HOW HAS POPULISM AFFECTED AND BEEN AFFECTED BY AMERICAN POLITICS FROM WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN TO ROSS PEROT? HOW ARE BRYAN AND PEROT DIFFERENT AND ALIKE?
Abstract
Through the late eighteenth-century populism has undergone considerable evolution under the interests of political scientists, historians, and commentators. A literature review of “populism” provides wide scope in implicating its influence where it is widely illustrated. As a divisive term, populism expresses the anger between “us and them.” It is an overt expression of criticism indicating something that has gone wrong, and control is rigged and summoned by people in power (power elites). Populism is the confluence of a cultural, economic, and social variable that conceives movements rather than advance propagated ideologies.
This literature review covers various approaches that provide support to and engage a wider understanding of populism. In its attempt, the literature conveys to better understand the nature of populism, its impact on American politics, and how the concern of American politics has impacted populism. The paper reflects on populism at the period from the rise of William Jennings Bryan in the late eighteenth-century to the Reform party of H. Ross Perot in 1992.1 With concern to the rise of populism in the modern-day American politics, this literature review covers a timely and warranted concern of its confluence.
Populism: Defining a Moving Target
With illustrative concern from Hicks’ Te Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party (1931), the definitive nature of populism draws its perpetual roots in the agrarian recessive rural farmers of the Western and Southern plain states.[2] In 1892, the Oklahoma platform with a constituent to its sub-treasury plan, re malpractices that are confrontational to new settlers’ regulation of the railroads as well as the banking system, conveys an initiative, the referendum and the secret ballot, which provocatively illustrates the lie within the definitive state of populism. The projection is backward-looking despites its capability to portray populism as a modern and forward-looking concept.[3]
Despite the periodic concerns, Hicks’ definition of populism as a crusade for farm reified waged between the 1880s and the 1990s is widely accepted, as it is reinforced by Hofstader, in The Age of Reform (1955), through its acceptable concept of the agrarian myth. Hofstadter arguably disregard’s populism because of its backward, provincial, its conspiracy-minded traits, and had a tendency toward scapegoat-ism which iteratively manifested itself as anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism, and Anglophobia.[4] Populism with its disregard for endorsement, as agued by Hofstadter, it, however, conveys the irony that though it broadcasts political defeat, it extensively achieved its agendas, which its causes were labeled as law (45. Hofstadter, The Age of Reform).
The Democratic Promise: The populist Moment in America, as indicated by Lawrence Goodwin (1976), describes populism as “being the decline of freedom in America.” As a populist, Goodwin is ideologically driven, despite the case, he offers a reinterpretation of the nature of populism indicating that the concept of cooperation expansion piloted by the Texas organizers cements the basis for political populism.[5] He co-joins different aspects of populism studied by other historians which solidifies the perspective and dimension to the populist movement. Despite the case of his discussion of Texas populism being well developed and undoubted, it still raises questions concerning the efficacy of one-size-fits-all paradigms for complex issues.
Postel in The Populist Vision projects a wider concern to include not only farmers and workers but also an array of nonconformities, including urban radicals, tax and currency reformers, prohibitionists, middle-class utopians, spiritual innovators and miscellaneous iconoclasts.” 4/12-13 Postel. The broad concept as illustrated by Postel instructed concerns that the heart of populism was in middle America, and the Plains states embodied the locus of populist action.
