BOOK REPORT: THE PEOPLE, NO: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTI-POPULISM by THOMAS FRANK

Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank is an American historian, who has written several books on the current state of his country’s politics. His 2004 book, What’s The Matter With Kansas? examined the rise of political conservatism in the United States, beginning during the 1970s with the coalescing of fiscal  and social conservatives within the Republican Party, and with the rightward drift of the Democratic Party around the same time. He contends that, for its part, the Democratic Party began to differentiate itself from its Republican rivals by abandoning its traditional working class base and adopting a fiscally conservative platform coupled with socially liberal policies (i.e. pro-choice, gay rights, etc.). He examines how and why these changes occurred.

In 2016 he published, Listen, Liberal Or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?, a blistering critique of the Democratic Party, examining the rise of the liberal elites in America and how Democrats became a party catering to the needs of the professional/managerial class at the expense of working class. From his website there is a description of his argument:

 

“A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality.” (Listen, Liberal interview)

 

In 2020, his The People, NO, examines a word that everyone is familiar with, and one we hear often enough on the news or read in the paper: “populism”. Today the word is used pejoratively, as a criticism of mass movements, of the rise of authoritarian leaders—so called “populists”— like Donald Trump, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Marie Le Pen of France, and so on, heads of movements and political parties with shared ideologies bordering on fascism, and whose followers hold racist or bigoted views, who are anti-modernist, anti-science, etc.

We’ve come to feel such 'populist' sentiments in society must be quickly countered by more centrist, “consensus” politics of recent decades. Populism, the current thinking goes, is dangerous to democracy and must be put down wherever it arises.

But in a fascinating rebuttal to this accepted view, Frank gives us the true meaning of the word “populism”, its history, when the word was first coined, what and who it represented, and how it has been co-opted by conservative elements on both sides of the aisle to alter its meaning to represent its exact opposite. He describes how the modern wave of anti-populist sentiment (that is, sentiment against actual populists) came about as a concerted effort on the part of right-wing strategists and politicians to destroy the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” initiatives of the 1930s (what Frank calls the great “second wave” of populism in America, and perhaps it’s heyday). Pushback from financial and corporate elites began during FDR’s presidency, of course, but the modern iteration of the conservative response began in the 1950s with a group of influential historians, Richard Hofstadter in particular, who began using the word “populist” pejoratively to refer to the mass of people (most of the population) who acted “illogically”, at the whim of their “passions”, in a wave of populist fervor,and most damningly, did not accept the need for elites and the intelligentsia to guide and manage their affairs. This conservative philosophy expanded in the following decades, with think tanks, political action groups and lobbyists increasingly pushing their agenda—namely the promotion of elite rule and business dominance in American politics.

The Democratic Party, as mentioned, began its rightward shift by adopting a similar platform of support for elite rule, with professionals and experts (drawn from the growing professional/managerial class, of course) to manage the government. As Frank so clearly describes in Listen, Liberal, “consensus” politics—that is consensus among elites from both the left and the right, and rule by managers and “experts” became the accepted political norm for both parties.

To be clear: Donald Trump and his ilk are NOT populists. They are authoritarian leaders who rule to keep their class (in Trump's case the billionaire class) in charge. These elite demagogues are the opposite of populists. They may walk like populists, talk like populists but they're not populists. A simple litmus test can tell us the difference: Who benefits from the policies, actions, and rhetoric of Donald Trump? If your answer is the working poor of America, the disenfranchaised then, my friend, I have a bridge to sell you!       

In his new book, Frank reminds us that "populism" originally was a name given to a particular political movement that arose in the early 1890s in the American Midwest, and which eventually grew into a Democratic Party challenge for President with the orator William Jennings Bryan as its candidate. Populists or “Pops” were simply members of that movement, in particular the “People’s Party” which included millions of poor Midwestern farmers and black farm-labour workers in the South, as well as white and black urban factory workers of the industrial North East. How this word, “populism”, changed from meaning a grass-roots political movement (what Frank calls the first great challenge by working people to the business and moneyed elites of America), to the pejorative it is today, is a fascinating and disturbing tale of political intrigue, backroom manipulation and brute-force politicking.

