> ^^^^
> CB: ...I just called the US Jim Crow system
> fascist before Italy. Jim Crow originated before WWI.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: E.g. , Engels wrote a book on peasant revolts in Germany going way
> back. In other words, the proportion of working people who were
> peasants increases as you go back in time, so the peasant base was
> there for earlier "populists" movements.
>
^^^^^ CB: ... Tea Partiers are not family farmers, and therefore , not "populists".
APR: I think it is really important to define fascism carefully and the definition I think is important to use does not fit with Jim Crow. I see Jim Crow as reactionary and violent but not fascist. Fascism combines an intense cultural romanticism with an aggressive modern technophilia... it is industrial modernization in the name of premodern values. This is very much not like patrician conservatism and reactionary populism neither of which has any necessary connection to advanced technological efficiencies and both of which tend - in their communitarian romanticism - to be quite opposed to such things. Jim Crow relied on traditional power relations in the state and chronic low-tech violence to reinscribe and enforce devastating racial injustice... very different from what Fascists did in the 30s and 40s, much less more recently.
I also think it is imperative not to limit populism to agrarianism (though I have to admit, CB, I couldn't quite figure out from the content of two of your posts if you're actually arguing for this or not), especially given its historical ties to Smithian moral and economic philosophy. Tea Partiers are disproportionately small independent business folk, not agricultural producers (there are very few farmers left in the country - the vast majority of folks who live on farmsteads earn the majority of family income through off-farm employment), and this independent small producer sector (whether agricultural, craft, service or retail) is the broad ground from which populist politics swells.
There's been far too much sloppy language in this thread conflating populism with appealing to the self-expression of the interests and whims of the populace - however ideological and not tied to what's good for independent small producers those interests and whims are... this reflects the generic and asociological use of the term in the mass media and conventional politics but that doesn't mean its right or a useful habit to embrace.