Ah, 1960! Before the Free Speech Movement. Before the Vietnam War, which our leaders in both parties were too cowardly to end and thereby murdered hundreds of thousands of "enemies" and all too many American young men. Before increasing evidence you could not trust the man in the Oval Office any more than the one in the Post Office. But the populist menace is older than that. The American revolutionaries were not all guileless patriots; many were opposed to the British government for selfish reasons and for fanatical Calvinistic reasons, thinking they were continuing the struggle against Charles I on behalf of King Jesus. Republicans and Federalists engaged in populistic attacks on one another. Andrew Jackson was an outstandingly awful populist. The arrival of immigrants in large numbers resulted in populistic attacks on them and this remained a permanent feature of American politics, with Catholics or Jews being from time to time substituted for the enemies from Wall Street and other streets. Our politics have not changed much. Trump is a more egregious example of populistic evil than some of our other leaders in the past, but he is very American in his vices. True, Mr. Achenbach, Trump doesn't use the word "populist"; perhaps he was not attentive enough at the Wharton School, where his outstanding academic record did not require its use. But a populist/demagogue/quasi-Fascist/clown and crook he is. We can all find the words we like best, I guess.
Ah, 1960! Before the Free Speech Movement. Before the Vietnam War, which our leaders in both parties were too cowardly to end and thereby murdered hundreds of thousands of "enemies" and all too many American young men. Before increasing evidence you could not trust the man in the Oval Office any more than the one in the Post Office. But the populist menace is older than that. The American revolutionaries were not all guileless patriots; many were opposed to the British government for selfish reasons and for fanatical Calvinistic reasons, thinking they were continuing the struggle against Charles I on behalf of King Jesus. Republicans and Federalists engaged in populistic attacks on one another. Andrew Jackson was an outstandingly awful populist. The arrival of immigrants in large numbers resulted in populistic attacks on them and this remained a permanent feature of American politics, with Catholics or Jews being from time to time substituted for the enemies from Wall Street and other streets. Our politics have not changed much. Trump is a more egregious example of populistic evil than some of our other leaders in the past, but he is very American in his vices. True, Mr. Achenbach, Trump doesn't use the word "populist"; perhaps he was not attentive enough at the Wharton School, where his outstanding academic record did not require its use. But a populist/demagogue/quasi-Fascist/clown and crook he is. We can all find the words we like best, I guess.