America, Where has the Populist Party gone?

[TheMaroon]

Populist Party-
A U.S. political party that sought to represent the interests of farmers and laborers in the 1890s, advocating increased currency issue, free coinage of gold and silver, public ownership of railroads, and a graduated federal income tax. Also called People's Party.

I understand why certain things are no longer issues, but the populist party was a great thing, and I honestly believe America would benefit from a Populist reboot. Say you were to help reboot the populist party, what issues would you add to it's agenda, who would you aim to help, how would you run it? Thank you for any replies.

P.S. What do you think of the Populist Party

[Remus Bleys]

Populist Party-
A U.S. political party that sought to represent the interests of farmers and laborers in the 1890s, advocating increased currency issue, free coinage of gold and silver, public ownership of railroads, and a graduated federal income tax. Also called People's Party.

I understand why certain things are no longer issues, but the populist party was a great thing, and I honestly believe America would benefit from a Populist reboot. Say you were to help reboot the populist party, what issues would you add to it's agenda, who would you aim to help, how would you run it? Thank you for any replies.

P.S. What do you think of the Populist PartyI would say they were progressive for the time period.
The Progressives, who were more "moderate" had gotten power instead.

I would not want to build a populist party, the purpose of populism is to take over the bourgeoisie state and establish social democracy. The point of a Revolutionary is to smash the bourgeoisie state and establish a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Populism may have once had progressive features. Now it is reactionary.

[tachosomoza]

The trend in populism in the United States for the 21st century is overwhelmingly reactionary. The Tea Party is populist, as are many other right libertarians. Even back then, the People's Party had a very strong and nasty white supremacist streak. Several of their candidates and a worrisome chunk of their rank and file were white supremacists, especially in the South.

[Red Commissar]

The Populist Party was a mixed bag politically. There were some well-intentioned people in there but you had a mish-mash of proto-socialists, early progressives, religious nutbags, American exceptionalists, farmer-interest groups, and anti-immigration wackos. The party largely folded because most of the members either threw in with the Democrats who were beginning to stand against the Republican Party's pro-industry position, liked what Theodore Roosevelt did with his bull moose party, or joined the Socialist Party.

Most of the Socialist Party's membership, especially in the midwest, were in fact by and large former members of the populist party. From there those who weren't that committed jumped boat after the first red scare towards the end of the 1910s.

Issue with populism is that it's vague enough for its points to be taken up by either those among US Liberals or Conservatives. If you pay attention in any political campaign politicians will make frequent references to how they stand for the people (or the "middle-class") and position themselves against some elite, be it business or the government, or both.

A broad movement would be interesting to see in the United States, but it faces the same difficulty of organization and funding that any third party does. It's unfortunate though what we ended up getting instead was basically angry right-wing nutjobs like Pat Buchanan or lolbertarians like Ross Perot in the 90s capture this sentiment more than Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition which ended up becoming more of a pressure group on the Democrats. Though to be fair the Buchanan/Perot deal blew up too, and even now the Tea Party acts more as a pressure group within the Republicans.

[Kingfish]

Had 1935 been a slightly different year you would have gotten your wish, in fact there might have even been a populist president by 1940. Although such a conversation probably belongs in the history section.

Some important things to remember about populist groups their precise character of the movement is very dependent on its leadership (or leader) and they need to be able to tap into a previously untouched and large demographic.

I would be very cautious about supporting a populist party because whilst they may well be the best chance at getting in left wing policies that exceed those of regular reformists they are extremely vulnerable to becoming fascist or at least authoritarian.

[preacherman]

If they hadn't betrayed southern Blacks and openly started supporting white supremacy, who knows what they could have become. They were certainly never revolutionary.