Prior reform cycles in American history include the
Populists (1890-1912), the Progressives (1912-1938) and the New Deal
(1938-1945). Of these cycles, the one most similar to now is the collection of social
movements and political campaigns broadly referred to as the Populist movement
of the late 19th century. Driven largely by farmers in the mid-West
and South, Populism was an agrarian revolt against the emerging corporate state
of the gilded age and its creed of progress, and had the following
characteristics similar to Trump’s campaign for the President:
1.
Economic crisis as antecedent
2.
Conspiracy as diagnosis (with racist overtones)
3.
Nostalgia as solution (through the exercise of
state power)
Economic Crises as
Antecedent
The period after the Civil War was marked by the expansion
of industrialization, the creation of a national market, and the
commercialization of the agriculture sector. Most farmers did enjoy a higher
standard of living as a result of these changes, but often at the price of
becoming heavily indebted to bankers, and farmers soon lost income and
livelihood to the vagaries of the natural business cycle. This despondency
reached its peak with the silver panic of 1893 when a crash in wheat prices led
to a run on gold and then collapse of the financial sector. Thousands of
businesses and banks closed, with upwards of 20% unemployment nationwide, and a
significant number of farm and home foreclosures (Hicks 1988).
One need not look too hard to see the parallels with the
Great Recession of 2008 when an overextended credit market combined with
malfeasance led to another collapse of the financial system, followed by 10%
unemployment, millions of home foreclosures, and a general downgrade in the standard
of living for those most vulnerable to a credit crunch.
Conspiracy as
Diagnosis
For those most directly affected by the economic crises of
the late 19th century, the reason for the crises was a conspiracy of
monied interests (railroads, banks, and trusts) over the common man, leading to
“a
struggle between the robbers and the robbed.” An unfortunate and often overlooked aspect (Hofstadter 1988) of the Populist’s conspiracy theory was
an overtone of anti-Semitism, with many allusions to “greedy Jews” determined
to take away the hard-earned income of a struggling working class.
For the downtrodden of today, it is a conspiracy of
East-coast elites and the media shoving trade pacts, open borders, and other
neoliberal policies down the throats of those least able to withstand the
negative effects of globalization. The apparent threat posed by immigrants gives
the current conspiracy theory its racist overtones, as displayed in both Trump’s
claim of Mexican rapists overwhelming the border or the explicit endorsement of
his presidency by white supremacists.
Nostalgia as Solution
The Populists were generally not looking to the future, but
to a past that seemed to be fading away, an agrarian utopia founded on Jefferson’s
myth
of the moral superiority of the yeoman, and a value system that saw
commercialism as a polluting influence on civic society. To get back to this
idyllic past, the Populists called for an expansion of government powers to
protect the right of laborers to organize, to mandate an 8-hour workday, and to
restrict immigration. Populists also called for the adoption of a
progressive income tax, initiative and referendum mechanisms, direct election
of senators, term limits on the President, and abolishing corporate subsidies.
Trump’s frequent promises to “bring
the jobs back” by withdrawing from trade pacts, brow-beating corporations,
and other protectionist and anti-market policies are driven by nostalgia for a
time after the second world war when most anyone without a college degree could
secure nearly lifetime employment in the manufacturing sector, providing a
comfortable if not prosperous standard of living. It is believed this
“manufacturing utopia” can be brought back through state power to restrict
immigration and otherwise disengage from the global marketplace.
The Populists Legacy
and Looking Ahead
Though the Populists did not succeed as an independent
political force, many of the reforms that originated with them were later
enacted, taming some of the excesses of the gilded age. More importantly, the Populists
laid the groundwork of a “movement culture” (Goodwyn 1988) that
later-day activists across the ideological spectrum would build upon to push
for political and social change. On the flip side, the racist parallels between
the Populists and the Trump campaign demonstrates that there is still work to
be done to overcome structural racism.
The take-home message for progressives today is that all is
not bleak. The grievances that propelled Trump to the presidency are real, and
even if his proposed solutions are mostly counter-intuitive to progressives,
there is an opportunity here to harness these grievances to push for
sustainable and effective change that will serve to correct the current
imbalances in the system. And as recently pointed
out elsewhere, the fight for racial justice can and should be considered a
compatible goal with economic and political reforms.
References:
Goodwyn L. “Populism: Democratic Promise.”
Conflicts and Consensus in Modern American History. Ed Davis A and Woodman H. 7th
edition. DC Heath and Company, 1988. Lexington, MA
Hicks J. “The Farmer’s Grievances.”
Conflicts and Consensus in Modern American History. Ed Davis A and Woodman H. 7th
edition. DC Heath and Company, 1988. Lexington, MA.
Hofstadter R. “Populism:
Nostalgic Agrarianism.” Conflicts and Consensus in Modern American History. Ed
Davis A and Woodman H. 7th edition. DC Heath and Company, 1988.
Lexington, MA.
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