“The calamity howlers”

The Populist Chameleon: The People's Party, Huey Long, George Wallace, and the Populist Argumentative Frame

“…For instance, Robert Gunderson argues that Gilded Age Populism mobilized through the articulation of shared agrarian experience. 18 Thomas Burkholder notes Kansas Populists claimed that the self-sufficient Jeffersonian virtues of the yeoman farmer were the cornerstone of democracy. 19 Subsequent populist activists found other value laden yet nebulous terms in their efforts to constitute a singular ''people.''…”

“…28 The Great Plains ''calamity howlers'' distrusted Eastern capitalist ''interests.'' 29 Western populists feared corrupt politicians, bankers, and railroads. Railroad conglomerates were especially important for Western farmers whose location made the entirety of their industry contingent on importing products needed to produce and export harvests.…”

“…9 Furthermore, appraisals of the Great Plains ''calamity howlers,'' treatments of fiery populist oratory in Gilded Age San Francisco, defenses of populist activism against claims of demagoguery, examinations of the ''new populism'' of the mid-1980s, and insights into the essentials of the Kansas People's Party discourse all identify important features of particular populist rhetorics; however, these studies' concentration on specific instances of populism occludes recognition of populism as a recurring vocabulary. 10 One alternative to these overly specified conceptions of populism is for critics and historians to resist the urge to classify all discourses that champion the cause of ordinary people as populist. In one of the few treatments of the broader language of populism, Michael Kazin laments the ''glib habit'' of branding ''everything from Bruce Springsteen to Rush Limbaugh'' as populist discourse.…”

“…60 God ordained the ''people's'' reclamation of the system in a great struggle. Long argued that the Book of James held ''that when the rich hold goods they could not use and could not consume, you will inflict punishment on them'' (29). The ''people's'' divinely inspired virtues justified an economic crusade.…”

“…but who bask in the splendor of sunlight and wealth, casting darkness and despair and impressing it on everyone else. (18) Populist Argumentative Frame 365…”