Voice of the People

PETER: This is BackStory. I’m Peter Onuf. Plenty of voters are fed up with the political establishment. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders say they are, too. But does that make them populists, as many pundits claim?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Trump is the billionaire populist, and then you’ve got Sanders, who’s the socialist populist.

PETER: Trump and Sanders are unlikely political bedfellows. But in the 19th century during the original populist movement, economic distress forged some surprising political alliances.

OMAR ALI: There were these very moving moments of African Americans working with poor white people who were Confederate soldiers.

PETER: Today on BackStory, the history of populism, from the demagoguery of George Wallace to early forms of populist protest, like the smallpox riots in colonial Massachusetts.

PAUL GILJE: You have people throwing rocks and demonstrating against the richer people who could afford inoculation.

PETER: Coming up on BackStory, populism in America. Don’t go away.

Major funding for BackStory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

ED: From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is BackStory with the American Backstory hosts.

Welcome to the show. I’m Ed Ayers, here with Peter Onuf–

PETER: Hey, Ed.

ED: And Brian Balough.

BRIAN: Hey there, Ed. We’re going to begin today with a word that’s awfully popular these days. If you’ve been watching the 24-hour news networks in the last few months, chances are you’ve heard it– a lot.

MALE SPEAKER: Populist?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Yes, absolutely.

FEMALE SPEAKER: That’s kind of the populist thing.

MALE SPEAKER: Most of this country right now is populist on the far right and the far left.

MALE SPEAKER: Populist from the Democrats means grow government. Populist from the conservative side means shrink government.

MALE SPEAKER: Populist range.

MALE SPEAKER: Populist economics.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Populist–

MALE SPEAKER: Populist–

MALE SPEAKER: Populist–

MALE SPEAKER: Populist–

MALE SPEAKER: What is the opposite of populist? What would be the antithesis of that?

BRIAN: Those are voices from Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News using the political buzzword “populist” to describe everything from Hillary Clinton’s economic policies to Donald Trump’s poll numbers. Now, of course, populism isn’t a new idea in American politics. But hearing pundits throw the label on so many politicians and so many policies made us wonder, does anyone even know what it means to be a populist?

The word comes from the Latin for “the people,” so we thought we would ask actual people, or a cross section of locals, tourists, and students in New York City’s Washington Square Park. How would you define populism?

MALE SPEAKER: That is an enormously hard question.

MALE SPEAKER: Populism? I don’t know what that means.

MALE SPEAKER: It’s hard to describe exactly populist. There’s too many definitions.

MALE SPEAKER: I probably come across the term when I’m looking at the New York Times or something, but I’m drawing a blank.

FEMALE SPEAKER: I don’t know. I don’t know what a populist movement is. I can’t define something that I don’t know what the definition is.

MALE SPEAKER: You’re looking for one definition?

BRIAN: Ed, I’ve got to admit, that’s a pretty tough question to come up with one definition. How about an easier question, like what ideas do you associate with populism?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Would it be similar to the colonists and the Loyalists, because the colonists felt like they didn’t have representation?

FEMALE SPEAKER: Maybe what’s popular in [INAUDIBLE] for the most number of people.

MALE SPEAKER: I’m going to say communism, but it sounds like– it doesn’t sound like capitalism to me.

MALE SPEAKER: Well, I think it was mostly a movement of the late 19th century, I guess.

FEMALE SPEAKER: Weren’t they a group of farmers?

MALE SPEAKER: Something like the Tea Party.

MALE SPEAKER: Donald Trump.

MALE SPEAKER: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders would be populists since they have a lot of people rallying around them.

PETER: So, populism.

BRIAN: What did you hear, Peter?

PETER: Oh, Bernie Sanders.

BRIAN: Yeah. I heard 19th century farmers, Tea Party.

PETER: How about colonists, Loyalists?

BRIAN: There you go, Ed. You’re all set.

ED: Well, that was very helpful, I thought. In fact, some of those descriptions of populism actually– get this– have a basis in history. There is a tradition of popular discontent that dates all the way back to the patriots, and there was a political party the farmers in the late 19th century called The Populists. But here’s the problem– populism is a very spongy concept, as we just heard. The Oxford English Dictionary defines populist as, quote, support for or representation of ordinary people or their views. But who the ordinary people are and what their views are changes throughout American history.

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PETER: So today on this show, we’re going to look at what populism has meant to everyone from colonists to Baby Boomers. We’ll find out what the term has to do with riots in the 18th century and one segregationist during the Civil Rights Movement. We’ll also hear what happened when the people took over a president’s inauguration.

BRIAN: Hey, Peter, Ed, here’s an idea– to begin to try to understand what this phrase populism is all about, why don’t we go back to the real historical movement called the populist squarely at the end of your century, the 19th century, Ed?

