The Great Populist Divide

The populist hero was born on a small farm not far from the Canadian border. As a boy, he scraped together money by raising chickens and managing a grocery store. He then worked his way through an unprestigious law school, and enlisted in the Marines to fight for his country.

My doctrine, the young Republican senator liked to say, "is Americanism with its sleeves rolled up." Given his background, he said he identified with "real people" from rural areas and small towns "who are the heart and soul and soil of America." He vowed to defend them against "the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouth" who were "selling this nation out."

The senator regularly presented himself as a man of strong faith. "Today," he declared in 1950, "we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between Communistic atheism and Christianity...the chips are down - they are truly down." His name was Joseph R. McCarthy.

Populism in America is nearly as old as the republic itself. Since President Andrew Jackson's epic battle to shut down the "money power" symbolized by the Second Bank of the United States in 1833, politicians and citizen-activists have voiced their outrage about the "elites" who ignored, corrupted or betrayed the common people.

Right-wing populists typically drum up resentments based on differences of religion and cultural style. Their progressive counterparts focus on economic grievances. But the common language is promiscuous -- useful to anyone who asserts that virtue resides in ordinary people and has the skills and platform to bring their would-be superiors down to earth

During the half-century since McCarthy's remarkable rise and ignominious fall, his fellow conservatives have rarely stopped singing from the same populist hymnal.

"I had the privilege of living most of my life in my small town," beamed Sarah Palin in her bravura speech to accept the GOP vice presidential nomination Wednesday night. It was, she explained, the kind of place inhabited by the people "who do some of the hardest work in America...who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars." She defiantly contrasted her plain-folks view of the world to that of "the permanent political establishment" and "the Washington elite."

It may be the same old song, but cultural populism has helped Republicans win many an election and has consistently put their opponents on the defensive. Richard M. Nixon championed the values of "Middle America;" Ronald Reagan damned a tax policy that took "from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned," and George W. Bush mocked "liberal elites" for being soft on terrorism and warm towards gay marriage.

Conservatism would never have become a large and influential movement without such language; and liberals have yet to find a way to counter it. Why?

The answer has much to do with the anxieties of a racially divided consumer culture and the absence of a social movement grounded in the workplace. After World War II, most Americans, for the first time in U.S. history, considered themselves "middle class."

But that homogeneous identity obscured big differences between a minority of "cosmopolitan" Americans -- who could afford a four-year college, who lived in cities with large non-white populations, who had a professional job -- and those who were not. The bitter conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s added in resentments over sexuality, religious faith and affirmative action.

Meanwhile, the labor movement that had done so much to build support for liberal Democrats, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson, gradually lost both its numbers and its aggressive, populist spirit. Blue-collar workers had once flocked to unions and voted for politicians who bashed their opponents as "economic royalists."

But by the 1970s, a rigorous labor movement that had helped lift incomes and gain job security for millions of wage-earners seemed to be resting on its laurels. Fast-growing unions of government workers were the exception -- but as unruly public "servants," they were unable to brighten the image of labor. With the stagflation of the Ford and Carter years, corporations were able to brand unions a fetter on productivity and growth. New movements that focused on race and gender gained the headlines and the attention of prominent liberals.

As a result, no one on the left seemed able to speak to ordinary white men and women who earned a decent income. but resented their diminished status in society.

Contrary to nostalgic mythology, Americans have never been a united people free of rancorous divisions. As Kevin Phillips once wrote, accurately if cynically, "knowing who hates who" and acting accordingly has usually been the key to electoral success.

With a dynamic labor movement behind them, liberals had been able to exploit antipathy against wealthy employers and the Republicans they bankrolled. But when conservatives began attacking liberals as an elite that was unpatriotic, condescending, ungodly and licentious, they had no rebuttal to offer.

This election will, in part, be a test of whether right-wing populism still works. Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, will try to use the rise in foreclosures and joblessness to stir up anger at Republican policies, from which Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee and the owner of multiple luxury dwellings, may not be able to separate himself.

