Tom Saler: How the recession led to populism.

Movements take time to develop

Observing an evolving populist movement is like watching a 23-foot python swallow a large rodent. From first gulp to complete digestion, the process takes time, with lots of stops and starts.

That’s the informed view of John B. Judis, author of “The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics.” A former senior editor of The New Republic and current editor at large for Talking Points Memo, Judis reviewed two-plus centuries of populist revolts against perceived establishment elites here and abroad, and his findings provide a road map for what might lie ahead in the United States over the four years that begin with Donald Trump’s inauguration this week.

“Populist movements serve as an early warning signal that there is trouble with the prevailing world view,” Judis told me in a recent phone interview. “There are always cultural and social issues involved, but in the last few years, starting with the tea party, Occupy Wall Street, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, economic issues have predominated.”

In fact, populism without an economic grievance is like a space flight without a launch. It’s not going anywhere without one.

Once airborne, however, a populist movement gathers followers with a wide array of gripes, most of which are at least indirectly related to pocketbook issues. Judis noted that in the 1960s, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace ignited a primarily right-wing brand of populism that played on people’s fears of paying taxes to support those who wouldn’t work.

“The ‘makers versus takers’ theme goes back to President Andrew Jackson in the early 19th century,” Judis observed. “Then it was farmers versus New York bankers. It’s the idea that people who produce things are being exploited by those who don’t.”

Left behind

Populist movements become particularly virulent at the cusp of major economic turning points when demand fades for products — and thus for the workers who made them — that formerly were in high demand. As the industrial revolution gathered force in the late 19th century, an agrarian-based populism took aim at politicians deemed to have put the interests of powerful industrial capitalists ahead of their own.

Though agrarian populism had a short shelf life as a unified political movement, some of its stated and implied objectives — the elimination of the gold standard, a progressive income tax, a more democratic political system — were eventually implemented during the second round of New Deal legislation beginning in the mid-1930s.

The roughly 50 years that it took late 19th-century populism to gain its objectives might provide a template for the current version, which also has its roots in a fundamental economic realignment. Today’s blue-collar workers are the farmers of the 1890s, and like their rural predecessors, made their concerns known long before achieving any political success.

Judis traces the current populism, with its distinct leftand right-wing strains, to the 1992 presidential campaigns of Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan. With Perot ahead in the polls, Bill Clinton skillfully co-opted Perot’s issues, which in America’s two-party political system drained Perot of support by election day.

Populism then went into hibernation during the info-tech boom of the late 1990s, before re-emerging at triple-strength following the Great Recession of 2008.

“With the current populism, you haven’t seen the result yet,” Judis said. “It’s still early, and what Sanders and Trump want are very different. Sanders was talking about Medicare for all and free public college. I suspect we will get a health care system similar to that, and public education in colleges will be like high school. But it might take 10 or 20 years for that to happen.”

Clogged drain

There is preliminary evidence that the version of populism that prevailed in the Electoral College might quickly disappoint its followers.

The U.S. banking sector was the target of anti-establishment rage for its alleged role in the financial crisis, yet the average bank stock has soared 25% since the election, triple the gain of the overall equity market. Meanwhile, billionaires have been appointed to cabinet positions and ethics concerns are being marginalized. You might take all that to mean the swamp is being refilled, not drained. Time, perhaps, for the python to take another swallow.