Remember that populism in America emerged in the “Gilded Age” during the 1890s, when farmers, miners, factory workers and other wage-earners were forced to eke out a living under the thumb of powerful companies and monopolies like the Steel Trust, Oil Trust etc., whose wealthy owners—the aptly named “Robber Barons”—kept a strangle hold on finance and commerce and labour organizing. Workers had little recourse to address the inequalities and abuses practiced by their employers and could do little to better their situations. Low prices for farm products were the catalyst for the nascent populist movement in the farm lands of the American Midwest, and Frank makes it clear that this was a movement concerned primarily with bettering the economic status of its members. Fair prices and wages, better working conditions, shorter working hours and so on were the main concerns of populists, and importantly, their movement was a broad coalition that tried to unite poor people of all races in a common project.

In the end, the movement failed to achieve its goal of electing a “populist” president, with Bryan losing to the pro-business candidate, William McKinley. The business lobby enlisted worried corporate leaders and the ultra-wealthy in an unprecedented campaign that saw vast sums of money funnelled into the presidential race, along with the usual voting shenanigans, illegalities and even violence, in an effort to defeat Bryan and his populist ‘rabble’. As Frank points out, this decade-long first push-back against big business had some effect on legislation, political discourse and activism in the ensuing years, notably during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency with the exploits of the “muckrakers” who exposed illegal monopolies and business abuses at the beginning of the twentieth century. But ultimately, Bryan’s 1896 defeat sealed the fate for the “People’s Party” and its bid for power. It was the first major challenge to big business and elite hegemony on the political stage in America, but it would not be the last.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt was elected President of the United States in 1933, and during the depths of the Great Depression he launched his great populist program, the “New Deal”, the second great wave of populism, in response to the calamity of crushing economic collapse brought about by a business community that, once again, had grown wealthy through rampant greed, speculation and corrupt business practices as it had during the Gilded Age. Their greed resulted in destabilizing the economy and bringing ruin to millions. Roosevelt, himself a millionaire, broke ranks with his class and sided with the workers, the common people, and his administration crafted policies and programs to aid them directly. Business leaders and rich elites were dragged kicking and screaming to support his initiatives, and he accomplished reforms which ushered in such programs as Welfare and Social Security. He created works programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that saw the federal government employ millions of unemployed Americans in infrastructure and reconstruction work. He devised legislation to combat the most egregious exploitations practiced by corporate and financial elites, and he also promoted labour rights and unionism. He convinced the business community to back his proposals (for a time) by reminding them if they did not compromise with workers, listen to their striking employees and give up part of their accumulated wealth now, they would lose it all later when the population rose in revolt, possibly with socialist or communist ideologies  informing and driving their rebellion. Roosevelt and those he chose for his administration, including his vice president Henry Wallace, were the second wave of true populist politicians in America who demanded radical changes to the country’s power structures in order to help the economic conditions of the poor.   

For Thomas Frank, the word “populism” refers to a movement with a platform that focuses on the economic well-being of the multi-racial working class in America through regulating and tamping down the excesses associated with capitalism and elite exploitation through progressive labour legislation, regulatory practices, and the promotion of unionism.

"CHARGE!"

The term “populism” has been for decades now been used pejoratively to condemn social movements that ultimately threaten elite power. Liberal elites, in particular, have bastardized and distorted the term so that today most people think it refers to anti-democratic, authoritarian-led, proto-fascistic movements--the Trumps of the world. Conservatives use the term to describe 'cock-eyed' left wing movements like those of Senator Bernie Sanders. Of course, this viewpoint benefits elites on both sides of the aisle, who can then claim to be "saving democracy" from the wrong-headed masses who simply don't know their place. Frank calls such red-baiting, “Democracy Scares”, where movements that support the economic well-being of working people (and challenge the status quo of wealthy elites and the professional/managerial class and politicians that serve them), are characterized as explosions of uninformed, misguided troublemakers that threaten social stability and order. Good governance, they say, should be in the hands of those who know how to govern—namely, themselves.

