Volume 14, Issue 3

On both the left and the right the phrase “populism” has lost any tangible meaning; or rather it is the default word used to describe otherwise unorganized and atomized anti-elite sentiment of almost any sort. The labor movement is a genuinely anti-corporate and anti-elite effort to empower workers both white and of color, but few commentators describe it as “populist,” and correctly so. This is because trade unions have an organized leadership, a concrete program, and the capacity to exist once the fever of the election season has passed. In his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders largely missed the much needed opportunity to defend and legitimize these working-class institutions for millions of potential members.

Populism undoubtedly has a long history in the politics of the US, and there is no doubt that populism has significantly affected American politics in a variety of ways. However, what exactly is meant by “populism” is frequently ambiguous and ill-defined. Political commentators routinely label individuals or ideas as populist, without even attempting to explain how and why the person or idea in question relates to populism. Scholars are not immune to acting in a similar fashion. Populism’s presence is more often asserted than demonstrated in any convincing way. Here I engage in a thorough examination of the substance of populism in American politics. All elements of American populism – its championing of the common people, it rural roots, its anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and anti-government views, and its religious and cultural dimensions – will be explored. The paper closes with an attempt to suss out the place of populism in contemporary American politics.

Populism is a means of speaking to voters, a mode of speech that Michael Kazin once called “the populist persuasion.” During times of economic stress and cultural change, populism often becomes a popular means of communication, and has been used by aspirants for the presidency ranging from William Jennings Bryan to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. It is particularly potent when conditions exist that refute historian John Crozier’s description of the American polity as resting on a “gently graded prosperity.” The lack of any “gently graded prosperity” in 2016 fueled the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. This article focuses on Trump, noting his penchant for action, not adherence to conservative principles or Republican party orthodoxy. The “scourge” Donald Trump’s populism, like his predecessors is that he blames the “other” for the failures of American government and the inability of those who aspire to achieve the American Dream from achieving their goals. This is the scourge of populist candidates who have led their respective parties to ultimate defeat and repudiation. In Trump’s case, blaming Hispanics and immigrants for the country’s problems is a scourge that will take the Republican party years to recover from once the 2016 election is over and the ballots counted.

The candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders typify populist protests launched in the name of the people going back to before the American Revolution. They express, however, very different populist impulses: Trump rode a mostly reactionary populism to the Republican nomination, echoing earlier reactionaries by exploiting nativist and racial resentments and prejudice among whites while inconsistently embracing progressive policies that unsettled traditional Republicans. Sanders launched a strong challenge for the Democratic nomination but with a consistently progressive populist message. Both campaigns appealed to their supporters by coming across as “anti-establishment” and unrepresentative of politics-as-usual.

Although many observers have been surprised both by the racial explicit nature of Donald Trump’s campaign and the subsequent success of that campaign, we contend that Trump’s tactics and their success are far from new. We describe how for the past half century Republicans have used race and increasingly immigration to attract white voters – especially working class whites. All of this has led to an increasingly racially polarized polity and for the most part Republican electoral success. We conclude with some expectations about the future of race, immigration, and party politics.

Populist rhetoric in America contains two essential features: first, a sharp critique of economic and political life and, second, a call for broader participation by the people that will set things right in response to an elite whose actions brought about contemporary problems. Past work generally assumes that the two goals inherent in this rhetoric – its educative critique and its exhortation to action – are compatible with each other. However, in this paper we argue that there is often an inherent tension between them. That is, the stronger the educative critique, the more it can actually reduce people’s likelihood of taking action. We provide several historical and contemporary examples of this pattern and then discuss a new line of research that examines it using experiments. We conclude by considering ways in which populist rhetoric can avoid the pitfall of voter disengagement.