I hope you enjoy reading my connection between current day events, history and faith can help you Live Well.
I’ve spent over 30 years speaking and writing, teaching and leading others to find their best place in life. I’d love to work with you and your group; give me a call to schedule a meeting. Jump into today’s blog post about the Populist Party from the 1880s.
Populism Again?
Lessons from history can be so useful to understanding current times. The years leading into the election of 2016 looks a lot like 1880-90ss and the rise of one of our biggest near-misses in the world of political parties: the Populists. In the years after the Civil War, the USA was transformed. Those years become known as the Gilded Age, and by the use of Twain’s term, one also accepts that corruption, graft, greed and political ills had taken over the society. In the midst of this, common people began to unite politically to try and force change. Both in the agrarian world with organizations to share resources and in the industrial world with the emergence of unions, efforts found early success.
By the mid-1880s, these groups had coalesced in what became to be known as Populism or the Populist. For the Populist, they viewed a series of evil entities that had caused the evil of the age. The enemies of the Populist party would be the big banks (these negatively impacted the average person through control of the house/farm through loans), big business (so the 1%, massive rich who impacted life on the farm or factory even though “not from here” including buying up small farms), the railroad (these first major transnational businesses controlled transportation costs which drove up costs for farmers and drove down profits), investors in stocks or the new commodities market (so those who dictated cost of product like corn or beef without actually living locally in the region; also connected to both “the rich” and “the bankers”), AND corruption in the government.
Their solution was find a giant to fight the giants, a clash of titans….and that giant was government. But wait, you may think, didn’t I just list corrupt government as part of the enemies of the Populists? Yes, I did, so, a solution to purify this giant was needed. The people needed government to break up monopolies like RR and other big businesses, to regulate how much power/control the markets or banks had, to bring in taxes to penalize the rich but also provide funds to be given to farmers, to either break up the banks or better, have the government control the banks so that government could set “more fair” terms and rules for lending, and have government take over RR so that it could also set “more fair” terms. So, before government could be used in service of the people, it had to be cleaned from its corruption.
Their solution? More Democracy. They proposed and assumed that more Democracy would automatically provide a more just, more holy, less corrupt government that would then bend to the will of the people, acting on behalf of the people. You can see this understanding when you consider the platforms that were created, first in Ocala, FL in 1890 and then later in Omaha, NE in 1892. At that 1892 meeting, the ideas became formalized as the political party; James B. Weaver was nominated as their presidential candidate. In the election, Weaver garnered 1 million votes and won the states of Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, and Idaho. He finished third in the race, but the clear anger of the people had been felt. The last time a third party had been so successful was the 1856 election.
That they did so well in 1892 should have been a telling doom of one of the two major parties, but it didn’t happen that way. Perhaps in the first example of the two major parties demonizing a third party, and using power, threats and intimidation on their own party members, the Democrat Party in particular worked tirelessly to avoid being supplanted in 1896. Unfortunately, the Populists made a tactical error, choosing that rather than choosing their own candidate for President, they chose to support William Jennings Bryant hoping he would ultimately proclaim himself a Populist. he didn’t.
The point today isn’t about the death of the Populist party, per se, but rather that the people of 2016 are angry enough to support a third party. Yet, also, whether such a thing (electing a third party) would be helpful. I would argue yes, but with reservations. See, the Populists believed that more democracy would be good. Now, over 100 years later, clearly they were wrong as the Founders would have told them. Even as their ideas were largely all incorporated into our country, including direct election of Senators, direct voting in primaries and the incorporation of a national Income tax, the betterment they had assumed about the benefit of a supposedly more pure government (pure because more democracy would guarantee such) never happened.
Thus, the error was in assuming more Democracy was the answer, something the Founders could have told them. The Founders’ answer was a more strongly guarded Republic. But, and here is the kicker about my reservations…what it takes for a Republic to operate fair and just is a commitment to common values and morals. Our Founders largely would have said “Christian values” (yes, including Washington). The point is that for the Republic to run well, then we need to have moral men and women to lead the country and its businesses. If more moral men and women did so, corruption would diminish and the pleas of the people would be heard.
A third party would, in my opinion, be better for the country overall. That is why, as far it stands currently, I will be supporting the Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson. Since at least 2002, I’ve been saying the country is ripe for a third party. But if we as a people don’t recover some of our founding values such as truth, moderation, diligent effort, or appreciation for what moderns would call “blue collar” work, which would be more powerful in bringing a more equitable society than any set of rules that could come from government….a third party will end as weak as the Populist did.