The Populist Persuasion: An American History

by Michael Kazin

"Kazin has written a thoughtful and important book on one of the more consequential movements in American politics-populism. Tracing the emergence of populist campaigns from the 19th century to the present day, he looks at such movements as the labor movement, the prohibitionist crusade, Catholic radio populist Father Coughlin, the New Left, and the recent advance of conservative populism, as identified with such figures as George Wallace and Ronald Reagan. Kazin opens by saying, 'I began to write this book as a way of making sense of a painful the decline of the American Left, including its liberal component, and the rise of the Right.' Anyone interested in either political tendency will find this book both informative and engaging. It is a powerful, elegantly written, and observant study that never fails to retain the reader's interest."― Library Journal For the revised Cornell edition, Michael Kazin has rewritten the final chapter, bringing his coverage of populism up to the 1996 presidential election and added a new conclusion.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction, Economics, Cultural, Political Science

387 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1995

About the author

Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University. He is co-editor of Dissent magazine.

Reviews

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kazin's history of populism, written in the late 1990s, remains strikingly relevant and applicable today. He argues generally that populism is a constant in American history, splitting into two tracks--one more conservative and evangelizing and the other focused on economic egalitarianism and promoted mainly by the left. Each wave of populism rose and fell for particular reasons, united by historical strands. I think Kazin's dividing line is appropriate for his analysis, although some of the movements certainly get fuzzy around the edges. His writing is clear, filled to the brim with historical evidence, and well-organized. I've always loved reading about populism, and Kazin's is a worthy part of the literature.

He begins early in American history, outlining how populism existed in Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. I expected this introductory section to frame the rest of the book more than it did (it doesn't get that many explicit mentions) but it's an adequate starting point.

Many people know about the 1890s populists, and that's where Kazin goes next. These agrarian figures combined both moralizing and economic populism, articulating a clear producerist vision of the people tethered to the land. In their eyes, big money had taken over the levers of power and needed to be checked. But this movement (as other authors have chronicled) didn't build up enough to become a positive force as opposed to a protest movement.

After the populists, and building on their themes, the Prohibitionists advanced a moralistic populism, articulating a vision of a Protestant-dominated small-town America. This folded in nativism and proved somewhat successful, culminating in prohibition. But as the prohibitionist movement won its top policy, it petered out, consolidated with the GOP establishment, and cracked under opposition.

Around the same time on the labor side, Kazin notes, the AFL dealt more effectively (at least at first) with the establishment. Representing craftsmen, they refused to pitch their tent with one party alone and stood up for a smaller-government unionism distant from socialism. They redefined the people as "citizens", tapping into a patriotism evident in many of these movements. With the rise of progressivism were forced to negotiate with the elitist progressive movement to make reform happen. The AFL achieved some successes but faced discontent on the left and antagonism on the right, undoing them in the 1920s.

Back on the religious front, Catholics in the New Deal era were led by Father Coughlin, who began as a New Dealer but turned against FDR. For Kazin, Coughlin represented a melding of spiritual populism with skepticism of elite institutions and government. As time went on though, Coughlin began to propagate increasingly anti-Semitic and prejudiced ideas, which marginalized his personal-fandom-based movement. One of my gripes is that Kazin does very little to reckon with Huey Long, an essential populist figure of this time. He gets a mention later in the work, but little to no detailed examination. This is a glaring oversight, and I don't think Long is best dealt with in comparison to George Wallace.

The CIO greatly expanded during the New Deal era, promoting a vision of industrial democracy. They promoted inclusiveness to a greater degree than previous movements had, albeit with blind spots in some areas. Ideologically, they brought together a massive coalition, from Catholic labor priests to Communists. While the CIO did end up successful in many ways, their broad vision of "the people" became vaguer as they merged into the Democratic campaign apparatus. FDR's appeal was strong, and the allure of influence tempting.

After World War II, the specter of Communism greatly disturbed the American conscience. McCarthy and right-wing veterans organizations pushed a moral vision in which elites sold out the country to foreign "reds", conceiving of the "people" not as producers but as consumers. Ironically, this built on the success of the CIO; in a suburbanizing, wealthier America, the old class war rhetoric wouldn't stick and Americans felt more economically secure than before. This rhetoric fizzled out due to McCarthy's overreaches, but it also revealed a growing divide between the left and the working class.

A large part of Kazin's argument is about how the left lost its populist flavor. The CIO came to accept the large state apparatus and inclusion in the Democratic tent. The New Left arose amid the backdrop of the 1960s and presented the potential for interesting crossover appeal early on. However, as time passed, it became too deeply tied to campus radicals and cultural extremism, repelling any broader support it could have attained. With the New Left, the left began to seem out of touch.