Today, the two presidential candidacies of Bernie Sanders are examples of populism. Sanders' grass-roots funding, his proposals in 2016 and 2020 for universal health care, minimum wage legislation, his policies on regulating Wall Street and banking are populist platforms similar to those of the “People’s Party” of the 1890s and the “New Deal” of the 1930s. The short-lived “Occupy Wall Street” movement after the Great Recession of 2008-9 (caused by a deregulated banking system, and criminal banking practices), and the “Yellow Vest” movement in France are recent examples of populist movements.

Frank says it is important to remember that genuine populist movements are first and foremost about class. They are movements of the working poor that are formed to address economic inequalities and political disenfranchaisement. They are (to be considered truly populist) a multi-racial coalition of urban and rural workers demanding a better balance of political representation and a greater share in the country’s wealth that they, themselves, helped produce. As it currently stands in America, populist agendas are considered “fringe” politics, and populist politicians are side-lined in both parties. The mainstream consensus for both Republicans and Democrats is pro-business and elite-centric, with Democrats concerned more with “identity” politics (gay marriage, for example) which does little, in the end, to challenge elite power structures and address economic inequalities, while on the other hand, the Republican consensus is full-bore pro-business. In both parties, there is little room for dissenting views that consider the needs of the working class in America. Call them “neo-conservatives” or “neo-liberals,  these elites are for the status-quo. They and their familars are the "anti-populists" Frank criticizes in his book.

Given the severity of the present coronavirus epidemic and shocks to economies around the world, the time may be ripe for movements like the “People’s Party” to emerge once more and become forces to be reckoned with in political arenas around the world. Or it may be generational in that, as elder statesmen and women retire, a new cohort of younger politicians might emerge to take their place that would be populist in character. It is too soon to tell, but such a change can’t come soon enough.

The title of Frank’s book comes from a long-poem by Carl Sandburg, “The People, Yes!” written in 1936. It is a book-length epic that celebrates the lives of every-day Americans, showing their perseverance and pluck in the face of hardships. As Frank notes, such a poem could not have been written today--just as the films of Frank Capra could not have been made in our current, rather cynical, times. Their unabashed portrayal of the dignity and worth of everyday working people would come across as old-fashioned and cornball. 

Thomas tells us that the decades-long anti-populist attacks by elites on almost every aspect of FDR's New Deal legislation, and the Democratic Party's complicity in siding with elite agendas since the 1970s, has moved the American political class decidedly against working people’s rights and needs. According to statistics, income inequality in America today is as great as it was during the Gilded Age, which saw the creation of the first populist movement in America as a result. Such social imbalances have in the past led to the rise of fascist systems (Italy, Germany) or communist ones. In America, we can only hope that democracy (with a robust populist wing) remains in place.     

 

Thomas Frank, with a wry, Midwestern sense of humour and a sardonic wit, tweaks the noses, claps the ears and in general ruffles the feathers of elites in the Democratic Party establishment, and liberals, academics and political mandarins on both sides of the aisle. In a recent interview, he says he doesn’t know what he’ll write about in his next book. Previously, humour and satire were important tools that helped him formulate his critiques of the political class. He says it is harder now for him to poke fun and point out the ironies found in elite blind spots and illusions. It’s all well and good when you can point out that the emperor has no clothes; that’s something we can all laugh about. It’s more difficult to laugh when the emperor proudly displays his body, in all its glorious nakedness, and demands you strip as well!

The times they are ‘a changing and which direction they’ll go is a good question.

 

Cheers, Jake.

"Take heart! Just not mine."