The History, Inescapability, and Struggle of American Populism
Photo by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Populism is defined as a political strategy aimed at ordinary people that feel as though they are disregarded by traditional elite groups. It creates a power structure in which the “people” are oppressed by the “elite.” The “elite” are composed of politically, socially, and economically powerful individuals, whereas the “people” are broadly understood to be the typical majority of society. Populist leaders further their agendas by espousing that these established groups are working against the interests of everyday people in order to serve themselves. The leaders, therefore, choose how to divide the “people” from the “elite” and what the interests of those people are. The history of populism in America shows that populist political leaders oppress those who dissent from their prescribed political agendas. Typically, the “in-group” only includes those who both agree with their platforms and are traditionally marginalized from the rest of society. Populism is not necessarily inherently dangerous or the tool of only political extremes, as there have been wholly valid movements of the masses to gain rights against the interests of self-serving elites. However, the electorate must severely consider how the idea of the “people” is manipulated by political actors and for what purposes.
The term populism originated in the late 19th century and, in America, it was associated with the rise of the People’s Party. The People’s Party, commonly known as the Populists, included farmers, labor unions, and progressives and maintained a platform of a graduated income tax, the nationalization of railroads, the direct election of U.S. Senators, 8-hour workdays, and many more efforts aimed at closing the political and economic gap between farmers and workers and industry owners. The Populist Movement sprung from agrarian discontent over crop failures and low prices and shifted towards the villainization of unregulated capitalism and the economic and political domination of trusts and railroad companies. In 1892, James B. Weaver was the Populist Party candidate for President. He described the situation in America such that “Public sentiment is not observed. The wealthy and powerful gain a ready hearing, but the plodding, suffering, unorganized complaining multitude are spurned and derided.” To the Populists, the economic system was rigged, the established political parties worked for special interests, and the “multitude” were ignored. For these Populists, the “multitude” was composed of poor and powerless workers in a system that needed uprooting.
The broader populism of the late 19th century lent itself to the villainization of not only the elites but also those who did not match the traditional image of an American–the “other.” This “other” included the influx of immigrants into the United States, who were stigmatized and viewed under a nativist and racist lens as threats to economic security. Immigrants took the jobs that “real Americans,” which most often meant only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, were entitled to, for they were employed cheaply by industrial corporations. Not only did these immigrants threaten economic security, but they also threatened the traditional definition of what it meant to be American. Immigrants were painted as people who did not embrace American culture and did not seek to assimilate. These sentiments contributed to the post-WWI push for eugenics and “racial purity” as well as the revitalization of the Ku Klux Klan. The movement that had descended from the People’s Party was clearly not inclusive of all people. These new immigrants were not classically American, so they were not included in “the people.” They were a group whose mere existence could be utilized as a rallying cry for populist candidates, not in order to accurately represent true American ideals and interests, but to appeal to people’s fears and enrich their own power.
When the Great Depression came, Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the age of massive government intervention in order to alleviate the incredible economic downturn. The Depression seemed to be the tipping point in which the government intervention sought by figures like Weaver was finally enacted to protect Americans against the miscalculations of financial elites. However, as history would have it, only World War II would alleviate America’s economic issues. During the war, though, the internment of Japanese Americans reflected the long-standing belief that these immigrants and their children had never truly assimilated and remained outsiders even generations later. The West Coast commander of the US Army, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt, stated in a report in 1941 that “In the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by migration...The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.” Since these people were not truly American, forcibly interning them in camps was excusable. White farmers on the West Coast were eager to no longer have to compete with Japanese-American farmers for business, so the war effort and racism, combined with economic interests, permitted such treatment, for it was in the interests of “real Americans.”
The economic and racial sentiments of the Depression and World War II eras channeled anger and resentment towards the established elites and outsiders, but it took the events of the 1960s and 70s to truly upend popular trust in the government as well. The Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, and Watergate deservedly obliterated the public trust in the federal government to protect the interests of the people. The masses began to vocally champion different missions, including the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war protests, LGBTQ rights protests, and the second-wave feminist movement. They challenged the government and society to acknowledge the rights to which those groups were entitled. Mass demonstration and populist sentiment then were shown to not exclusively be the tools of racism, xenophobia, and bigotry. They could also be the instruments for marginalized groups to be included in society. Those groups could join “We the people.” Populism, in this sense, was implemented with good intentions for positive and justified change. These movements were about demanding recognition and inclusion, not, for instance, about gaining and consolidating political power.
Currently, populist sentiment is most often attributed to the political extremes, yet the political extremes have now become mainstream. The utilization of populism in conservative lanes is tied to deregulation, revitalized trade agreements, and the preservation of traditional family values and the Second Amendment. In liberal spheres, there is a desire for “big structural change,” as Senator Elizabeth Warren put it, in order to reframe a government that currently favors the billionaire class, pharmaceutical and insurance industries, and Wall St. over the interests of the majority of Americans, in addition to the furthering of movements like the fights for gun control and climate change. These fights often invoke sentiments of the will and interests of the people, which makes it so that any negotiation or compromise is almost an act against the people.