At the same time, the right tapped into post-war anxieties pertaining to anti-communism and social change. For Kazin, this took root in George Wallace's blue-collar racialized populism. He tapped into a segment of the population that felt underrepresented by political outfits, but Wallace remained distinctly regional and failed to build a sustainable movement. In turn, it took people like Kevin Phillips, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan to refine and cement the right's appeal to the White working class. Social conservatism, reacting to the 1960s, was ascendant and provided a wellspring of support for outreach to a seemingly beleaguered middle class.

This is where the book draws to a close, discussing how populism seemed to have lost its meaning for a while flaring back up with Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot. Kazin ends by recognizing the necessity of a class-based left populism for mass democracy, critiquing the left's turn towards identity issues.

This argument held up well and we've since seen another cycle of populism. In 2016, well after this book came out, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump arguably represented both strands of populism. While Trump's appeal was in some ways economic (discussing trade similarly to Sanders), it was more revanchist and tailored towards the neglected socially conservative wing of the GOP, although Trump was basically a social liberal. Sanders represented the pro-social justice, class-focused populism of yore, making him a successor of sorts to Bryan, the CIO, and elements of the New Left. Even now, Joe Biden seems to have absorbed the lessons of these most recent populist uprisings.

Kazin's book is a masterful treatment of populism throughout American history. I highly recommend it to those interested in history as well as those who wonder how we got to the current moment.

[Katie Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent stuff. Highly recommended if you want an illuminating look at the tradition of populist rhetoric in American politics, from the pre-Civil-War era down to the 1990s.

[C M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Populist Persuasion is the gold standard for books on populism in the United States. Written by progressive historian Michael Kazin it describes the continuous presence of the populist persuasion in American politics, pretty much from its founding to today (although it was written before the Great Recession and the emergence of the Occupy movement and the Tea Party). Perhaps most surprising to many will be Kazin's sympathetic attitude towards populism, which is strongly influenced by his quite favorable reading of the original agrarian populists of the late 19th century. In the conclusion he writes, for example, "At the core of the populist tradition is an insight of great democratic and moral significance... We should not speak solely within its terms, but, without it, we are lost."

While Populist Persuasion is a fascinating history of a much ignored yet fundamental aspect of American politics, it is at times a bit frustrating, as Kazin's definition and application of populism is quite loose and it is not always clear how central the "populist persuasion" is to the political actors he describes.It is also at times a bit too political for my taste, calling upon his (assumed progressive) readers to fight the good fight. At the same time, his own populist critique of the progressive elite is quite refreshing.