Postel is profound in his thesis of populism to illustrate it as one of the most persuasive challenges to corporate power in American history. In his concern, Postel evaluates reasons why populism failed as a movement but how populist ideas continuously influence the politics and policies in the 20th century. With a focus on grassroots behavior of voters, between the 1960s and 1970s, Postel indicates that the “New Political History” rebelled against the traditional top-down political history.[6] The changing ideologies aligned to Postel’s view of populism to being from the bottom-up. Postel is subjective of the populist influence to where he gives credit to ordinary people, such as the miners, the labor groups, and the railroad workers.[7] In this aspect, Postel eagerly bridges the gap between Populism and Progressivism, basing its core objective to “The creed of science served as a unifying strand within Populist thoughts…The righteous, progressive, and modern society of the Populist’s imagination was to be built on empirically revealed and scientifically established truth. ” Postel.[8]
Despite the existence of variations from the evidence presented by Hofstadter, Hicks, Goodwyn, and Postel, it still bears a common denominator. Populism developed an established basis as purchase among states in the South and West through a period of boom and bust and affiliated income inequality. It implicates the farmers and workers, as well as the producers not reaping the fair share of the fruits of their labor. This environment is exploited by the nature of existing populism, where its soul gives voice to the grievance and anger of those believing there was a tear in the fabric of a nation.[9] Populism played a key role in slaving to heal and restore what was broken.
A rhetoric concern to clarify, who were the populist? Were they as backward focused community as Hicks and Hofstadter or the forward-looking, informed modernists of Postel and Goodwyn? Or, are they both? In this concern, it projects that its clear populism comes in waves and it leaves a mark.
Populism: Ideology or Movement
As an exemplar of understanding populism traditions, Lawrence Goodwyn’s magisterial Democratic Promise argues that the cooperative crusade of the Farmer’s Alliance generates a movement culture, which defined Populism as a speck of last hope for an alternative to American corporate capitalism. In this state, populists joined farmers to bind incentives to the regulatory state. This concern ascertained deliberations of “Race Progress” and the status of women to be most interesting. The idea of the race allowed populist to understand that segregation encouraged progress for blacks and whites, which evidenced the Farmer’s Alliance as an instrument that initiated Jim Crow laws in the 1890s.[10] His accounts widened the scope through which I perceive Populism beyond its agrarian roots with the focus on the abilities and roles exercised by urbanites and wage workers in the populist period. The inadvertent impact of technological advancement in the late nineteenth-century on ordinary people and their response, scientific and technical knowledge, developing to highly centralized organizations such as the National Grange, launched a large-scale cooperative business, and pressed for reforms on the Nation’s model’s best elaborate the existing bureaucracy-which is an ideological service.[11]
Gidron is adamant in revealing Populism to being both an ideology and a movement, with a concern to its spread across global regions such as Europe, America, and Africa, its impacts are majorly political which now acts as the foundation for democratic politics.[12] Its rightwing inclusion into a contemporary society in the 1980s has continued to develop with immigrants and national minorities, merging people from different ethnicities to adopt and share a political framework.[13] As a movement, populism associates with various economic ideologies and political parties that base their concern from populists’ parties. This is evident through the 19th century perpetuated segregation, in which populism indicated a significant influence on the socio-political environment where the populist artists mobilize and share ideas. Such a concern as identified by Panizza places populism as a form of politics that its political actors use to meet their objected goals. Populism is not subjective to an individual’s identity, rather it illustrates concern to show beliefs in various aspects of the society.[14] Therefore, populism is strategical to political concerns in the contemporary socialist parts, where populism devolved to influencing the political choices, the set policies, and the developing political organizations in America.
Populism’s influence on socio-political factors mobilized the rise of ethno-populism which was attributing contributors to economic policies and support to the masses’ ideas.[15] Populists attribution to economic policies aimed at economic redistribution, as well as the nationalization of resources, and was devoid of taking control of their lifestyle. While it lacks unsolicited support to individual populists’ identity, its implementation through economic policies widely supported the economic interests of the majority in a society.[16] The context is supportive of populism in an instance where leaders utilize populist’s language to lure voters’ limits away from the massive economic interests.[17] Due to populist politics being subjective to weak institutions and devising a driver in support for democracy where the leader might seem to have their interests at heart, or under the influence of corrupted elites, populism can be substantiated to cause antagonism between voters of the right-wing politicians and those of the left-wing politician.[18] Therefore its ideological concerns are subtle in both sides which is precedented to oppose the shared policies, negating the heuristic abilities of populism exercised by politicians to implement political strategies that ensure that both the right and the left-wing have influenced the thoughts of their voters, mobilizing and strategizing on issues that affect them.[19]
Robert Miller accords populism in the late 1800s in America to being vicious legislation that was passed and supported by the masses’ interest, which curved a path for exploiters to loot from farmers and other workers.[20] As workers were continuously underpaid the value of their effort, America experienced a massive economic, social, and political deterioration and even leading to the cause of civil war and agricultural collapse. In context, Miller’s context of populism substantiates its absolute concern to founding a movement from 1892, as an implementation strategy to seek solutions to the underpinning socio-economic environment.[21] However, populism overt exploitation through the looting that curved exploiters path continuously advanced to consistently denying the movement’s capability to change the set vicious legal policies.
