I though we had already agreed on this list that elections don't reflect the popular will, at least when it comes to policy questions.
Doug you may be right but I think you are practicing avoidance. The 1896 election was massively exclusive in many ways. For instance very few blacks could vote at all; there were massive anti-immigrant campaigns, anti-Catholic campaigns and anti-black campaigns all of which Bryant supported (though not with as much personal enthusiasm when it came to blacks) , so if you were Catholic or close to immigrants or black and for the redistribution of wealth who were you to vote for? Perhaps McKinley wasn't a bad choice for you if you were black. I mean you began by saying that Klein didn't know her history.
Here you are ignoring a bit of history.
Or is the fact that FDR won four terms and is considered the inheritor of Bryant wing of the Democratic Party evidence that "redistribution" triumphed? I don't think it might be some evidence as is your example some evidence but they are inconclusive.
I'm just skeptical about your original statement, "Expropriation has rarely been popular here." I would also be skeptical about a broad statement that would say, _"Expropriation has mostly (often, in many cases) been popular here." _ It just doesn't seem to me that we have enough evidence to make either statement.