>The flexibility of the populist framework permits a variety of ideas to be
>clothed in populist garb. What's required is the construction of a suitable
>reference point in the past: some tangible movement; an intellectual,
>cultural, or political tradition; a noteworthy historical interlude; or
>better, some combination of these. A second key feature is that such a
>reference point serves a majoritarian interest--the many against the few.
Yeah, but isn't that just a load of crap? When was this "suitable reference point in the past" when the many had their boots on the necks of the few? There's some always some Golden Age in the past, some ur-innocence broken by the Outsider, the Usurper. What's the ideal? Pre-Civil War small-town heartland America?
Doug