Of particular interest, at least to me, a fellow scholar of political discourse and ideology, is his short reflection on methodology, at the end of the book. It is rare for scholars to be explicit about their assumptions and Kazin's approach is clear and convincing.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you combined this book with T Frank's extremely accessible What's the Matter with Kansas? and A Hartman's recent history of the culture wars (splicing in some of Isaac Martin's Rich People's Movements too, maybe), you'd have the perfect history of the American Populist-ish Right. As is, Kazin's book is a little too rushed, totally dependent on primary sources read through secondary sources...and yet perfect at many points, as his central argument demonstrates convincingly how the shift from prairie populism to Patbuchananism makes perfect sense, historically speaking. A worthy read, and probably easy enough for sharp undergraduates to understand.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historians often think of Populism, the political ideology that coalesced around ideas such as free silver, government-controlled railroads, and a graduated income tax, as a part of the policy backbone of the People’s Party in the 1890s. This political party, strongly supported by southern and mid-western farmers, was over almost as quickly as it began. Different from this definition of rooted in the Peoples’ Party, is populism, a political tool used by both the ideologically right, and the ideologically left. This form of populism has more to do with political rhetoric, tactics, imagery, and little to do with ideology (or pop-culture uses), contends Michael Kazin in his book, The Populist Persuasion: An American History. For Kazin, United States history is fraught with numerous instances of populist rhetoric, “from the era of Thomas Jefferson to the era of William Jefferson Clinton” (2). Perceived enemies of “the people” have often changed from time to time, and have included corporate America, cultural elites, and government bureaucracy. The distrust of elites and elitism is a distinctly American quality, which Kazin argues originated in nineteenth-century American political tradition. Two major themes have dominated populist rhetoric. The first theme is a uniquely American “producer ethic” ideology, which respected the labor of middle-class workers and distrusted elites. It began with anti-monarchical sentiments, which disliked the political systems of Europe. The producer ethic, founded on principles of the enlightenment, holds that through self-determinations, people can rise, unfettered by restrictive elites (10). Second, what Kazin refers to as a “pietistic impulse,” which originated in the Protestant Reformation and rejuvenated in subsequent Great Awakenings, which held that the nation was a fundamentally Christian nation, and its focus should be on the ethical beliefs of the majority (17). While not specific to Christianity, or religion, for that matter, the pietistic impulse presented itself in various political movements throughout American history.
Kazin contended that populist rhetoric often used heroes to convey images, which have conformed to the goals of various leaders throughout American history. The Populist Party coalesced around attacking both big business, particularly banks, and big government, which they believed, ignored the common person. The Bible and writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln gave credibility to populist rhetoric throughout American Political history. This is evident in the Populist Movement. This tendency is visible in written accounts of speeches by Ignatius L. Donnelly and William Jennings Bryan. During the election of 1896, Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech framed the problems of the country in “pietistic terms” urging voters not to “crucify mankind on a cross of gold.” This trend would not subside, though often the names would change. Kazin argued that the Populist Party coalition (workers and farmers), could not hold together the competing elements the party had hoped to maintain. Essentially, producer ethics and pietistic impulses, coupled with a domination of these images from both the Democratic, and the Republican Parties created intra party divisions.
Kazin documented the rise and fall of the American Labor movement as well as the use of populist arguments within the movement. He also examined the ideological switch that occurred in Samuel Gompers’ leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Initially, a Marxist, Gompers later changed, fearing the growth of government ownership, thus embracing producer ethics, eschewing pietistic arguments, subscribed by the socialists of the day. Additionally, pietistic impulses within political movements were evident within temperance advocates such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU promoted temperance in pietistic terms, attempting to abolish “the evils of a patriarchal society” under the leadership of Francis Willard (83). The WCTU took direct aim at government officials who seemed too cozy with alcohol producers and establishments. Additionally, efforts to “improve society” seemed to be the order of the day in the years approaching prohibition. Efforts by the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), sought to characterize the manufacturers as “King Alcohol,” stoking fears of big alcohol business. The effectiveness of these movements ushered the passage of the eighteenth amendment, thus dissolving their membership. Soon, however, opposition to prohibition would build. Using “Jeffersonian arguments,” Groups such as the Association of the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), hoped to convince Americans of the need for “individual liberty and local sovereignty” (105). Just as prohibition-forces, used fear of big businesses attempts to “enslave the common person with alcohol,” so too did the AAPA use populist arguments, presenting a fear of an all-controlling centralized government, which inhibited the power of local governments.
Kazin also examined the social populism of Father Coughlin. Coughlin, a nationally renowned speaker popular in the Depression Era, use of well-documented populist arguments presents a compelling example for Kazin. His formation of the National Union for Social Justice placed clear blame on, “the money changers,” a reference both biblical and populist, due to the banking crisis of the era. Using arguments found in Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Bryan, Coughlin employed populist rhetoric to criticize bankers and the banking system (120). Initially favoring and helping to elect Franklin Roosevelt, Coughlin eventually had a falling out with FDR and sought to defeat him politically with his Union Party. Coughlin’s populist rhetoric was no match for FDR’s populist programs, giving him no chance for victory.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Kazin pointed out, also used populist rhetoric to garner support. Along with the AFL, the CIO used heroic images of American workers in an effort to deemphasize their socialist roots while “masculinizing” the worker. For them, government was not the enemy, but a friend to Americans, hard hit by the Great Depression and anxious for New Deal Jobs. Kazin wrote, “Labor activists tried to fashion a populism that isolated the corporate elite but embraced the new political one—without alienating ordinary Americans who were less sanguine about an interventionist state” (138). The “Industrial Democracy” concept the CIO employed hoped to elevate worker's status politically. Nevertheless, many Americans began to become concerned with the CIO’s close affiliation with government. Fears of “Big Government” and “Big Labor” became more apparent in anti CIO rhetoric began to emerge by 1938 (158).
Kazin wrote, “Until the 1940s, conservative populism was an oxymoron” (165). He contended that the Cold War era presented conservative populists with a rare opportunity to use both the fear of government and the fear of elites to engage the public. Fear of the oppressive government, evident in the Soviet Union, elevated fears of an over reaching government in America. Using imagery pioneered by leftist, these new populist Conservatives, “found a storehouse of populist language a potent weapon for their anti-statist crusade” (167). Many felt the government had gone too far, and sought to reverse the massive government control of numerous industries. Like leftists before them, Conservatives referenced the “common man” in their efforts to reverse a two-decade “assault” by the political left. The fear that a “modernizing elite,” which attempted to undermine “conservative values,” became a rally cry for the conservative movement. The reaction was significant, if not short lived. By the 1960s, much of this movement deteriorated, leaving room for a new leftward movement.
The dominance of the post-war conservatism, Kazin lamented, gave rise to the New Liberal Left, “who anxiously turned back the assault of the postwar Right” (196). Student groups, such as the New Left Group (SDS), mobilized against the Vietnam War. Hoping to instill ideas of popular democracy, the New Left abandoned pro-American imagery, presenting the industrial-military complex as the enemy. Kazin countered the New Left establishment against supporters of George Wallace (apparently representative of all conservatives), the notorious segregationist governor of Alabama. He pointed out that Wallace effectively used populist arguments, steeped in the tradition of states’ rights to fight the segregation. In this vein, Kazin does demonstrate the propensity of the American people to rally around anti-intellectualism.
Kazin contended that conservatism was again on the rise with the Nixon Presidency. Using language of populism was thoroughly entrenched by this time. Conservatives stoked fears of “Big Government,” and the Soviet menace. A decade later, Ronald Reagan also would use fear of government, individual property rights, and the USSR to garner support. Kazin contended that Conservative Republicans had, “posed authentically in populist dress by keeping cultural resentment uppermost in public mind” (266).
Kazin made an effective argument that political populism is a tool for political action in addition to the nineteenth-century political Populist political movement, which the word populism is associated. American populism is distinct from the world in its ability to encourage political mobilization, without the violence seen in Europe, prior to World War II.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting and enlightening overview of the history of populism and populist rhetoric in the United States. Kazin cogently demonstrates the flexibility of populist language and discusses the enduring appeal of populism, with particular emphasis on how the definition of 'the people' has changed over time to suit the needs and aspirations of politicians and activists alike. I found the chapters on the CIO, Joe McCarthy and George Wallace especially illuminating.

