Although I am not unsympathetic to a number of the points Chip is making with regard to populism [albeit dubious about the value of developing a taxonomy of populism], I think that Chip is conflating a number of objects of analysis which need to be separate and distinct.
Lynching is a form of mob violence. There are elements of mob psychology in a lynching that put it into a separate category of collective action than more deliberate and thoughtful forms of developing a collective will. Moreover, it can very well be perpetrated by a minority without the approval of the larger social body. To call lynching the "will of the people" is a far too simple reading of it as a social phenomenon.
"Tyrannies of the majority" are a very real problem for democratic thought and practice. The fact that a majority denies a minority its rights is a fundamental violation of democratic principle, notwithstanding the fact that it is done by the majority, probably through legal and constitutional means. De facto, Jim Crow segregation is one of the best examples of such a tyranny. But there is a lot of gray area here, as well; the classic text in political philosophy on this subject is Madison's _Federalist # 10_, and he sees the problem as one of the great mass of the poor and working classes seeking to abridge the property rights of the wealthy. Although a Lani Guinier draws on that tradition, her critique goes farther: she would like to displace the centrality of majority rule itself in democratic theory and practice.
It seems to me that this is all quite distinct from "populism" as a set of political practices centered on the antagonism between the great mass of people, on the one hand, and the elite, on the other hand. As Laclau noted a long time ago in _Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory_, there is no necessary "class belonging" or "political belonging" to the antagonism; the question is how it is articulated.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010210/bbe52f35/attachment.htm>