McCain clearly hopes to refresh the conservative mantra of tax-eating bureaucrats and effete liberals -- a charge that Palin's small-town origins and tough demeanor may help drive home.

Conservatives have dominated the battle over populist rhetoric so long that even Americans who mistrust it bring up "elitism" and the "common-sense values" of "ordinary people" -- as if they were objective realities instead of partisan talking points.

If liberals hope to win the White House again, they could think about engaging with gusto in the battle to define these terms. For better or worse, populism lives too deeply in America's fears and expectations to be trivialized or replaced. Without it, both sides in the nation's long-running political conflict are lost.

Originally posted at the Washington Independent. For more news and commentary from the Washington Independent, click here.

Comments

[jeanrenoir]

Hillary showed Obama the Carville populism which won in '92 and '96 with the working class. In the process, Hillary began the process of castrating Obama WITH populism which Palin finished so brutally and successfully last week. The masses in every society are relatively poor, bitter, envious, and angry. This is the basis of populism's political potential. Hitler exploited these mass emotions perfectly, as did Wallace in winning the working class of Michigan with his hatred in '68. "Hope" is wasted on the mean, angry masses. They want blood and revenge. Hillary gave them some hint of both, and they loved her for it. Unless Obama can somehow sew his balls back on and take up the Carville economic cudgels for the masses, he's finished. Bush's economic debacle has given him every bit of ammunition Carville could possibly need. But it's up to Obama to show whether he has the manliness to angrily "fight" for Middle America. This is now the only pragmatic issue in the election. If Obama is seen more and more as a wimp, like all the Dem losers of the past thirty years, he will lose in a landslide and the whole Democratic dream of massive gains in Congress will be destroyed with him. Carville boot camp is his only hope, very slim as it is, since we have no evidence, other than glimmers in his best speech, at the convention, that Obama is literally up to this challenge.

[DanoS1]

I hate false rumors as much as anyone, but can a member of the press

please confirm why Sara Plain is not at least 7 months pregnant in this

public, unaltered Governors photo taken with President Bush in February

2008?

Her baby was supposedly born on April 18, 2008.

http://www.subnet.nga.org/centennial/2008Meeting.htm (Feb, 2008)

This photo is from March 14th 2008, where she clearly is not pregnant:

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0fcQ5EM7gafd9

Finally, she is also on the cover of December issue of Vogue which was

taken December 12, 2007. She should have been 4-5 months preganant.

Clearly shes not.

Reportedly, her water broke the day before or hours before she gave birth

in Texas and flew 8 hour to Alaska in labor? Would a doctor/ the airline

allow this? Something isn't adding up?

[dadw5boys]

FUNNY THE SUPER RICH ARE THE ELITE AND THEY CALL OTHERS ELITE AND NO GOOD.

ARE THEY TALKING INTO A MIRROR ???????

[mouselion]

As a progressive, the group that I see as "elite" are the Bush's and Cheney's of the world. Those who control vast wealth and wield great power beyond the average folk. How can a man with a multimillionaire wife, 8 homes and private jet be calling a mere millionaire (something many in this country strive towards) with one home an elitist?

It's makes no sense. Neither does calling people elite who work for the rights and well-being of the lower and middle classes. It's a cynical, disingenuous ploy. The GOP claims to represent ordinary people -- but their political actions *always* are otherwise.

[joanndarc]

Very smart and correct article, Bravo!
Well described deeply Christianity-routed (the concept of "our people" and the rest who don't matter introduced by Jeudaism) American xenophodia dased on deviding people into two classes,a majority and a minority, the former uses its power to exploit the later, e.g. Europeans vs. Native Americans, Blacks vs. Whites, Imperial Capitalism vs. Communism, streight vs. gay and so on.

[DavidK08]

They just had their week. Now it is back to buisness. Palin will be hiding and Dems will be making note of how "prepared" she is. So prepared that she has to hide for 2-3 weeks to get prepared.

