I just finished listening to the lecture on Populism and I couldn’t help but be struck by the political side of the movement and how eerily similar it is to politics in the 21st century. Specifically, Dr. Woods mentioned how the Populists were akin to the Occupy Wall Street Movement in some ways, but towards the end of the lecture, what I thought about was the Tea Party.
The Populists were given a few scraps by the more established party and then they couldn’t resist the temptation to “play the game” and try to take over the party from within. In the end, the strategy backfired and they became absorbed into the Democratic Party. Of course, there were other (economic) factors that played into the decline of the Populists, but the same thing seems to have happened to the Tea Party with the Republicans (although the Tea Party never was a true 3rd party).
Perhaps this is a lesson for those in the liberty movement. Any thoughts?
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