> The largest populist movement in U.S. history until the Tea Parties was
> the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Targeted blacks, Jews, and Catholics.
>
> Come on, Chip. The Ku Klux Klan was never anywhere near as large, robust
or politically important as the multiregional form of agrarian populism -
largely center-left, often mutltiracial and on some rare occasions in
collaboration with labor - of the last two and a half decades of the 19th
century. If you're interested in the power, contradictions and cooptation
of this very explicitly Smithian movement and its commitment to a moral
economy, William Appleman Williams' Roots of the Modern American Empire is
wonderful.