talk about liberalism and liberals, they seem to mean the opposite of what that term originally meant in politics. Perhaps “populism” has now gone the same way.