Can populism be reconstructed without its bad parts?

[Recursion]

Populism seems to be spoken of here as an unqualified good, but its history has been anything but in the US. There's pretty much a straight line from the Know-Nothings, to William Jennings Bryan, to the "midwestern" incarnation of the Klan, to Huey Long and Father Coughlin, to George Wallace (and then arguably to Ross Perot and then Sarah Palin).

I've read a lot about populism in America (and elsewhere), and there seem to be two main themes different historians have drawn out (and this seems to largely be a generational split): roughly, that populism leads either to the 1930's or the 1960's. By that I mean, some writers see the threads of populism as leading towards the mass antifreedom ideologies we saw in the 1930s like Soviet communism and European fascism, while others see them as leading to the grassroots societal changes (on both sides of the iron curtain) that we saw in the 1960s. I'm something of a pessimist so I lean towards the first camp, but I'm willing to entertain the arguments against that.

Can American populism be torn free from its white supremacist and reactionary history? Why would that happen this time? As a specific example, is there a viable populism that does not include significant restriction of immigration?

[Proud Public Servant]

1. Wouldn't it then be Progressivism?

Of the T. Roosevelt-Jane Addams-Bob LaFollette variety?

[Recursion]

4. I agree LaFollette is probably the best case for it

Though his explicit embrace of socialism limited his appeal outside of the sort of urban elites that populism generally runs against (though he did take Wisconsin). And his (and later his son's) rejection of white supremacy seems to me to be what killed the Progressive party nationally (and gave people like Long and Coughlin an audience to pick up -- the same group that gradually morphed into the Tea Party today...).

[Zorra]

2. The populism promoted on this board has absolutely nothing at all to do with your question.

Except if someone wants to use negative associations with populism as a propaganda device.

[Recursion]

5. So, why call it populism?

If you ask me what "populism" is I would respond with something along the lines in my OP: in the US, it's a long-standing historical movement of exurban disaffected white voters who distrust coastal and urban elites. This movement has expressed itself in multiple political contexts in different ways, but has always retained a disgruntled white male profile. That's what most history surveys will say about populism too. If people mean something else, what do they mean? And where are they defining it so the rest of us can follow along?

My question about immigration wasn't a throwaway, by the way. It was self-proclaimed populist DUers freaking out about visa expansions that led me to start thinking about this question a while ago.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. But that's an editorial not a definition, the definition of populism is far simpler:

a. A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.
b. The movement organized around this philosophy.

Nothing about disgruntled white males, nothing about coastal elites. That's a definition from a dictionary, which is typically the way we agree upon the meanings of words. So that we can all 'follow along'. Almost no one asks Recursion what the word means. They ask a dictionary.

[Recursion]

7. So, all the people who called the Tea Party "populist"?

Do they need a better dictionary?

[Bluenorthwest]

8. No, you do.

What you are doing is similar to what right wingers do with the word 'socialist' and the National Socialist Party of Hitler. They say 'the Nazis were socialists, it says so right there!!!!!! So socialism is a far right wing racist and genocidal philosophy! Hitler! Tea Party!'

Do you have any actual specific reasons to offer as to why others should reject the dictionary's definition to embrace your paragraph long characterization? The dictionary, you claim, is incorrect?

[Recursion]

9. So, no answer I see

We should just ignore the fact that tons of commentators called the Tea Party "populist", and everybody knew exactly what they meant, based on a dictionary entry.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. You got an answer. It is you who did not answer any of the questions asked of you. Jesus.

You reject the dictionary. So there is no way for us to communicate. I write in English, you read it in Resusionese.

[Recursion]

14. A dictionary is useless for any sort of nuanced treatment of a word, as you no doubt know

If we were having a discussion about what "courage" is, would you say "the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery" and say anyone who took it any farther than that wasn't speaking English?

"Populism" is a very loaded word in American politics (and historically has mostly been used as an insult). The existence of a dictionary doesn't change that or absolve you of the responsibility of dealing with that baggage.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Good lord man, reread the subthread. A poster said to you that your version is not what people

on DU mean when they use the word. You asked 'why call it populism' and offered YOUR characterization of the word. I responded by stating the actual definition of the word should be used rather than your own as a starting point for 'what people mean by the word'.
And you got very upset and started in with talk of accountability and absolution, which is really sort of out of line if you ask me.
It's a word. The definition is the definition. Sorry to bring up the definition of a word in a thread about the meaning of a word and why that word is used as it is in conversation. Clearly that is an absurd act, to speak of dictionaries when we seek to understand how others use words.

[Recursion]

16. And I gave you other uses of the word that are commonly used and understood

So, there we are

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

Lord Acton

There certainly has been the "tyranny of the majority" throughout history and it usually ends in disaster.

[geek tragedy]

10. If you screen out the stuff you don't like

then it isn't populism it's just marketing
.

[Recursion]

13. That's where I am, too

Though I've also read some historians who suggest populism is more than anything else a "style" in politics, which I guess would be considered marketing...

[Rex]

11. You have to put party and principle over profit and some will never be able to do that.

Even here, some will never ever care about anything but profit.