Howell Raines: The Disingenuousness of Republican 'Populism'

[Howell Raines is former executive editor of the New York Times.]

In times gone by, Democrats were regarded as the master panderers of American presidential elections on the basis of their supposed belief in generous benefits for the working class. But as Democrats gather in Boston, they do so as a party that has surrendered the title. The Republicans are now the champion panderers in American politics and have been since they discovered the demagogic value of what Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard disingenuously calls" cultural populism."

Populism, of course, emerged as a force in American politics in the 1890s as an economic doctrine pushed by agrarian reformers in the Deep South and the Midwest. The economic populists from the agricultural regions wanted to wrest control of the federal government from the investment bankers and industrial capitalists in the Northeast.

Various reporters have written incisively this year about the egalitarian roots of economic populism and mutant populism's darker legacy as a vehicle for nativist prejudices. These discussions were occasioned in large part by the impact on the Democratic primaries of John Edwards's message about"two Americas" -- George W. Bush's country of tax breaks for the rich and war contracts for Halliburton, and the poorer outback America that has lost 2 million to 3 million jobs under Bush, lacks health insurance, and has buried nearly a thousand of its sons and daughters killed in Iraq. The Republicans take comfort in the fact that the Midwestern and Southern states, which invented populism in the 19th century, now make up the Reagan-Bush heartland. But the GOP fears a resurgence of the class consciousness at the core of economic populism.

What needs to be watched closely this week in Boston is how John Kerry balances his two most potent attack themes -- national security in the physical sense and economic insecurity in the second America. Many variables surround the physical security issue: an"October surprise" could save Bush, or another terrorist attack could sink him. What will not change, unless Kerry forces the issue, is the shell game by which the GOP uses" cultural populism" to get millions of Middle Americans to vote against their financial, medical and educational interests.

How was cultural populism -- which had its roots in Barry Goldwater's opposition to civil rights legislation and Richard Nixon's racially divisive"Southern strategy" -- turned into a political positive in the public relations sense? Rupert Murdoch's kept journalists at the Weekly Standard deserve much of the credit. The journal attacks economic populism as" condescending" and"patronizing," because it implies that the masses require government protection from the military-industrial, investment banking and petroleum complexes. But"social," or" cultural," populism is praised as a genuine expression of national values. Thus acceptance of the agenda of Bush social policy -- abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, guns -- is required, even by people who know better....