Populism and Democracy

Democracy may be government of the people, by the people, for the people. But at times throughout American history, the people (or some segment of them) have believed that their government was not for them. Today we call them populists. They have been at once rooted in the ideals of democracy and critical, even contemptuous, of democratic politics. In this course we will read what populists wrote to see who they were: Antifederalists, Tocqueville, proponents of Jacksonian Democracy, the great Agrarians at the turn of the twentieth century, Jane Addams and Huey P. Long and John Steinbeck, and—inevitably—Trump. (Political Theory) 3 hrs. lect.