DragonSlave49
Ok what does Jen Pan think Populism is? I have never found any populism that did not support totalitarianism instrumental to their ends. Even if those ends are some form of Democratic society, the immediate goal of populism is never Democratic expression.
deathtokoalas
almost every expression of populism, going back to the roman period, has been reactionary. that, i might argue, is actually a defining characteristic of populism, that the movement is intrinsically rooted in a desire to undo the injustice of the present and instead reconstruct something that existed in the past, which is always seen as superior. the mass of people is consistently a barrier, rather than an enacter, of change, which just demonstrates the importance of mass consent for the viability of any movement. that's not to argue for a vanguard, exactly, as mass consent is still necessary to enact meaningful change, so much as to remind everybody that the process of building consent is continual, and constant outreach is perpetually necessary. people, if left unagitated, will drift towards conservatism, and populism is the consequence of allowing that to happen.
head crusher
Read "The People, No" by Thomas Frank. True populism represents the economic interests of the working class and, as such, is reliably detested and rejected by the upper classes . Populism is neither left nor right, and is necessarily the opposite of totalitarianism.
Trump was elected to the most powerful office in the world. His victory happened thanks to the Electoral College, an anti-populist instrument from long ago, but this irony quickly receded into the background. Although Trump had not actually won over a majority of the people, the Democracy Scare(the idea that regular people have too much democracy) developed into a kind of hysteria. Across the world panels and convenings and academic elites dedicated themselves to analyzing and theorizing and worrying about this falsely labeled right wing populism.
An example of real populism in America.In the 1880s, farmers started signing up by the millions for a cooperative movement called the Farmers’ Alliance. To such people the Alliance made a simple proposition: let’s find out why we are being ruined, and then let’s get together and do something about it. Southern White democrats and Northern black republican farmers and many more joined the Farmers Alliance. The formed a polical party that united under the banner of The Peoples Party, and coined the term "populist" to describe members of there movement. At the time of its premiere, “populist” was a term without ambiguity. It referred to economic radicals like Leopold and Henry Vincent, the two brothers who ran the American Nonconformist. Populists were those who supported a specific list of reforms designed to take power away from “the plutocrats” while advancing what the Vincent brothers called “the rights and needs, the interests and welfare of the people.” In the same issue of the paper, the Nonconformist spelled out the grievances of the People’s Party: it protested poverty, unbearable debt, monopoly, and corruption, and it looked ahead to the day when these were ended by the political actions of the people themselves.
Where are we now? 2021
Without true economic populism as a central component of the Democratic message, much of modern liberalism, according to Frank, amounts to what he characterizes as “scolding.” For example, scolding Trump voters for being bad, ignorant, unenlightened people. Scolding the left for failing to adhere to the liberal consensus that political change, if it can happen at all, must happen only gradually and in ways that do not threaten the wealthy or the powerful.
The totalitarianism of Trump or Obama is not populism. Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer and the Squad eating icecream and explaining why we can’t really change much of anything is as dangerous in the long term as right wing anti-elite faux populism. It only delays the inevitable: more phony anti-elitism posing as populism from the right, and further erosion of whatever remains in this political system and government that is worth saving.
deathtokoalas
that history is horribly whitewashed and broadly flat out wrong in terms of assigning motives to the various actors. frank is a cheerleader for the fake left, a talking head on tv and not a reliable source of accurate historical information. i'll leave it at that.
the way you're marketing populism is very fitting, though; once upon time, many years ago, in a purer time than exists today, america had a real left
it's fundamentally what populism is - a conservative yearning for the past. always was. and, it's why the kind of "leftists" that are attracted to the concept of populism are also the kind that dabble in the left when they're young because they're attracted to the idea of community, without holding many actual left-wing ideological positions, and end up religious conservatives in the end, once they realize that what they're really looking for is on the right.
one way that they misconstrue the history is by presenting it as a coalition of black and white farmers. in fact, while the various unions did align on various issues, the unions were segregated, and there was a distinct tension between the northern union and the southern union, which refused to integrate, as well. so, by presenting this history as a broad "populist movement", the idea of a common front is established - and that obscures the actual history of a series of racially segregated groups that, while sometimes working together over class interests, also had very viciously competitive streaks, which were very much rooted in ethnic allegiances. it's not an exaggeration to label that a lie.
my point is simply this: if the premise is that trumpism is fundamentally different than 19th century populism, i think that premise needs to be revisited. while there are certainly striking differences between trumpism and 19th century populism, the overwhelming similarities really tip the balance. if we maybe like the economic ideas of the 19th century populists a bit better, or feel they were rooted in a more honest place of middle class reform, we shouldn't allow that to blind us to the similar shape of the electorate during both periods, and maybe question with some sobriety what a william jennings bryan presidency would've really been like. further, i'm just uncomfortable with the idea that the actual population control measures brought in by the descendants of the populists, and out of populist ideological origins, are somehow irrelevant, while stupid red hats are the mark of the devil; that seems utterly backwards. trump accomplished nothing; look up what harry laughlin did in california. that balance is bizarre. rather, we should recognize the white supremacist continuity in thought throughout the history of populism (and progressivism) and condemn the whole thing from the start, from farmers in kansas rising up against the jewish usury to donald trump's fear-mongering around crime rates in immigrant communities.
head crusher
thanks for your opinions. You should re-read Thomas Frank. He is not a "TV personality" or "cheerleader"of the left. Love him or hate him he is a serious writer that is highly critical of the left. He cataloged the history of populism for many years, until he began to write serious books about it.That Thomas Frank has sparked our conversation is testament to his value as a writer and historian, no? Thomas never takes a nostalgic look at history, he takes a brutally honest look at American history, warts and all. Racism, classism, elitism, its all there in his books. Thomas Frank teaches us to move forward, recognize our mistakes and learn from them, so that maybe we can create a better existence for all.
