Perspective
Progressive Populism Roared Back In 2018
Populism was reclaimed by American progressives, as citizen-initiated ballot measures and a Poor People’s Campaign took aim at poverty and voter suppression.
In the last few years, populism had to sit and watch as political pundits applied her name to a trend of right-wing movements worldwide, some of which might have been more aptly served by the appellations xenophobic, solipcistic, and racist (see Brazil, Italy…the United States.)
But in 2018, progressive populism roared back. On the last day of 2018, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced she is exploring a run for president, with what Waleed Shahid of the group Justice Democrats described as a “message of multiracial populism,” in The New York Times.