Resurgent populism

One of the trends I think is beginning to reemerge in American politics is populism. Webster’s defines populism as a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite. In the modern United States, that privileged elite has bought the majority of legislators through campaign contributions and tilted the playing field overwhelmingly in their favor. How on God’s green Earth do we get a cut in the Capital Gains Tax and the Estate Tax, but cannot get a minimum wage hike for a decade? Because that is exactly what the bastards who pay the bills and pull the strings wanted. This is what class warfare looks like and the backlash against it is building.

Like all powerful ideas, populism has been used to propel some policies that would never work in post-60’s America. Indeed, populist themes get co-opted into some fairly nationalistic/jingoistic and or religious fundamentalist rhetoric, resulting in some pretty awful things (Europe and the Middle East – I am looking at you). Nazism, Apartheid, and some Theocratic regimes have employed certain aspects of the “power to the people” premise as a means to push forward other radical agendas that would never pass Constitutional muster here. On the economic front, populism has wrought much on the foundation of the welfare state. Scandinavian Socialist welfare states are thoroughly wedded to the idea that government should function primarily to provide for society as a whole and, as such, tax at rates that make American conservative positively brim with fury. While Socialism may work for Sweden, I doubt we will see anything like that in the USA.

But in our current political environment, economic populism, especially in the US Senate, is on the rise. The election has sent four new members, Democrats all, that are true believers in the idea that government should be used to protect the average guy from forces much more powerful than the individual. John Tester of Montana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bernie Sander of Vermont, and the Commonwealth’s own Jim Webb are all adherents to this notion. These men will give voice to the average folks that have been so poorly served by their elected representatives. In an era where American’s haves are running roughshod over the have-nots, we now have a cadre of people that have promised to work for us. Read Webb’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal for a preview of what this may mean for all of us.

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

[Snip]

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.

[Snip]

With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

This is what the new populist movement is fighting for. It is a fight to save the average American worker from getting screwed even further by a system that has been rigged against them. It is a fight against the corporate dominance of our society that has marginalized the worker’s contributions. And finally, it is a fight to reconstitute a certain fairness in a nation that once believed in egalitarianism rather than just paid lip service to it. Here’s to hoping that the movement wins.