Additionally, Richard Hofstadter projects American politics to be a sense of paranoia, which illustrates inclusive populists’ politics to be a discursive style. The ideological sense in paranoia is characterized by intense exaggerations, suspicions, apocalyptic and conspirational behaviors. Populism in American politics has observed the conditioned conspiracy trait where it leads to people becoming overly paranoid that something might take control of America and amend its critical foundational values.[22] Hofstadter contributes the rise of political paranoia in the United States to its heterogeneity and ruthless way of life, with significant support from the consistent support of people who need to find identity in a particular culture or society. This diverse and shared concept in a society devolves a populist perspective which reflects among prospective leaders in the proactive parties of the American populist politics.[23] Therefore, populism subjectively elaborates on ideology as well as an actionable movement that rebels the status quo and has consistently evolved to overcome domination and individual power, as indicated by Filc.[24] With a strong basis on political influence, populism in American politics alleviated its central role in reinvigorating the democratic concerns and further academic study in support for a complementing effect to the society.
Populism: The Rhetoric of the People
Postel accords that the foundation of American politics through populism has been the outcome of elections, which signify the revolving elections around the rhetoric American people who consider handling the concern of the elite through the ballot box.[25] In subsequent earlier centuries from the 18th century, the American political stage has been under the control of corporate lawyers, millionaires, the academicians, the military generals, and wealthy slave owners. These elite groups indulge in the representation of the ordinary man, the middle-class as well as silent majority while struggling against the other elites.[26] Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser present dignify the populism ideology to indicate its inability to be independent “thin-centered ideology” and finds its support in full ideologies such as socialism, liberalism, and fascism.[27] In this sense, populists take advantage while engaging its attenuated nature that is plausible in victimizing people and engaging the corrupt elite. This as indicated by Mudde, is illustrative of the virtuous people, versus the elite corrupt intimidating the high and low cultures of the US political stage, which aligns with the Marxist’s accounts on democratic equality on people’s rights.[28] The ideological concept in populists alleviated the concern to expand suffrage and integrate people’s rights and interests against the elite oppressors, who only abject the needs of the majority populists by declaring support through his ability to deal with the needs of the victimized majority.[29] The traditional political set embodied representation of farmers and workers, and the populist’s ideology in workers representation to garner support, where the modern political history lacks the contrast that signifies the complicated foundation between the elites and the people in setting the dynamics of governance and political legitimacy. This coincides with Postel’s concept in America’s populism being a diverse strategy that assimilates popular politics through the broad suffrage, which negates Mudde and Kaltwasser’s perspective that aligns populism to be a whiff of harmful intolerant, anti-pluralist and authoritarian politics.[30] The two aspects are evident of the US populism exercised by people in the 1890s, throughout the McCarthyism period to the period of Trump, where the populism scenarios reinforce Americans suffering despite the elite ascend to power to fight for the interest of the common good.[31] This subjects the leverages political populism through time, implicating its sovereignty in governance rather than the development of the represented farmer and worker alliance.[32]
