[OT] 80y Cycles of "Populism"

10 comments

• skibum609

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  8 years ago

  1770's were awful with that fucking independence shit. 1853 - 1859 Democrat in the White House; 1933 - 1939 - Democrat in White House; 2010 - 2016 Democrat in White House. Cause and effect. 1848? Why would people be upset we're going to discover gold in California again?
• Dougster

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  8 years ago

  I think they were talking about the global situation.
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  Interesting, this idea of cycles.
  
  One of the biggest and most consequential populist movements in the US was the Bonus Army. It destroyed Herbert Hoover, and it tarnished Douglas MacArthur and George Patton. It was very important in making sure that the US did not side with Hitler.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSC1lbfX…
  
  California's Gold Rush was a scam. There is gold. The vast majority of it is still there. The people who made money off of it were those who promoted it, not the miners.
  
  "All that remained of the Gold Rush was the savagery born of disillusionment."
  http://www.shermanclay.com/
  
  After the Gold Rush, the main California Scam has always been real estate. And that Santa Clara Stadium figures right into it today.
  
  SJG
• shailynn

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  8 years ago

  What about 1985 - you left 1985 out!!!
• 4got2wipe

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  8 years ago

  I'm not sure if you're joking skibum609, but I suspect Dougster is referring to the revolutions of 1848 in Europe.
  
  Interesting post Dougster. I suspect the "80 year cycle" aspect is largely numerology, but who knows? My initial reaction was that maybe there is something to it. After all, 80 years is 4 generations. Imagine you start when things undergo a shift. The societal and political problems that get solved are those on the surface at the time. Then things calm down in various ways, just as they did when the European revolutions failed but led to societal changes. Everybody goes on fairly happy until basically everybody who was around when the paradigm shifted has died. The lessons that generation learned are forgotten and stuff boils over again, changing the paradigm again.
  
  But thinking more carefully I doubt it. I think it is just human tendency to see patterns, even if there is none. But maybe there is actually a weak pattern driven by some sort of generational effect.
  
  Regardless, an interesting topic. I mostly check in for the crazy stories (even the ones I believe to be 100% fiction) but this was actually pretty thought provoking. Maybe I should even say that it was brilliant! ;)
• Tiredtraveler

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  8 years ago

  Aren't most "populist" movements about deposing kings, dictators, emperors and ruling class despots or wanna-be kings, dictators, emperors and ruling class despots who consider themselves above the law!
  Kinda like 2016 with Brexit and the Hillary/Obama dynasty loss!
  Sorry could not resist the analogy and the comments it will bring.
• Dominic77

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  8 years ago

  I could see a current populism movement against the current "ruling class" -- not so much the Clintons and the Obamas, but they are certainly part of the problem -- but against the corporate, finance types and the 0.1%ers or whoever owns all the shit and isn't sharing the capitalist prosperity with the working people. That was part of the problems in the 1930s that lead to New Deal and later Johnson's Great Society. We're seeing those same problems today.
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  The most important populist movements in the US, are not against a political elite, because such can always be voted out of office. Rather they are against those who are not elected, the captains of big business. These maybe labor oriented, consumer oriented, or of a broader range socialist orientation.
  
  One of the most important was the Grangers.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_G…
  
  SJG
  
  "To separate the deserving from the undeserving... and to do so by creating a stigma attached to those they consider undeserving. It is very similar to Psychiatry. The moment you introduce Psychiatry, remember Michel Foucault, and the story about the madhouse, you create a narrative of reason and unreason, you create a power structure. The person who has the certificate to be the Psychiatrist decides who is sane and who has the right to be a free citizen."
  
  Yanis Varoufakis: Basic Income is a Necessity
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y…
• DoctorDarby

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  8 years ago

  This list/theory leaves out the Populist uprising in the US that culminated in the election of 1896. Farmer in the Midwest were unhappy with taxes, tariffs, banks, and both parties and sought to create a 3rd party that would put the nationalize major industries (RRs and banks) and put the US economy on the silver standard. After winning over 1,000,000 votes in 1892, they thought they might have a chance to upset the moribund, pro-business Republicans and Democrats in 1896 with a coalition of labor unions, farmers alliances, and other disgruntled middle class workers. They failed because a 36 year old dynamo named William Jennings Bryan hijacked the silver platform and got the Democratic nomination with it. The Populists fused with the Bryan Democrats and got creamed by William McKinley and the Republicans, who tagged them as dangerously radical. What followed was the Progressive era, a much more mainstream and middle class reform movement that brought us prohibition, immigration restrictions, and women's suffrage.
• san_jose_guy

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  8 years ago

  I believe that exactly what you are describing was related to the Granger Movment. And yes, Bryan is someone with a mixed legacy at best. There are different types of populism.
  
  SJG