Kazin also provides a thought-provoking analysis of how and why populist themes and appeals have moved from the left to the right.

I'd like to see him publish an updated version of this book (it was published in 1995) as I'd be interested in if and how he places movements like Occupy Wall Street and the campaign to elect Barack Obama within populist traditions.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kazin distills populism to a political narrative style, which despite its many and varied champions and causes, has permeated the entirety of American history. At its heart is an image of "the people" as the country's class of producers -- not quite a proletariat, but neither only an aspirational 'middle class' -- denied justice by a distant and hostile elite. Populist narratives typically succeed at providing a digestible, basic moral logic for both group consciousness and for social action.

As Kazin argues, populism has persisted, and sometimes thrived, because so many different groups of Americans have had plausible experiences of structural injustice and feeling forgotten. Populism and its leaders have often failed to pierce the barricades of elite power (MAGA excepted, of course), but they have more often succeeded at their primary goal which is to make the powerful see and hear.

Kazin's tracing of populism's evolution through American history finds many populist movements share in their core complaints and their identification of villainous, often economic, elites. The ironic tragedy of American populism has been that economic common cause alone has never been sufficient basis for a populist movement. Rather, characteristics such as ethnicity, race, religion, gender, education, and geography have always been essential elements in crafting narrative images of "the people." Accordingly, the American political landscape has often featured dueling populisms reacting to and antagonizing one another, while leaving shared enemies unthreatened.

Kazin's volume, which was published in 1998, ends with the figure of Pat Buchanan and his defiant populist challenge for the Republican Party nomination for President in 1996. Buchanan, a key Nixon aide who admired populist figures such as Sen. Joe McCarthy and Gov. George Wallace, symbolizes that populism is more than a mere turn of rhetoric, but rather it is a heritage. Donald Trump, naturally, has cited Pat Buchanan as an important influence on his own political style. It seems a people, once formed, pursues the populist dream, never-ending.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another small mind which discovers the dictum "power corrupts", yet, as a small mind, it has a hard time moving forward with the observation so a correction is needed: politics - good, populism - bad. Now how would Kazin discriminate between the two? Easy: the ones he likes are the NOT populists.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unconvincing in many ways.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a grad class.
Very interesting examination of the trend of populism throughout American history. I plan to reread this one in the future, since reading books chapter by chapter over the course of a semester drives me crazy.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

Reviewed at The Atlantic

[Leonardo]

Discutido en La razón populista Pág.250-258

[AskHistorians]

A more up-to-date history of populism.

[JRB · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read on the arc of populism in American politics.