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This thread is being passed around again and dismissed as "liberal bullshit" by certain mansplaining leftists (ahem Jeet Heer) so I thought I would provide a few more historiographical examples to expand on the exclusionary problematic aspects of populism /1 https://twitter.com/QueenMab87/status/1072670868629786624
My original thread cites Richard Hofstadter's view on the racism and nativism of American populism. According to Jeet Heer Hofstadter has been discredited but "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" was reissued in 2008 w/ a forward by Sean Wilentz https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/81401/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics-by-richard-hofstadter-with-a-new-foreword-by-sean-wilentz/
Wilentz is the 2006 Bancroft Prize winning author of "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln." Wilentz also has criticisms for American populism arguing it initially was agrarian dissent to Reconstruction & included nativism & antisemitism https://prospect.org/features/populist-fantasy/
While an important historian, Wilentz signed the letter criticizing the 1619 Project-however his criticisms were for specific historical facts and not the overall intention of the project https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/1619-project-new-york-times-wilentz/605152/
An early historian that praised American populism -C Vann. Woodward called populism an expression of aligned“agrarian interests.” However he dismissed the religious fervor and ignored the social aspects in favor of the economic interests of the movement
Woodward was a bit of a Tom Watson apologist and considered Southern populism as a movement railed against the monied interests of the North ruining the South. This interpretation is troubling considering the context of Jim Crow and post Civil War economic dynamics
One of Heer's historiographical references was of Michael Kazin who is generally very supportive of American populism. However, even Kazin notes the history of right wing authoritarian populism & includes Trump in that tradition https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1282374367561895937?s=20
I’m being called away for a late lunch but will continue this later!
The rest is up! https://twitter.com/queenmab87/status/1282427372709519361?s=21 https://twitter.com/QueenMab87/status/1282427372709519361
