> The only vibrant social movements in advanced
> capitalist societies today are based in the cities, whether they appear
> among trade unionists, national minorities, students, women, gays,
> environmentalists, human rights and antiwar activists, etc.
Makes sense to me in terms of progressive populism...
But are the Tea Parties are not social movements?
And if populism is a master frame or rhetorical style, why can't Marxists adopt it as well, along with reactionaries and centrists?
The danger of populism, however, is that it tends over time in mass movements to collapse class distinctions in favor of caricatures of power (as Doug points out) that ends up as "the real people" v. the "corrupt elites." This is not a useful critique of economic or power dynamics.
-Chip