Key Takeaways
1. Populism was originally a highly rational, progressive movement, not a bigoted mob.
By coining the word "populist," they intended to describe a political philosophy that was both democratic and radical, that would stand up to the narrow-minded and the intolerant.
The true origin. The word "populist" was coined in 1891 by Kansas farmers on a train to Topeka. Far from being an unthinking, reactionary mob, the original People's Party was a highly organized, intellectually curious movement. They established lending libraries, published hundreds of newspapers, and sought to educate the public on complex monetary policies.
A progressive agenda. The Populists challenged the Gilded Age's brutal economic hierarchy with a remarkably forward-looking platform. They demanded structural reforms that are now taken for granted:
- Direct election of U.S. senators to bypass corrupt state legislatures
- A graduated income tax to curb extreme wealth inequality
- Government regulation of monopolies, railroads, and communication systems
- A flexible, government-managed fiat currency to replace the deflationary gold standard
Inclusivity and equality. Unlike the modern caricature of populism as inherently nativist, the original movement was uniquely inclusive for its time. It featured women in prominent leadership roles and made a daring, albeit tragic, attempt to build a transracial political alliance between poor black and white farmers in the segregated South.
2. Anti-populism is a historical weapon used by elites to protect unaccountable power.
As we shall see, anti-populism always serves as a tool for justifying unaccountable power.
The elite defense. Anti-populism is not a neutral social science category; it is an adversarial doctrine designed to defend the authority of the ruling class. Whenever ordinary citizens threaten the status quo, the comfortable and highly educated classes unite to declare that "the people" are out of control and must be managed by experts.
Pathologizing the public. The core strategy of anti-populism is to shift the focus from systemic failures to the psychological defects of the public. Instead of addressing economic devastation, elites dismiss popular anger as:
- Irrational status anxiety or mental illness
- Ignorant hostility to science and expertise
- A dangerous, demagogue-led "upheaval of the unfit"
- Innate bigotry and cultural backwardness
Protecting the status quo. By framing political struggles as "expert versus populist," the ruling class insulates itself from criticism. This binary choice forces a false consensus where the only options are technocratic complacency or chaotic mob rule, effectively delegitimizing any democratic challenge to concentrated wealth.
3. The Gilded Age elite pioneered the playbook of pathologizing popular reform.
What that original Democracy Scare insisted upon is that any politician who uses the language of class-based grievance is probably either insincere or demonic...
The first scare. During the pivotal election of 1896, the American establishment faced its first major democratic threat in William Jennings Bryan. To defeat his challenge to the gold standard, the nation's financial, journalistic, and academic elites launched a massive, coordinated campaign of hysteria, painting the reformers as "anarchists" and "repudiators" of civilization.
The psychological smear. Rather than debating the merits of currency reform, Gilded Age anti-populists diagnosed the movement as a mental aberration. Prominent publications and psychologists claimed:
- Bryan was clinically insane, a "mattoid" or a paranoid
- Populist voters suffered from a "mental epidemic" and "hallucinations"
- The demand for economic fairness was merely the envy of the lazy for the successful
Coercion and cash. Mark Hanna, the Republican campaign mastermind, raised unprecedented sums from corporations to crush the populist threat. Elites used raw economic coercion, threatening to close factories and fire workers if Bryan won, establishing a precedent where moral enthusiasm was systematically beaten by concentrated capital.
4. The New Deal proved that defying elite economic consensus is the key to democratic survival.
The years when American liberals laughed at 'economic laws,' sent the 'money changers' packing, and declared 'the people are what matter' were also the years of peak liberal greatness.
Defying the orthodox. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt saved American democracy not by deferring to established experts, but by boldly defying them. The reigning economic authorities insisted on balanced budgets and the gold standard, but FDR prioritized the immediate, material well-being of ordinary people over academic dogma.
A populist presidency. FDR's New Deal implemented the core demands of the original Populist movement. His administration transformed the relationship between the government and the public by:
- Taking the nation off the gold standard and regulating Wall Street
- Establishing Social Security and bailing out homeowners and farmers
- Protecting the right of workers to organize and strike
- Creating massive public works programs to employ the jobless
The winning formula. By embracing a populist, class-conscious rhetoric that welcomed the hatred of "entrenched greed," FDR built a massive, durable electoral majority. This era proved that when liberalism aligns itself with the working class against the "money changers," it achieves its greatest victories and secures democratic stability.
5. The 1950s "consensus school" of intellectuals weaponized social science to pathologize the working class.
In short, the highly educated learned to deplore working-class movements for their bigotry, their refusal of modernity, and their borderline madness.
The academic mutation. In the prosperous post-WWII years, a new liberal elite of university professors redefined "populism" as a psychological pathology. Traumatized by McCarthyism, scholars like Richard Hofstadter, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Edward Shils argued that mass movements were inherently dangerous, anti-intellectual, and prone to authoritarianism.
The Hofstadter thesis. Hofstadter's highly influential book, The Age of Reform, painted the 1890s Populists as paranoid, backward-looking bigots driven by "status anxiety." Although subsequent historical research thoroughly debunked his claims, the thesis successfully shifted the definition of populism from:
- A rational struggle for economic democracy
- To a generic term for working-class ignorance and resentment
The rule of experts. This academic shift justified a "pluralism of elites," where political decisions were quietly made by professionals behind closed doors. It established the enduring liberal prejudice that the working class is too unsophisticated for direct democracy and must be guided by a benevolent meritocracy.