ED: Yeah. It actually was a period that took over 25 years to grow. And like today’s things, which seem to grow like mushrooms, this Populist Party–

PETER: It had roots.

ED: All across the South, all across the West– places you wouldn’t expect to see a radical movement. But this is the largest third party political revolt in American history with the Populists, or as they call themselves, the People’s Party. And the basic idea was that they believed that they were the real producers of the nation, they were feeding the nation, and yet the money system in particular was rigged against them so that what they grew was worth less every year, and no politicians were listening to them.

BRIAN: Even though they were the majority. And they were, right?

ED: Exactly. And so all their agenda grows out of these linked concerns. So they want to have a warehouse built in every county in the country so that they can store their crops and sell them when prices is advantageous. They want to have direct election of senators so that people will listen to the majority of the voice. They’re interested in instituting an income tax so that the people who are preying on the producers will find themselves carrying their share. And unfortunately, sometimes they’re looking for somebody to blame for all this. A lot of times, it’s the politicians, the Democrats and Republicans. But other times, it’s immigrants, it’s African American people, it’s anybody.

BRIAN: Jewish bankers, I know.

ED: Jewish bankers figure prominently in a lot their cartoons, Brian. So you can see, it’s a deep, broad, dynamic movement that puts a lot of really important things on the table that we’re still wrestling with today.

BRIAN: And they thought history was on their side, right?

ED: They did think history– that’s another reason they were befuddled. And Peter–

BRIAN: I’m looking at you, Peter.

ED: They say that we are the great American tradition.

PETER: Well, it’s a sense of righteousness that we are the people articulating our power to rule and govern ourselves. We declared independence. It wasn’t Thomas Jefferson. And it was the people who mobilized against British rule in places like Boston. The Boston Tea Party is a good example.

BRIAN: So you’re talking about mobs.

PETER: Exactly. But this was a mob with dignity, a mob with a higher purpose, and that was to enable the people. They represented– they embodied– literally embodied– to govern themselves.

ED: And that sounds so good. So Brian, you may be wondering, why the heck don’t we still have the Populist Party today? And ironically, they found a charismatic leader, William Jennings Bryan, who led them right into the Democratic Party, and they watered down all that array of demands that they had to just one thing– let us have silver instead of gold base for our currency, and it will raise the value of our crops. And they gave away everything else. William Jennings Bryan loses, and the Populist movement just disappears.

So that’s how people on the street can be so confused today. There was a populist moment. It was powerful. But it died very quickly, and the two big parties took over again.

BRIAN: Yeah. And I’d also underscore Peter’s point about a tradition of this in American history. But you know that tradition really did continue into the 20th century? We don’t have any capital P Populist Party that challenges the two parties, effectively.

But we do have populist movements. And we have a couple of them– in fact, several of them– during the great economic crisis of the 1930s. We have Huey Long, the senator from Louisiana, and his share our wealth, hearkening right back to demands–

ED: Critics call it share your wealth.

BRIAN: Hearkening right back to the calls for a progressive income tax. And of all things, we have old people deciding that they’re actually the people. Hundreds of thousands of them join these clubs call the Townsinites, and they create clubs. This is not just AstroTurf–

ED: So what is it that they have in common? What’s the common theme across this, Brian?

BRIAN: The common theme is that they feel they represent the good people of the country. And they feel that the political system– just like in Peter’s period and in your period– is not representing the will of a vast segment of the population.

The one thing that really changes in the 20th century is I noticed for both of you guys, leaders were not terribly prominent in these movements. And as you move across the 20th century, more emphasis on the leader.

ED: Townsinite– sounds like they’re focusing on the leader, right?

BRIAN: Less actual grassroots 25 years of organizing and mobilizing in local communities till you arrive at Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump being labeled a populist. But where are the clubs? Where are the movements? Where’s the long-term set of grievances and people interacting with each other the way they did in the capital P movement?

PETER: And Brian, one change I think that’s taken place, though– and I think we can identify elements in populism throughout the history of the populace tradition– I noticed this in what Ed said and what you said about the earlier 20th century. It’s not against government, necessarily. Because the American Revolution, which populists today celebrate as their ultimate source of inspiration, was a revolution to create a new government and to use that government in order to correct inequities, market failures, market distortions to enable people to live lives of dignity, to retire in comfort. These are all demands on the state, and that seems to be fading away in modern populism.

ED: But here’s the commonality– the phrase is “make America great again” from all of these, across all the centuries, including up to today, they’re making the same–

BRIAN: Take our country back.

ED: There used to be a time when we had it. Somehow, we’ve lost it.