A few reactions, some of which might sound familiar . . .
Aggressive majoritarianism seems to be a resort of any political tendency that finds it within its power to do so. I fail to see any particular connection to populism. The left, for instance, often seems to think that a liberal majority in Congress with a liberal president could & would do liberal things. But that isn't the way things work in the U.S. system. You could substitute 'demo socialist' or any of your favorite tendencies, including imaginary ones, and that would still be true. Everybody has fantasies of what 'their' majority could do, if it only had the chance. Moreover, alongside some left tendencies associated w/Lenin, majoritarianism looks pretty good compared to aggressive minoritarianism.
I'm not sure what 'dualist' or 'individualist' mean in the context you provide.
As to attacking ("parasitic") finance rather than Capital, we've been through this before. You like to note the breadth and depth of scholarship on populism with which any serious person is obliged to become familiar. But I feel no such weight of authority from sociologists when it comes to a question in economics. Their guess is no better than mine.
In this context you could say populism is reformist, wrong, or crankery, but to equate it with fascism or intolerance on *this* count I think is really unfair. Any reformist critique of capitalism falls somewhere short in this respect.
The fact that out-and-out fascists try to appropriate populism only testifies to its popular salience, not to internal deficiencies. Mussolini borrowed from socialism, and Hitler's economy evidently had something to do with Keynes. To magnify these threads of association into criticism of socialism or Keynes is bad medicine.
To a great extent, we seem to be arguing about definitions. But one definition is as good as another. You can define populism to include everything from Jackson to Fulani. Or you can say it starts with Ignatius Donnelly and ends with William Jennings Bryan. Definitions are 'good,' I would say, if they are useful. What would be a useful definition of populism? I say such a definition would focus on what progressive, organically whole movement can be discerned in the U.S. in the 19th century, anchored around suffering agrarians. Such a definition is useful because it reflects a more-or-less discrete social movement based on a combination of radical economics and conservative culture. That the two could coexist in the U.S., I submit, is interesting and potentially important. Not because I want to create more conservative culture, but because conservative culture is what we have to contend with, whether we like it or not. Study of the right in all its forms, now and historically, is the value in the populist scholarship, but using your definition of populism -- tarring the old movement with every retrograde tendency before and after -- is not useful, and as indicated above, is sometimes blatantly unfair.
mbs
. . . The Goodwyn book studiously minimizes the negative aspects of populism, or simply argues that once it went to the political right or attacked minority groups it was no longer populism. In addition to the tendency to ignore or attack minority group interests through aggressive majoritarianism, populism tends to cast struggles in dualist and individualist terms; attacking the "banksters" rather than unregulated capital.
See:
Kovel, Joel. (2000). "Beyond Populism." Memo No. 2, To the Greens. Circulated February 2000. Online at http://www.publiceye.org/Sucker_Punch/Kovel.htm.
Or this gem from right wing populism:
Carto, Willis A. (Ed.). (1998 [1982]). Populism vs. Plutocracy: The Universal Struggle. Update of Carto's Profiles in Populism.
See also:
Betz, Hans-Georg. (1994). Radical Right-wing Populism in Western Europe. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Betz, Hans-Georg, and Stefan Immerfall (Eds.). (1998). The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Federici, Michael P. (1991). The Challenge of Populism: The Rise of Right-Wing Democratism in Postwar America. New York: Praeger.
Fritzsche, Peter. (1990). Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press.
Germani, Gino. (1978). Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism. New Jersey: Transaction Books.
Harrison, Trevor. (1995). Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hertzke, Allen D. (1993). Echoes of Discontent: Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, and the Resurgence of Populism. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Mozzochi, Jonathan, and L. Events Rhinegard. (1991). Rambo, Gnomes and the New World Order: The Emerging Politics of Populism. Portland, OR: Coalition for Human Dignity.
Naurekas, Jim, and Janine Jackson. (1996). "It's the Mexicans, Stupid: The Phony Populism of Pat Buchanan. Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), May-June, pp. 8-10.
Ramos, Tarso Luís. (1991). "Feint to the Left: The Growing Popularity of Populism." Portland Alliance (Oregon), December, pp. 13, 18.
Riker, William H. (1988 [1982]). Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Saloutos, Theodore (Ed.). (1978). Populism: Reaction or Reform? New York: Robert E. Kieger Publishing Company.