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Jesse Walker dreams of John Edwards' coming populist paradise where every man's a king and no one's ever nailed to a cross of gold.
Comments to "New at Reason":
iih | August 21, 2007, 9:12am | #
Sorry to start the discussion on a separate (but related?) article at the American Progress:http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=ron_pauls_abortion_rhetoric
iih | August 21, 2007, 9:12am | #
Correction: American "Prospect" not "Progress"It's no wonder that the candidates use populist rhetoric when you consider the alternative. Who wants to be known as the corporatist/statist candidate? Since most of them actually are corporatist/statist, they have to engage in puffery.
iih | August 21, 2007, 9:45am | #
Lamar:I am still new to some of the language, here but I am not quite sure what people see when they hear the word "statist". Isn't it just: "A statesman; a politician; one skilled in government."?
steveintheknow | August 21, 2007, 9:48am | #
Very interesting and thought provoking piece. Good job Jesse.kohlrabi | August 21, 2007, 9:51am | #
iih,I believe 'statist' carries the connotation of valuing the state over the individual. That the state has primacy. It would be the opposite of individualist.
Fritz | August 21, 2007, 10:03am | #
The alternative is that they start acknowleging "the American People" as individuals with equal legal status rather than the masses who need to be lifted by Big Mama. But that would require an entire change of views. Populist rhetoric always seems intellectually insulting, but everyone still loves it, apparently.x,y | August 21, 2007, 12:02pm | #
I don't see why a politician's only options are talk like a populist or talk like a statist. But maybe someone more inclined to use false dichotomies can help me out.Alan Vanneman | August 21, 2007, 12:46pm | #
Nice piece on the rhetoric of populism. The official Populists were small capitalists (farmers) who were convinced that they were being cheated by the big capitalists (the banks and the railroads). Contemporary economic history books, which are definitely not written by populists, claim that late 19th century farmers were not gouged by either the banks or the railroads--they were just selling into the first global market for grain (also cotton) in world history. The Populist movement did a great deal to strengthen segregation in the South, because the upper crust was terrified that poor whites and blacks might combine. Of course, a long line of southern populists, from "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman to Geoge Wallace, promised to protect working-class whites from competition from blacks.grumpy realist | August 21, 2007, 2:42pm | #
Edwards as Bryan? Suggest you read a bit more on the Free Silver movement before trying that.William | August 21, 2007, 3:41pm | #
Populism is the opposite of liberty and free-society and uses government to enforce the majority's views as law, casting the pieces of free-choice to the winds.In a government such as ours where lobbyists have more influence on law and national media than the voters and the viewers, a populist federal government would be very dangerous to the American people, as the majority is not represented by these special interest lobbyists who sway politicians.
The New Centrist | August 27, 2007, 2:39pm | #
Thanks for the link, Jesse.You may be interested in this as well:
Ron Paul and the Paulistas, Part II: Virtual Reality Versus Political Reality
http://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/ron-paul-and-the-paulistas-part-ii-virtual-reality-versus-political-reality/
