On Sun, 13 Mar 2005, Doug Henwood wrote (in passing, in his review of Stev Fraser's _Every Man a Speculator_):
> That moral geography fueled a lot of 19th century populism, which by
> today's standards looks like a movement of the left.
It was a movement of the left. The populism/progressive alliance was the only electorally significant movement of the left between the Civil War and the Depression. To write them off because we don't like their ultimate values (which it sounds like Fraser significantly misinterprets following Hofstadter's template) is exactly what has killed the left time and time again. In the 1920s, after 20 years of dominating the national agenda of both parties, the populist progressive alliance broke apart on the wedge issue of prohibition and evolution and let the Republicans in. The only reason they didn't stay forever was the depression. In the 1980s the wedge issues were abortion and evolution. Those are with us still.
Overcoming that divide is the sine non qua of creating a progressive alliance that is bigger than the conservative alliance. And it will never come about by ignoring it, by pretending if we just play up economics enough people will ignore the symbolic issues they really care about. We need to produce a symbolic vocabulary that reconciles the two sides -- exactly like populism and progressivism did.
If the right can reconcile Catholics and Fundamentalist Protestants -- who have always hated Catholics more than Jews -- the left should be able to unite atheists and religious liberals. And the cities with something outside it.
Michael