Republicans beware: there could be an angry populist left, too

Republican legislators oppose new guardrails on our democracy. It is short-sighted.

Watch out for a left populist demagogue.

Father Charles Coughlin

Congress has a job to do, and it isn't doing it. "Fixing the guardrails" sounds "anti-Trump" and Republican legislators don't dare do anything that might give that perception to their voters. The result is that the deeply flawed, contradictory, possibly unconstitutional Electoral Count Act of 1887 remains in place. It is a time bomb, especially since some states have voted to allow their legislatures to ignore the results of a presidential election and to choose their own preferred electors. 

Few Republican officeholders object to Trump's position that the Vice President can determine the valid electors, keeping some, discarding others. The Vice President is Kamala Harris. Surely prudent Republicans are looking ahead to a potential disaster in the next election. No.They are silent. The notion of overthrowing an election to retain or regain power is not a bi-partisan idea. It is a Trump idea. 

I know of no current or emerging left populist demagogue. But American has had them, and might again. Father Charles Coughlin would be a potential model. Readers may remember him from histories they read of the 1930s. What people most remember now is his anti-Semitism, which forced him off the air. Like Trump, Coughlin was de-platformed. He did not lose popularity; he lost access. FDR's government took the position that the airways were public and what Coughlin was saying was not in the public interest. 

Jimmy Swaggart, TV ministry

Father Coughlin was a mix of radio talk show host (Rush Limbaugh), Fox opinion host (Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson), revivalist minister (Jimmy Swaggart), and harsh political accuser (Joseph McCarthy.) We associate these people with right nationalist populism. For his era, Coughlin was a left nationalist. He developed his audience in the early 1930s by attacking Herbert Hoover, Wall Street, predatory capitalism, and by praising the all-American working man and woman. He was equally anti-communist and anti-capitalist because he said both sides cheated workers. By 1937 he had turned against FDR, saying that FDR had preserved capitalism and a rotten status quo, and he would be sending America into a European war.

Oh, capitalism shall never again flourish as once it did. Capitalism has been almost taxed out of existence in an effort to meet the coupons and the bonds, in an effort to meet the dole system that is absolutely unnecessary in a country of our wealth. . . .

And democracy once more, thinking that it has power within its soul, shall rise up to clap and applaud, because the youth of the land is going abroad to make the world safe for what? Safe for dictatorship? Safe against communism abroad when we have communism at home? Safe from socialism in France when we have socialism in America? Or safe, safe for the international bankers?

Were Americans back in the 1930s moved by reading this?  No. They were moved by hearing it. Coughlin was an orator. He moved crowds.

Click here on this link and then on the MP3 file. He was passionate. He was uncompromising. He knew who he hated and he called them out. 

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5111/

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5111/

Here is a three minute video clip of him speaking about Americanism, the usurpation of the Federal Reserve over our money, and the failure of both Democrats and Republicans. Drain the swamp.

Watching Coughlin, readers will see familiar issues and themes of anti-elitism and anger over injustice. His publication was called "Social Justice." 

What would bring us a new version of a left demagogue?

   1. A Republican in office at a time of high unemployment or other economic or social distress, e.g. another recession like the one in 2008 or 2020. 

   2. Failure of Democrats to have implemented tax or anti-trust policies to restrain billionaire wealth, combined with high-visibility billionaire displays of lavish spending.

   3. Continuing agitation by Republicans saying that elections are rigged and unreliable reflections of the popular will.

   4. Some other stressor: Another oil embargo, a terrorist or natural-caused prolonged interruption of the electrical power grid, a trade or shooting war. There is always something.

Under those circumstances, I can imagine an angry, restless public demanding change. The failure could be seen primarily as economic exploitation, with the wealthiest Americans having captured Congress and the professional class generally. Left populism need not be "socialistic" or allied with Bernie Sanders. Like with Brexit supporters, it could be anti-statist and anti-elitist. 

Under those circumstances I could imagine a charismatic, rousing speaker, Trump-sized crowds, loud and angry people speaking at school board and county commission meetings, upset congressional town halls. Then, an election amid a public divided between people defending the economic status quo overseen by Republicans, and a coalition of frustrated white and blue collar workers, their 401k accounts down, and unemployment high, convinced that the billionaires are ruining the country. In that context imagine a close election with shouts of disputed ballots, and then a mob of people arriving on January 6 of some future year, demanding that the corrupt Congress vote with the people not the oppressive plutocrats, so that America can go back to work.

It won't happen immediately. The time isn't right. Not yet. Our democracy is fragile and we aren't strengthening it.