John Emerson has just posted an excellent piece over at the Open Left blog called “What is Populism and Why are Democrats Afraid of It?”

It is a capsule history lesson on populist influences on the Democratic Party from the post Civil War period up to the 1970s and how populism as a political philosophy and an organizing principle has been marginalized in the Democratic Party since then.

Populism is politics which opposes wealth and power in the name of  the common folk. It takes both left wing and right wing forms and sometimes degenerates into bigotry and attacks on minorities. Populism can be faked, and that is being done right now – e.g., Limbaugh and Beck. Populist appeals can be made by spokesmen for special interests who have no intention of fulfilling their democratic promises, but who are just opportunistically faking populism as part of an attack on some enemy.

Since the Fifties the Democratic Party, whose populist wing was critically important during the New Deal, has avoided and repressed populism. Individual populists such as Paul Wellstone have occasionally been elected, often in defiance of the party machine, but they have never had much influence in the party. The Democratic strategy has been cooperation with big business, and their slogan has been “a rising tide lifts all boats” — “win-win” solutions where everyone wins and nobody loses. This worked pretty well until about 1970, when business started to pull away from the deal, and since that time it’s been mostly downhill for the Democrats, for labor, and for the average American.

Emerson concludes that:

• Democrats have crippled themselves by renouncing populism and appealing primarily to big business interests since the 1970s
• This strategy has made Democrats incapable of counterattacking against blatantly dishonest fake-populist appeals by the Republicans.

The antidote to this dilemma, according to Emerson:

• Progressives need to take the Democratic Party over from the bottom up and bounce the present leadership.
• To do this will be labor-intensive: require a lot of face to face contact, meetings, and money.
• Emerson imagines that a million (or ten million) Democrats donating $50 a year each and volunteering 5 hours a week to a dissident progressive group will be a substantial force.
• With a genuine populist appeal, you could form such a group.

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

Since Thomas Frank’s book “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Emerson’s essay is the first serious treatment in recent years I have seen on the Democratic Party abandoning populism as an organizing principle from Progressive circles. I believe Emerson is very much on to something. Having abandoned being the political party of the common folk in its actual policies (lest anyone ever forget that NAFTA, CAFTA, “free trade,” Wall Street bailouts were largely engineered and pushed by Democratic politicians) any claims by the national Democratic Party of being the party of the common people is pretty much just rhetorical and symbolic and everyone recognizes it.

Emerson’s observation that a dissident progressive group can potentially become a powerful force which can eventually take over the Democratic Party is interesting and intriguing. Such an organization, he asserts, can be formed and grow mass membership based on appeals to true, full-throated economic populism.

Although I agree with Emerson’s observation that there is a potential mass audience and membership pool for a dissident group to draw upon I see several problems that such a group forming would need to solve:

1. Salesmanship. The Democratic “brand” for populism is tainted. Decades of anti-Populist policies and rhetoric have effectively alienated many populists and people who think along those lines from the Democratic Party. If a dissident Progressive movement is going to offer “vote more Democrats into office” as its main selling point to attract members, volunteers and to raise money, there is absolutely no way they will be taken seriously. As long as the national Democratic Party is effectively anti-populist, there is just no way to sell a dissident splinter faction of the same party as being truly populist.
2. There are already “real” populists who are organized and who are already formed into third parties and alternative political movements both on the Left and on the Right. The Tea Party folks, Libertarians, the Green Party, the various Socialist-inspired organizations, many independents all pretty much use populist-inspired messages of representing ordinary peoples’ interests against the interests of big corporations and big government. These folks are true believers enough in populism to be organized politically already along those lines. What role – if any – can these organizations play in a dissident, populist Progressive organization? Will they be competing for the same audience and money? Will they have an adversarial relationship or is there room for cooperation? They are, after all, populists in the same fight against the same powerful interests, aren’t they?
3. The “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” factor. Republicans have tapped successfully into the latent populism in the general population better than the Democrats by appealing to people based on powerful wedge issues such as gay marriage, abortion and illegal immigration. With the Democrats unable to offer anything coherently resembling a program that truly represents the economic interests of working folk, socially conservative working class people have tended to identify with and vote with the Republicans – the party of social conservatism. Can a dissident, Progressive group appeal to such voters? Is a message of economic populism enough to attract working class, largely white, social conservatives into becoming members and supporters of an openly Leftist organization?
4. What about structural, electoral reform as a starting point? I was glad that a couple of posters in the comments section referenced re-legalizing electoral fusion and explicitly mentions the role that a third party like the Working Families Party has played in New York State where fusion is legal and the third party has served as a balancing force which has pushed politics of both major parties towards more Progressive directions. Structural reforms that author Theresa Amato talks about in this post explicitly advocates for reforms that are designed to open up and level the political playing field for independents and third parties. Will Emerson’s dissident, populist progressive group be opposed to such reforms (being a splinter faction of the Democratic party) or will it encourage, support and even join in the fight to institute such reforms?

I believe Emerson is on the right track in his thinking and I encourage him to continue. I am a potential recruit to any type of Progressive organization that offers a true, full-throated economic populism to the big business, corporate thrust of the national Democratic Party. However, I am not a Democrat. I am an independent. And there are many others like me who are disillusioned with the Democratic Party and have instead, explored third party and alternative politics. People like me will need to have a better message than “vote Democratic in the next elections” as its main call to action after I have gotten fired up by appeals to economic populism.