“Any internal revolt or revolution is
always a middle class affair.”
----from
“The
Quotations of Chairman Joe”
Since then the landed aristocracy,
ruling the several states before and after independence, has been fighting a
long rear-guard action against the rest of the population, as the country has
witnessed several populist revolts against the established order. But as, for instance, during the French and
Russian and Cuban revolutions, although it may have been the great unwashed who
would storm the Bastille or the Palace it was the lawyer and merchants who
would coopt the revolutions and bend them to their will. The truth is that no matter how much Karl
Marx would disparage the bourgeoisie, so commanding are the middle classes that
it would be the middle class professionals and intellectual elites who would
take possession of the revolutions and give them meaning and form. And so just as the French Revolution produced
a Robespierre and a Napoleon (a lawyer and a army officer by trade) and the Russian
Revolution gave the world middle class intellectuals like Lenin and Trotsky,
and the Cuban Revolution gave us Castro and Guevara (a lawyer and doctor), so
too have the less extreme revolts in the United States been led by stalwart
representatives of the middle class.
The famous “Jacksonian Democracy” of the
1830’s was led by a professional (albeit rich) army officer, but the thrust was
to put government in the hands of the ‘ordinary’ citizen—the middle class
political partisans who would reap the ‘spoils’ after winning an election. The great reforms of the Civil war was
accomplished by a renowned railroad and corporate attorney, the ‘Progressive’
movement found its manifestation in the revolt of the ‘displaced elites’—those men
of property and standing that had been temporarily pushed aside by the new
wealth of the ‘Gilded Age’, men like Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Adams. Similarly the New Deal saw the emergence of
men like Franklin Roosevelt who marshalled the energies of stalwart spokesmen
of the middle class, men like Rexford Tugwell, Sherwood Anderson, Harold Ickes,
Louis Brandies, Paul Douglas, Harry Hopkins and many others who would mold and
shape the new economic order. Many, if
not most, of this country’s greatest political and economic accomplishments
have been the work of middle class movements, from organizing labor to civil
rights; from expanding the vote to ensuring full employment; from protecting
the environment, to educating our young, all have been the result of political
movements organized by, and largely favoring the interests, of the middle
class. In the textbooks of American
history we tend to see the history of populism as a salutary one; as one that
has fueled the drive toward ‘progressive’ reforms. The ‘will of the people’
accomplishing, in the words of Jeremy Bentham, ‘the greatest good for the
greatest number’.
But there is a darker side to ‘Populism”. In Europe, the “Revolt of the Masses” (to use
a phrase by the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset) would, in the 20th
century, give the world a populist British Labor government in the immediate
aftermath of the Second World War, but it would just as likely present the
world with a fascist regime in Italy and Germany or a Communist one in the
emerging Soviet Union. Whether the
revolt succeeds or not depends on the severity of the distress as well as the
alienation of the people. What form the
revolt takes depends upon who leads it.
The point here is that a ‘beneficial’ populism cannot be seen as a
foregone conclusion.
In the United States we have, to be
sure, not seen these kinds of extremes.
Compromise and moderation have, until recently, been salutary American
virtues. Nevertheless we have had, in
our collective history, witnessed some of the darker sides of populism. Shay’s
Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion in the early years of our experiment with
self-governance were led by middle class farmers. The ‘Anti-Abolition’ Riots of the 1830’s in
which New York City merchants financed and organized ‘popular’ protests against
abolitionists. The ‘Know-Nothing’ party
of the 19th century, arising as it did as a nativist, anti-Catholic,
Anti-Semitic, reaction to immigration and economic dislocation is a case in
point. The Rise of the Klan in the 1920’s also presents us with an example of ‘populism’
run amok. Few of these succeeded having
been overcome by more civilized manifestations of popular discontent.
This is precisely the challenge we face
today.
The discontent manifest in America today
spans the political spectrum, from the progressive inclusiveness of Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, to the ugly regressive politics of the ‘teabaggers’
and the political nativists. As in the
1930’s when the social compact, under siege by the stresses of the Depression
and the Dust Bowl, America was given a choice between a Franklin Roosevelt or a
Huey Long so now, under similar stresses, the rise of ‘populism’ is presenting
us a choice between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
According to a new poll released by
Public Policy Polling (PPP) Trump now has a nearly 2 to 1 lead over his nearest
rival, an obscure Detroit Physician named Ben Carson (29-15%) with dynastic
favorite JEB Bush registering a paltry 8% in the national sample. I know, polling this far out is relatively
meaningless but these numbers are important for two reasons.
First, Trump has trumped the GOP. He has, through his bombastic rhetoric and
behavior, sucked the air out of the room, commanding headlines, getting on the
television talk and news shows and, with his confrontational politics, energized
the ‘tea bagging’ Republican base. So
successful has his short tenure in the campaign been that he has taken support
from the likes of Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Chris Christie and others who, just
a few short weeks ago, were seen as serious contenders for the Republican
nomination. This is important inasmuch
as it will greatly influence the ability of these candidates to raise much
needed money, measured in the tens of millions of dollars necessary to field a
national campaign by early next spring. So commanding has Trump’s position become that
any candidate wishing to openly challenge him in debate risks now alienating
the party’s political base. In other
words it is becoming increasingly politically self-defeating to openly confront
“The Donald”; the party may very well ‘shoot the messenger’. The question increasingly confronting the
rest of the field is which and how many are willing to fall on their swords in
order to ‘save’ the party.
Secondly, the poll reveals that not only
is support for Trump growing but the levels of xenophobia, paranoia, and
schizophrenia have, at the base of the Republican Party reached truly alarming
levels. Here is a short profile of the
right-wing alternative universe, the current ‘dark side’ of populism.
“Our new poll
finds that Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama
is a Muslim and was born in another country, and that immigrant children should
be deported. 66% of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just
12% that grant he's a Christian. 61% think Obama was not born in the United
States to only 21% who accept that he was. And 63% want to amend the
Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep
things the way they are.
Trump's beliefs
represent the consensus among the GOP electorate. 51% overall want to eliminate
birthright citizenship. 54% think President Obama is a Muslim. And only 29%
grant that President Obama was born in the United States. That's less than the
40% who think Canadian born Ted Cruz was born in the United States.
Trump's
supporters aren't alone in those attitudes though. Only among supporters of
John Kasich (58/13), Jeb Bush (56/18), Chris Christie (59/33), and Marco Rubio
(42/30) are there more people who think President Obama was born in the United
States than that he wasn't. And when you look at whose supporters are more
inclined to think that the President is a Christian than a Muslim the list
shrinks to just Christie (55/29), Kasich (41/22), and Bush (29/22). Bush's inability to appeal to the kind of
people who hold these beliefs is what's keeping him from succeeding in the
race- his overall favorability is 39/42, and with voters identifying themselves
as 'very conservative' it's all the way down at 33/48.” (1)
And therein lies the conundrum. By
creating this ‘alternate universe’ and appealing to the least educated, lowest
information voters, the modern Republican Party had become hostage to an
emerging political base representing the worst instincts of ‘populist’ politics
in America.
The question is can these forces once
again be overcome by more civilized manifestations of popular discontent? Only a successful Bernie Sanders will answer
in the affirmative, otherwise it will be a long, dark, night.
________
1.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump-supporters-think-obama-is-a-muslim-born-in-another-country.html
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