What Passes for “Populism” These Days Is Laughable (via azspot)
My take away:
The Populists sought to make sense of it all. They believed that if only the citizenry had a better understanding of the mechanisms of modern government, finance, and economics, they could retool these mechanisms to create a more just and prosperous society. At its root, Populism was a vast movement of rural education. From Texas to the Dakotas, from North Carolina to California, men and women came off their farms to attend meetings and listen to lectures about political economy, history, and science. Far from the stereotypes of unreasoned rage and sharpened pitchforks, the Populists were known as a “reading party” and a “talking party.” More than anything else, they read and talked about ways to lift themselves and the country out of a financial and economic rut.
And this campaign:
As the Populists put it in their celebrated Omaha Platform of 1892: “We believe that the powers of government – in other words, of the people – should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify.”
Mr. Postel teaches history at San Francisco State University and is the author of: The Populist Vision (Oxford University Press, paperback 2009).
