Populism and Progressivism Ascending

(Guess I'm in a politics mood today.)

Glenn Greenwald, as usual, hit the nail on the head the other day (by all means, read the whole thing):

There is no question that the media has paid far less attention to Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee than the respective successes of their campaigns merit. To that list, though, I would add a third candidacy that has received far less media attention than it merits by all objective metrics (polls, stature and money): the John Edwards campaign. In 2004, Edwards was the party's Vice Presidential nominee, came closer than anyone else to beating Kerry, and has continuously been very near the top of Iowa's polls. Yet the media has all but ignored him -- it's Clinton v. Obama in their World -- except to mock him on the pettiest of grounds, from his hair to his house.

Edwards, Paul and Huckabee are obviously disparate in significant ways -- ideologically, temperamentally, and otherwise. But there is a vital attribute common to those three campaigns that explains the media's scorn: they are all, in their own ways, anti-establishment candidates, meaning they are outside and critical of the system of which national journalists are a critical part, the system which employs and rewards our journalists and forms the base of their identity and outlook. Any candidate who criticizes and opposes that system -- not in piecemeal ways but fundamentally -- will be, first, ignored and, then, treated as losers by the press.

Via a link by James Wolcott comes this by journalist David Seaton:

Huckabee sometimes talks just like an old fashioned, Huey Long type southern populist. In an amazingly un-Reaganlike statement Huckabee demolished the central Republican article of faith, "trickle down economics", claiming that cutting the taxes of the super rich is: "a false and callous assumption that the poorest people in our nation, with inadequate salaries, lack of nutritious food, substandard housing and nonexistent or underfunded health care, can somehow afford to patiently wait while someone else's wealth eventually splashes onto them.". Hell, that sounds like that other creationist, William Jennings Bryan! No wonder the conservative establishment is horrified by him. Where are the Democrats on this, only Edwards makes these noises.

Karl Rove used to regale reporters and colleagues by comparing himself and Bush Jr. to Mark Hanna and William McKinley. Overseers of a New Gilded Age!

But also out of that Gilded Age came Bryan the Christian populist and Roosevelt the progressive trust-buster. There's a bit of both of these elements in the sensibilities of Huckabee and Edwards. Also, just as it was at the turn of the last century, these elements exist in both parties, but outside of the parties' respective "establishments." While history may not repeat itself, it certainly echoes.

Here's a DVD the Edwards campaign recently sent to rural Iowans:



And here's a snippet of an introduction of Edwards by now-former Maytag employee Doug Bishop:



Populism and progressivism.