6. True civil rights leaders envisioned a transracial, working-class populist coalition.
King and the others made it clear that they look, not simply to the vote, but to a new coalition of the black and white poor and unemployed and working people...
The economic phase. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin understood that legal civil rights were meaningless without economic equality. In the late 1960s, they sought to transition the civil rights movement into a broad-based, transracial populist campaign that would challenge the structural inequalities of American capitalism.
The common interest. King argued that the needs of African Americans were identical to those of the white working class. He campaigned tirelessly for:
- A federal "Freedom Budget" to guarantee full employment and housing
- Stronger labor unions, declaring that "all labor has dignity"
- The Poor People's Campaign, uniting the impoverished of all races
- Massive federal investments in public education and infrastructure
Overcoming Jim Crow. King recognized that segregation had historically been used by the Southern elite to divide the working class and prevent a populist uprising. By building a coalition based on shared economic self-interest, he believed the poor could finally wrest political power from the "Bourbon interests."
7. The New Left's shift from class solidarity to moralism fractured the progressive coalition.
The New Left succeeded in stripping the aura of nobility away from what the Pops called the 'producing classes'...
The student elite. While the early New Left championed "participatory democracy," it remained a movement of college students—proto-professionals who ultimately viewed themselves, rather than the working class, as the agents of change. This structural class divide created a profound alienation between young activists and the blue-collar public.
The moral divide. As the Vietnam War escalated, the student Left abandoned the populist goal of majoritarian persuasion. Instead of organizing the working class, they began to view ordinary Americans as:
- Brainwashed consumers complicit in imperialism
- Reactionary "hardhats" and bigots
- Obstacles to moral and cultural enlightenment
The legacy of alienation. This shift transformed radical politics from a struggle for economic democracy into a pursuit of individual righteousness and lifestyle expression. It cemented the cultural stereotype of the working class as inherently fascist, destroying the possibility of a unified left-wing economic coalition.
8. The Right successfully hijacked populist rhetoric to implement plutocratic policies.
The conservative revolution happened not because Americans love polluters and disease but because Republicans sold themselves as a party of protest against the elite.
The great inversion. Beginning with Richard Nixon and culminating in Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, the Republican Party pulled off a spectacular political bait-and-switch. By exploiting working-class resentment toward the cultural and intellectual elite, conservatives successfully rebranded themselves as the true champions of the "silent majority."
The cultural proxy. Right-wing pseudo-populism redirected the public's anger away from corporations and banks toward cultural targets. The "elite" was no longer defined by wealth, but by:
- Liberal journalists, academics, and Hollywood celebrities
- Activist judges and Washington bureaucrats
- "Snobbish" experts who looked down on traditional values
- Globalist institutions that allegedly despised American sovereignty
Plutocracy in disguise. Under the cover of this anti-elitist rhetoric, conservative administrations implemented policies that directly harmed their working-class base. They slashed taxes for the rich, deregulated Wall Street, and dismantled labor unions, proving that right-wing populism is merely a tool to further enrich the plutocracy.
9. Modern liberalism has degenerated into an elitist "culture of scolding" that alienates the majority.
The wealthy liberal neighborhoods of America have become utopias of scolding because scolding is how this kind of concentrated power relates to ordinary citizens.
The learning class. Over the last few decades, the Democratic Party abandoned its working-class roots to become the party of highly educated, affluent professionals. This "Learning Class" believes that society should be governed by meritocratic experts, and they view economic inequality as a natural consequence of poor education rather than systemic exploitation.
The politics of reproach. Lacking a commitment to economic redistribution, modern liberalism has retreated into a moralistic "culture of scolding." Instead of building majoritarian coalitions, it focuses on:
- Policing language and shaming the culturally unrefined
- Demanding deference to academic and technocratic expertise
- Dismissing working-class economic anxiety as mere bigotry
- Blacklisting and canceling political dissenters
A self-defeating strategy. This elitist approach is politically disastrous. By treating ordinary citizens with condescension and moral superiority, liberals drive desperate voters into the arms of right-wing demagogues, ensuring the continued dominance of the very plutocracy they claim to oppose.
10. Reclaiming genuine economic populism is the only viable path to defeating plutocracy.
The demand for economic democracy is how you build a mass movement of ordinary people.
The populist cure. To defeat both right-wing demagoguery and liberal elitism, progressives must reclaim the authentic American populist tradition. This means abandoning the politics of moral scolding and returning to a robust, majoritarian campaign for economic democracy that unites working people across racial and cultural divides.
A majoritarian coalition. A modern economic populism must focus on bold, structural reforms that directly improve the material lives of the majority. This includes:
- Universal healthcare and the elimination of student debt
- Breaking up corporate monopolies and reforming the financial sector
- Empowering labor unions and rebuilding local economies
- Investing in public goods and infrastructure for all
Trusting the people. Ultimately, populism is defined by its optimism and its profound faith in the intelligence and capacity of ordinary citizens. By treating the public with "ideological patience" and organizing them around shared economic self-interest, we can build a powerful mass movement that finally answers the question: "For whom does America exist?"