The blame for ubiquitous dissatisfaction with the government is falling on different parties. “We are transferring power from Washington DC and giving it back to you, the people...the establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country” were the words given by President Donald Trump in his 2017 inaugural speech. He also declared that “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.” Trump’s speech indicated that he would now be the one fight for the long overshadowed needs of working-class Americans. Trump’s rhetoric on the dangers of “other countries,” when combined with the administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants and the President’s derisive statements on African nations, all indicate Trump’s xenophobia and racism–two prominent characteristics of populist leaders.
In his primary campaign in 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders said that “There are millions and millions of people who are tired of establishment politics, who are tired of corporate greed, who want a candidate that will help lead a mass movement in this country…What people are saying is, “Enough is enough. The billionaire class cannot have it all.” Sanders’ sentiment clearly encapsulates this idea that the majority of people are not represented by current politics or politicians and that he is the one who sees them. The rhetoric that Sanders and Trump share that there is an establishment working actively against the people, which, as stated, is typical of populism. However, Sanders internalizes the problems of America—they are flaws belonging to the American system. Trump outsources issues—they are the flaws of other countries and previous administrations. These differences are key to evaluating how populist rhetoric influences the ways in which people view their own country and what policies fix what issues, especially when these two candidates harbor so much support in the political landscape.
Both sides of the political spectrum claim to be fighting for ordinary Americans but who they are fighting against is different. Populism is, at its core, a struggle between the powerful and the powerless, but it is political leaders who get to decide who falls into those groups. This is where the implementation of populism has drawn critique, for when political actors get to choose who the “people” are and what they want and need, they also get to choose the enemy. During the Brexit campaign, British Politician Nigel Farage called Brexit a “victory for real people.” In a campaign speech in May 2016, Donald Trump declared that “the only important thing is the unification of the people - because the other people don’t mean anything.” What these statements require is for the definition of people to mean the people that support a certain political leader or policy and for there to be “other people” who can be disregarded. These claims about the “people” appeal to the democratic principle of a government belonging to the people, but they are not democratically liberal in the definition of who those people are—they are exclusionary. Such exclusion has been, historically, very dangerous. It creates a utilitarian idea that anything is permissible, like the internment of American citizens, if it is in the interests of the “people.”
The United States is founded on the ideal of liberal democracy. In the Constitution, the national government of the United States was mandated by “We the people,” but American history has been a struggle about who those people are. At the time of the Constitution’s ratification, “We the people” did not include non-property owning white men, women, slaves, or free black people. American history has been a fight for marginalized groups to finally fit into the definition of the “people.” Where populism goes awry is when the “people,” in reality, only really means some people.
Populists tend to speak for the unification of the people, but the American government was designed to mitigate conflict. It is American to have values shared by all people, but not necessarily for political ideas to be uniform. In Federalist 63, James Madison argued for longer Senate terms and indirect election of senators because “There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.” The federal government had to be mandated by the people but it also had to be protected from the people to a certain degree, and the establishment of an elite of sorts was used to do so. The American people are meant to disagree in order to find the best legislation for all people, not to be manipulated into placing the entirety of political power in the hands of a few political actors as some populists would have it.
In recent years, the world has witnessed the rise of authoritarianism cloaked in populism. A leader or political party will claim that they alone represent the true interests of the people and that they alone deserve the power to fight for those interests. When speaking about the migration of refugees into Europe, Vladimir Putin said that “This liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected...Every crime must have its punishment. The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.” In this instance, liberal does not refer to liberal versus conservative but liberal versus authoritarian. Self-described populist governments and leaders are in power in Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Tukey, Brazil, Venezuela, and more. There has been a swing towards authoritarian populism in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and the United States. In Europe, this typical populism champions the fight against the elite, empowers the state, and is critical of globalization, immigration, and institutions like the European Union and NATO. The ugly side of such Western populism has been especially visible in relation to the refugee crisis as a result of the Syrain civil war, in which migrants were distorted as a threat to the homogeneity of European nations, and, therefore, the European way of life. The rhetoric of immigration as a cultural and economic threat continues to be one of the most prominent indicators of dangerous populism. The advancement of this brand of populism has also been attributed to rising income inequality, which stokes widespread economic anxiety and fear, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, the rising income inequality in the US is combined with factors like the stagnant minimum wage, insurmountable student debt, and the increasing cost of medical care as causes for the ascent of Bernie Sanders. Once more, the economic discontent of the people lends way to the rise of populism.
Populist demands were what allowed for universal suffrage in America and for the rights of women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and more to be recognized by the government and society. However, populism does not belong to a political party. The future of populism requires an intense look at the leaders who espouse it. Populist sentiment can create an “us versus them” mentality and has been used to oppress and exclude those a leader deems not to the “people.” The idea of the “people,” as prescribed by political leaders, has been and continues to be exclusionary towards those who dissent, as if they are not also true and hardworking citizens. The actual will of the people is muddled and populism can be utilized to clarify it into something it is not for the sake of furthering certain leaders or parties. When invoking the “people,” it should not mean that, in the words of President Trump, “the other people don’t mean anything.”