[PumaAnn]

Interesting thesis. My perspective is that the liberals actually are continuing to look down upon people. It oozes on the blogs. It's offensive. And the liberals rarely win over people that way.

I know how I personally felt when I was working as a migrant laborer in the 70s, and the students from Notre Dame came around the migrant camps to give us socks and talk to us. Granted, I am not really a migrant laborer from birth, but man.......those kids got on my nerves. They were condescending "community organizers." LOL*

They meant well. Their attitude completely was disdainful.

Elitism is always disdainful. I don't like it. I've never embraced that part of liberalism. I think it continues to fail because those types like setting themselves up as martyrs. They wouldn't know what to do if something worked. They are allergic to real success.

[UnknownSoldier]

Mike,

The problem is the Mainstream Media, for the most part the Mainstream Media carries the water for the Republicans. Too many people want to blame the Democrats for not being able to control their message, Watching how the 0bama campaign has been working has shown me and I'm sure anyone else who has been paying attention that the our MSM is easily manipulated by the Right Wing Noise Machine.

Think of it this way, the MSM had HRC crowned before the first primary vote was cast, and even worse the HRC campaign believed the MSM. 0bama built a true grassroots campaign. Let me give you some contrast Howard Dean built a netroots campaign but the Netters didn't come out to vote.

The only people supporting the Repubs in this election are the Dead Enders and the people that don't use the internet.

ENOUGH!!!

[Sundialsvc4]

Michael, what we are -really- seeing played-out here is yet another incarnation of "the Karl Rove principle: divide and conquer."

Neither one of these hand-picked "so-called candidates" are actually -saying- "any damn thing." No, what they are doing is pushing buttons. Any and every button they can find. And the purpose is to divide the country against itself ... to have the people running in so many directions, and so-angry at EACH OTHER, that once again the power-brokers run off with the goodies.

It's just a flip-of-the-coin between these two "so-called candidates," both of them appointed more than two years ago and backed by (no kidding) billions of dollars in campaign cash. As long as "one of them wins and nothing else happens," it's another eight years at the trough.

This is a game. A game called, "so what if it's high-crime? It's off the table." It's a game called, "oh yes, crime DOES pay... and oh yes, you can literally 'get away with it because we said so.' "

These (the past 10 years) are the darkest times our Republic has ever known in its oh-so brief history.

[Herrington]

I'm glad to see some one bring up the similarities between Palin and Tail Gunner Joe. I seem to have a had a comment banned elsewhere on Huff for brooking the same argument, so I will not do it here.

The right wing has stolen the language along with discrediting science and intellect. They have defined liberal as contemptible by simply sneering every time they use the word on TV. Both fascinating and terrifying. Language as a tool, science as a means of ascertaining the facts are both now useless. Good work. Now we live in a world in which we cannot communicate in any meaningful way and can't separate fact from fiction.

I have a feeling that if Darwin were alive today he would sum this trend up with one word. Maladaptive.

Ok for rich folks in the seniority, but what about the hapless millions of Republican devotees that will wake up one day in the same soup line as the people that they belittle? They will become Socialists and we will start the cycle all over again.

[Chillinout]

Economic Royalists is an excellent term. Time to get it out into the lexicon and tie it directly to the Republicans.

This country always does better financially under Democratic leadership and the people of this country need to be educated to that fact.

[ShamusNYC]

.

"Elite" is code for "smart" - sort of like the grown-up equivalent of "nerd"

They started this line of attack because McCain is... well, not that smart

And that's the truth, "my friends"

.

[BADEN]

Isn't "rightwing populism" an oxymoron?

If wealth equals 'elite' to them, aren't they?

I call them the CCC.

CountryClubCrowd

or the COCC

ChamberOfC­ommerceCro­wd

CCC=COCC=CC

CravenCaptalist.

There. That just about sums it up.