Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) penned an op-ed describing what "populism" actually is, or should be. In his eyes it doesn't look much like the racism-infused nationalist movement shuddering through America and Europe right now.
Populism speaks out against a church shooting, or a threat against a Jewish center, or the bombing of a mosque. A populist stands in solidarity against all acts of hate.
Populism is a belief that you build the economy from the middle class out, not by demanding tax cuts for the most affluent, with the long-discredited argument that prosperity will trickle down.
I don't know that populism needs to be either defended or reclaimed, but if someone wants to give it a go I'm all for it. For a very long time Americans have been suckered into thinking that people who live in gilded mansions are the very people we need to finally give the little guy a fair shake, which is an odd thing to think when the people in the mansions are holding you upside-down while they give you that fair shake in order to collect whatever falls out of your pockets.
Is this presumption the fallout of the prosperity gospel? Do we generally assume fabulously wealthy people are, by nature, fair and kind? That they are smarter? That they are more experienced in the ways of life? It's weird, that's what it is. Put a hundred of these supposedly kind and brilliant and experienced Americans on an island and ask them to survive a week without premium catering and it will make Lord of the Flies look like a treatise on effective government practices.
Come to think of that, we just tried that exact experiment. News reports suggest it didn't go well.
If you want to call yourself a populist, you better be ready to stick up for the little guy — whether she punches a time clock or earns tips. Whether she works in a call center or a hospital or on a factory floor. Whether he is a contract worker or a temp.
And you better be willing to be straight with the people you serve. A true populist tells the truth, because she respects people’s intelligence.
If that's the definition we're going with our current "populists" seem more akin to crab people who have donned human suits. You have to flip through an awful lot of news channels before you'll find a program premised on respecting people's intelligence. Sean Spicer's day job does not include, and will never include, respecting people's intelligence.
For the record, I have no dog in this hunt. If folks want to have an erudite discussion on the true nature of populism, that's fine with me. If folks want to point out that would-be populist movements, by and large, seem to have held hands with common racism more often than not that's fine too. But Brown's central point is that the whole premise behind the current so-called movement is, at heart, a ridiculous and ultimately malevolent farce—a point that needs to be made much, much more often.