This book examines the origins of populism in Canada and the United States and its development into a powerful and at times disturbing political force. Focus is on five historical periods: The Populist Party of the United States in the 1890s, Prairie Populism in Canada during the early and mid-20th century, the Reform Party of Canada in the 1980s and 90s, the ‘left’ and ‘right’ populism of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the early 21st century, and the phenomenon of Ford Nation in modern day Ontario, Canada. The author extends Ernesto Laclau’s analysis of populism as a ‘logic’ in On Populist Reason (2005) to explore how a ‘people’ come into being in their conflict or clash with an ‘elite,’ defined by Chartists in the 19th century as “idlers,” providing a contrast between ‘producers’ and ‘non-producers.’ The author examines the linguistic media (speeches, books, radio, twitter, Facebook) used in populist discourse to convey a political message and to articulate the needs, wishes and will of a newly born ‘people’ in their numerous guises and expressions, from “the plain people,” to “the little guy,” or to “brothers and sisters.” This volume will be of interest to researchers in an interdisciplinary range of fields, including discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, pragmatics, rhetoric and stylistics, political communication, social movements theory, media studies, and Canadian and American history.
Author(s): Marcia Macaulay
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 269
City: Cham
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1: Introduction
Introduction ‘What Is Populism?’
Margaret Canovan 1981
The Ideational Approach
Ernesto Laclau (2007)
Discourse Approaches to Populism
Greimasian Narrative
Chapters in this Book
2: The People’s Party
Jefferson and Jackson
People’s Party Platform: Preamble
1892 People’s Party Platform
1896 People’s Party Platform
James B. Weaver, A Call to Action
Conclusion
3: Prairie Populism
Introduction
The Farmers’ Platform, 1918
The Progressive Party
William Aberhart and Social Credit
William Aberhart’s Broadcasts
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Tommy Douglas’ Mouseland
Conclusion
4: Constructed Populism: The Reform Party of Canada
Introduction
The Origins of the Reform Party
Constitutional Reform: “A Fair Shake for the West!”
Overt Populism
Conclusion
5: Modern American Populism: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump
Populism as Political Style
Wilmington Ohio, September 1, 2016 “I Am Your Voice”
Rupture
Youngstown, Ohio Speech, July 25, 2017 “Make America Safe Again”
Youngstown Speech, Part I
Youngstown Speech, Part 2
Youngstown Speech, Part 3. The Politics of Fear
January 6, 2021 Speech, ‘The Numbers Speech,’ Saving Democracy
Weak Republicans
The Voting System and The Numbers
Bernie Sanders, The Survivor
Council Bluffs, Iowa Speech, Rural America
Part 1, Welcome to the Revolution
Part 2, Unmet Needs
Part 3, Rural America
Conclusion
6: Ford Nation
Introduction
Transportation: Subways, Subways, Subways
FordNation
New Subway Proposal Announcement
Doug Ford, 2018 Provincial Election, “A buck a beer”
Thunder Bay, May 2, 2018
Ford Nation Facebook Ontario Place
Final Debate Election 2018
Conclusion
Untitled
7: Conclusion
Prairie Populism
Preston Manning and The Reform Party
Resurgences of American Populism: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
Ford Nation
Conclusion
References
Index