Goodwyn is subjective to consider the case of Texas and Nebraska’s political climate through a sympathetic lens of populism. He considered populism in Texas to being a political manifestation of alliance culture, which its initiation in the mid and late 1800s among farmers in groups of producers and consumers was well driven by the shared experience.[33] Populism geared a cultural movement that spread from the south to North America and later to the US state, which as argued by Goodwyn, its cooperative movement constituted political education and knowledge concerning farmer-shipper and farmer-creditor relationships. The engaged societal education improved the farmer’s subordinate perception to fit the developing industrial organizations. Parson et al urge the rhetoric of populism to be a shared sense of purpose from the populist political education, that utilizes cooperatives to organize large breakdowns between national political candidates.[34] The noted signs of an internal split due to the influence of the third-party activities were a consequence of a variety arising from the alliance counter-culture that is majorly significant in producing populism.[35] Goodwyn is illustrative of genuine concern from the populism variety and abhors shadow movements, which are liable to create limitations of the counter-culture, as it lacks cooperative experience and knowledge of its educational values.[36] Since the shadow movement originated in Nebraska, Texas’ concern on populist alliance culture failed in demonstrating the required version of the populist rhetoric within its political frameworks. The constating perspectives forecasted by the differing movements influenced the 1892 presidential elections, enabling Jennings’s Bryan, a representative of the shadow movement to ascend to power, ending the era of the allowed and subjective populism in America. As a political populist, Jennings campaigned with strategical political policies of progressive societies through a representation of the rhetoric community. The socio-political devolution as necessitated by Jennings Bryan implicated the ascension of McKinley to the being the piloting populist of the American industrial revolution. The collapse of genuine populism among individuals in cooperative organizations designated that its core values to the corporate American state proved irrelevant in 21st Century America. This case as objected by Goodwyn insinuated the end of populists’ freedom in America.
Goodwyn utilizes a case of national farmers’ alliance in promoting its cooperative movements to enable the development of more cooperatives in Nebraska, with radical farmers.[37] As the alliance and movement avoided morally and uprights representatives to be its leaders, its essence in implicating populism perspective was devoid of purpose and labeled as organizationally shallow in its ideology and doctrines that associate it with concepts of the evolving populism. Goodwyn affirms that the existing populism limitation in Nebraska as it lacked proper farmer or people collective identification and a cultural movement that supports people’s articulation to support their needs as a group.[38] The lack of such foundational concerns and values interfered with progressive ideologies in the engagement and advancement of populism, as the existing individuals could not self-educate and nor develop self-respect due to lack of adequate education among poor communities.[39]
Populism and Politics: From Bryan to Perot
Populism’s implementation of the contemporary societal organization was based on the need to show representation and the acknowledgment of presenting the needs of the majority as a political populist. Postel aligns the concern to gain representation as to the growth of American politics while the populist concern of representative engaged populism as an outcome of elections.
Conclusion
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[22] van Prooijen, Jan-Willem, B. Rutjens, and M. Brandt. “Populism as political mentality underlying conspiracy theories.” Belief systems and the perception of reality (2018): 79-96.
[23] Tindall, George B. “Populism: A Semantic Identity Crisis.” The Virginia Quarterly Review 48, no. 4 (1972): 501-18
[24] Filc, Dani. The political right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism. Routledge, 2009.
[25] Postel, Charles. “Populism as a Concept and the Challenge of US History.” IdeAs. Idées d’Amériques 14 (2019)
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[33] Cherny, Robert W. “Lawrence Goodwyn And Nebraska Populism: A Review of Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America By Lawrence Goodwyn.” (1981).
[34] Parsons, Stanley B., Karen Toombs Parsons, Walter Killilae, and Beverly Borgers. “The Role of Cooperatives in the Development of the Movement Culture of Populism.” The Journal of American History 69, no. 4 (1983): 866-885.
[35] Morgan, H. Wayne. “Goodwyn, Lawrence,” Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America”(Book Review).” Business History Review 51, no. 2 (1977): 242.
[36] Cherny “Lawrence Goodwyn And Nebraska Populism: A Review of Democratic Promise: [11]
[37] Goodwyn, Lawrence. The populist moment: A short history of the agrarian revolt in America. Oxford University Press, 1978.
[38] Hair, William I. “Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America.” (1977): 96-98.
[39] Goodwyn “The populist moment: A short history of the agrarian revolt in America.” Oxford University Press, [9]