I know when I go off on one of my historic perspectives there are a bunch of eye rollings and altogether indifference…..but you could learn something and why is that a bad thing?
You read that right….1892….that was when the Populist Party came into national view…..and the preamble says it all…..in that year and as well as our year….
The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.
…
We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influence dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore, in the coming campaign, every issue but one. They propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/populist-party-platform-1892
Tell me we are not reliving those dark days yet again.
Those words written over a hundred years ago could have been written yesterday.
If you want a closer look at what these people were proposing…..then look no further…..
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-populist-party-platform/
Be Smart!
Learn Stuff!
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Fascinating history, chuq. And yes, it could have been written this week.
Best wishes, Pete.
What goes around. huh? chuq
I’m a student of history as well and the similarities are striking, aren’t they? It’s amazing how we have apparently learned absolutely nothing. it wasn’t until about 1904 or 05 that the “trust busters” were finally able to enforce the Sherman anti-trust act. Unfortunately we now have a supreme court that would almost certainly completely gut any attempt at reining in today’s monopolies
Most people shrug off our history but not me…..it is fascinating. chuq
Yes, that was the birth of the Progressive Era. Interestingly, it was spearheaded mostly by Republican politicians such as Robert La Follette of Wisconsin who was a U.S. congressman, governor and then a U.S. Senator. President Theodore Roosevelt also picked up the progressive banner and tried to return to the White House as a 3rd party candidate (i.e. the Progressive Party, a.k.a “Bull Moose” Party) in an election won by Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Recently, I researched Viktor Orbán’s election defeat in Hungary. I discovered that his long 16-year reign as dictator, err Prime Minister, resulted from a massive rebellion within his own political party. Orbán’s voters were finally convinced that he had not delivered on his populist promises. However, that wave of discontent could not have been achieved without the wholesale rejection of the centrist “opposition” by the Hungarian people beforehand. In other words, the political center had to be destroyed first before the tyrant could be toppled.
That is why I have chosen not to vote anymore for Democratic Party candidates at the national level (note: Democrats in my state of Washington at least are listening and responding to the people). I believe the Trump movement will eventually implode, but that won’t happen until its current target of hatred (i.e. the center) is gone.
Robert I have not voted for a Dem since 1980…..they started down this path they are on today and I just cannot bring myself to support most of them. chuq