Mia Farrow's reposts David Brooks' on Bluesky

[Hekate]

32. Populists and Progressives were in alliance at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century

The second task is to construct a vision of America that is more inspiring than MAGA’s. Roughly 125 years ago, when the Declaration was half as old as it is now, America was struggling to cope with the Industrial Revolution. The 1880s witnessed the vicious depression of 1882–85, massive political corruption, astounding concentrations of corporate power, huge inequality, and lynchings and other racial terrorism. Americans responded by building the Populist Progressive movement.

Today, populists and progressives generally occupy opposing political parties. But as Richard Hofstadter noted in his classic The Age of Reform, at the turn of the 20th century Populists and Progressives formed an alliance. The Progressives of that era, then as now, were concentrated in the highly educated neighborhoods of big cities. The Populists, then as now, were concentrated in the smaller towns of the Midwest and the South. But both the Progressives and the Populists wanted to help those who were being ground down by industrialization. Both emphasized moral reform, personal responsibility, and character formation. Both believed in using government to reduce inequality and expand opportunity. Populists and Progressives worked hard to keep rural and urban insurgencies in harmony. Together, they built big things—the antitrust movement, the FDA, the Forest Service, the Federal Reserve.

Populists and Progressives needed each other—and still do. Without populists, progressives can turn into a bunch of affluent, out-of-touch urbanites who have little in common with regular Americans. Without progressives, populists can turn into anti-intellectual, paranoid bigots. The progressive valorizing of cultural diversity is balanced by populists’ emphasis on cultural cohesion.