Pros And Cons Of The Populists

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Franklin Roosevelt once said, “A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.” This defines the populists precisely. Populism could be without doubt, compared to a person sleepwalking backwards. The prospects of this group of people look as if they were planning this in their subconscious. Reactionaries are people striving to get society back to previous times when people like them were in control; Populists want to change society back to the times when agriculture was at its peak and when the farmers, like them, were in control. Just as Richard Hofstadter clearly states, “The utopia of the populists was in the past, not the future.” The ideas of the populists are retreating back into the order of how things previously were. Many aspects…show more content…
The nation is fast becoming more industrial and more commercialized. The populists don’t see that the nation is growing in this more industrial way and still cling to the idea of agricultural dominance. These views are pointed back to a time when farming and agriculture was abundant and successful, because farming, then, was the only way to access most resources. Now the nation is slowing becoming more commercialized and there is more ways to receive these things, therefore breaking away from the idea of agricultural control. The more farming and agriculture is abandoned, the more things the populist find in what is being left behind. Also, the more the farmers’ sons moved into town, the more nostalgic the whole culture became about its rural past. Populists want to go back into a time when farmers were in control and domineered over the…show more content…
They are isolated paranoid bigots for many reasons, not just because they are reactionary. Populists were off by themselves, isolated from everyone else. They isolated themselves from the society actually decided their fate. The populists didn’t think about fitting themselves into the bigger picture. They were paranoid because they believe that history is just one big conspiracy against them and out to get them. They believe that farmers are not only oppressed but oppressed deliberately, consciously, and continuously. They were intolerant, hostile towards the financial class, and prejudiced against Jewish people, making many derogatory remarks. Many populists considered Jews to be at the root of problems for the farmers who made up the Populist Party. Jews were easy to blame for the populists, since the party is dominated of people from areas of the US where there were few Jews. It was easy for the Populists to say Jews were responsible for farmers' financial difficulties. Marking the certain prejudice of the

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