I found my copy of "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
For you. Thomas Franks final thoughts on Populism. I'll cosign these thoughts.
“THE LAST POINT I want to make is this: populism wins. Not only is populism the classic, all-American response to hierarchy and plutocracy, but it is also the naturally dominant rhetorical element in our political tradition. I make this claim even though the Populists themselves didn’t get what they were after for many decades, even though the labor movement in the thirties never organized the South, even though Martin Luther King never saw the Freedom Budget enacted into law. Still, populism has a power that technocracy and liberal scolding and Trumpist bullshit do not because populism is deep in the grain of the democratic personality. Americans do not defer to their social superiors: we are natural-born egalitarians. Populism is the word that gets at our incurable itch to deflate pretentiousness of every description.”
Good night.
deathtokoalas
yeah, that's the false history that frank seems intent on writing for the purposes of erecting a creation myth for the fake left, alright. but, it's bullshit through and through. in fact, the farmer's alliance had major overlap with the kkk, and all the same trumpist bullshit was there in the populist movement from the start. sorry.
the leader of the populist party after 1904, thomas watson, once even formally called for the re-establishment of the kkk (which had been disbanded in 1871), in response to criticism about a lynching that occurred in georgia.
they even based their flags on the confederate flag:
head crusher
thnx 4 the good info. I just Read Tom Watsons wikipedia. The People's Party advocated the public ownership of the railroads, steamship lines, and telephone and telegraph systems. It also supported the free and unlimited coinage of silver, the abolition of national banks, a system of graduated income tax and the direct election of United States Senators. As a Populist, Watson tried to unite the agrarians across class lines, overcoming racial divides. He also supported the right of black men to vote. The failures of the Populists' attempt to make political progress through fusion tickets with the Democrats in 1896 and 1898 deeply affected Watson.
Shifting racial views
Watson had long supported black enfranchisement in Georgia and throughout the South, as a basic tenet of his populist philosophy.[10] He condemned lynching and tried to protect black voters from lynch mobs. However, after 1900 his interpretation of populism shifted. He no longer viewed the populist movement as being racially inclusive. By 1904, he was engaged in attacks on blacks, believing them to be little more than pawns of the Democratic Party. By 1908, Watson identified as a white supremacist and ran as such during his presidential bid. He used his highly influential magazine and newspaper to launch vehement diatribes against blacks.
Tom Watson rebranded as a racist to fit in with the 20th century Democrat party. That'd disgusting. It's also not much different than Joe Biden. Segregationist Joe Biden joined the Democrats by opposing federal busing. Jim Crow Joe Biden was mentored by KKK member Robert Byrd.
Che Guevara banned music, burned books, hated blacks, was an anti-semite, murdered those who disagreed with him, personally oversaw execution squads, and was in charge of a system that imprisoned gays solely for the crime of being gay.
AOC and the Squad won't fight for Med4All during a pandemic.
So many inconvenient truths.
Goodnight.
deathtokoalas
but, we condemn authoritarian leftists like stalin and guevara pretty much reflexively. on the other hand, we jump through mental gymnastics to protect our leftist origin myth, in america. but, watson was the leader of the populist party in this period, so the idea that he was changed by the democrats isn't particularly convincing. he's ultimately just one example, but that kind of overlap was relatively common in the farmers alliance and you want to multiply that example by however many people to really understand what this movement was like, in the sense that it was a movement mostly dominated by white farmers that felt left out after the end of slavery. i hope the link to the confederate flag made it through the spam filter.
again: i'm just casting doubt on the idea that these old 19th century populists were less racist, less xenophobic and less imperialist than the existing trumpists. the reality is that they weren't, even if they supported some other policies that you or i may have had some broader agreement with. the xenophobia, the racism, the romanticized gaze towards the past - these are all fundamental characteristics of any incarnation of populism that's ever been.
head crusher
What will future gens say about you me and everyone we know? There is no ideal "ism". There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
deathtokoalas
well, that kind of thinking ought to lead to deductions of honesty in analysis, not in the erection of and adherence to myth, to cover the history up. i would hope that future generations can break me right the fuck down, and make light of my searing contradictions. that's how we figure shit out.
i'm going through and fixing up posts where i tried to post links that got censored. there was a link to the southern farmer's alliance's confederate flag here, which is at the "farmer's alliance" wiki page. it's right there on the side. you can also look up "Sectionalism, Nationalism, And The Agrarian Revolt, 1877-1892" by benjamin houston turner purvis for more information on the white supremacist foundations of the populist movement, and the links between the farmer's alliance and the kkk.