David Bowie once wrote a song called I
am afraid of Americans but it is in fact
Americans who are afraid because at the
end of the day there is no better
political motivator than fear we like to
think that as Americans we have evolved
politically that we are not as easily
manipulated by fear we are not as easily
driven by our fears ladies and gentlemen
that is blatantly false Americans at the
end of the day have always been fearful
and this has always caused a rise of one
political movement populism but what is
populism populism is simply appeasing
the fear of the masses but what if
Americans always been fearful of change
throughout our history Americans have
always been fearful of change and we’ve
responded in similar ways
and when I say always been fearful of
change I mean always history gives us
all the examples we need of this let’s
look at Andrew Jackson aka Old Hickory
Jackson was another run-of-the-mill
populist at the time of Jackson the
government had recently started
investing in infrastructure projects and
had started infected investing into the
Bank of the United States Americans at
the time started to fear this and they
started to fear big government and they
started to fear the politicians that
were bringing this change Jackson stood
up in the election of 1824 and he firmly
believed in small government’s he won
decisively he was actually to quote
Smithsonian magazine considered the
noblest tree in the forest during that
election – Forrest being politicians he
was also considered a man of the people
even though he was extremely wealthy
notice any parallels one of the things
Jackson was vehemently against was the
Bank of the United States
he believed that officially he believed
the bank to be unconstitutional and
believed in states rights but to be
honest with you now to historians it
seems like it just didn’t make sense to
him and it also didn’t make sense to the
people who supported him which tended to
be rural voters
it jackson was able to appease the fear
of the american people by being against
this bank
why because recently in 1819 an economic
panic had occurred and this panic which
was simply a financial bubble burst led
to mass fear of banks Jackson played
this and was able to shut down the Bank
of the United States Jackson also
appeased another fear of the American
people the fear of Native Americans
Native Americans at the time were gave
in were being given rights by the
federal government to some degree and
the American people feared this they
also feared the integration of these
Native Americans into American society
and they also feared Native Americans in
general why because violent skirmishes
were occurring between Native Americans
and white settlers Jackson proceeded to
supporting Indian Removal and he did so
by supporting the expulsion of the five
major civilized tribes in the United
States the five similar the Five
Civilized tribes with the Seminoles the
creeks the chapter the Chickasaw and the
Cherokee he was able to effectively
remove all of them with the exception of
the Cherokee the Cherokee had treaties
to back their claims to statehood and
the Cherokees sued they took him to the
Supreme Court and in the case War
Services Georgia the Cherokee stated
that they are a sovereign state and they
should have the right to statehood the
Supreme Court ruled in the favor of the
Cherokee Nation
however Jackson being a populist he had
math support of the American people and
then in 1829 gold was discovered on
Cherokee land the Dahlonega Gold Rush
occurred and thousands of white settlers
moved in to Turkey Cherokee territory
and there was nothing they could do
about it
Jackson having popular support proceeded
to deporting thousands of Native
Americans to modern-day Oklahoma it is
sort of ironic actually the man elected
Forbes all government expanded
government greatly through these acts he
there was no predecessor of his who
abused their power as much as Jackson
did after Jackson came another wave of
populism with the know-nothings
now their name originates from secret
societies who believed that who when
their members were asked about they
stated they seemed
we knew nothing about it was very
creative with the know-nothings they had
a fear of immigration and they feared
immigration for two reasons one was
blatant racism the know-nothings were
Protestant nativists who believed that
the mass immigration of Catholic
Europeans would be detrimental to
American society they believed that
these immigrants who were trying to
escape famine and economic despair from
places like Ireland and Italy would
never be able to integrate effectively
into American society and they also
believed that these immigrants would
never be truly American due to their
allegiance to the Pope the second reason
was job’s the no nothing’s believed that
these immigrants were stealing jobs from
Americans and Americans were receiving
lower wages and the Americans were not
able to get the best jobs and they also
blamed these immigrants for our rise in
violence and sexual crimes again notice
anything after the know-nothings came
the People’s Party they were also known
as the populist party and they are
probably the most famous populace in
American history they were a left-wing
agrarian party and their rise occurred
partially due to another panic the panic
of 1893 this time basically over
investment in railroad occurred and a
bubble burst causing the economy to go
into freefall after this they too didn’t
trust banks and they also didn’t trust
currency supporting the gold standard or
having money backed by gold they also
supported labor and farmers unions which
was opposite to the lies a fair or the
complete free market economy style at
the time and they were built primarily
on the fear of being left behind at the
time the rich were increasing their
power was increasing and the populous
believes that they had all the
opportunity and then poor were being
left behind industrialization was also
occurring increasing the likelihood of
this and the lower classes at a time
also felt that the wealthy were also
able to influence politics too much due
to their ability to donate and this led
to their anti-corruption stance as well
and actually in fact the head of the
snake is William Jennings Bryan the
leader of the populist party populace
the populist party became so successful
that they basically absorbed the
Democratic Party and in fact Brian was
the Democratic presidential nominee
three times and populist
populist ideals from the People’s Party
remained with the Democratic Party for
decades to come
after the know-nothings came Huey Long
he was also known as kingfish now
kingfish was almost a communist he
believed in well three distributions and
they were extremely radical he believed
that anybody was in income over eight
million dollars should have the
remainder of their wealth confiscated
and then five thousand dollars be given
to every single American that would be
about seventy two thousand dollars today
are adjusting for inflation he was
elected during the Great Depression
during the Great Depression something
that had something was occurring that
had never occurred before poverty was
spreading like wildfire the American
people had never had to face poverty to
this degree never had hardworking
Americans had to struggle to survive and
Huey Long offered a change from the norm
that was occurring he offered he didn’t
offer a change he offered to counter
this change by offering Americans to
never have to fear poverty again and he
might have been successful too except
for he was assassinated in 1935 putting
an end to his all of his plans now let’s
take a look at the election of 2016
Americans are afraid again and we saw
the rise of not one but two populist
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders let’s
talk about what led to the rise of both
of these men 2008 the stock market crash
of 2008 caused mass fear of two things
being left behind and globalization the
2008 crisis was basically caused by
banks issuing subprime mortgages to
everybody basically they were giving
everybody mortgages no matter if you
could afford them or not and once people
couldn’t start paying them bank back
banks started defaulting people started
losing their homes they started losing
their jobs and this caused mass fear of
being left behind people thought we were
going to return to the times of the
Great Depression where poverty was going
to be widespread in the United States
and then something else happened with
everybody losing job something jobs
something came to view outsourcing of
jobs which had occurred for years in the
United States but it finally the public
started paying attention to it and
saying look these jobs are American jobs
but they’re going out of the country and
this caused a fear of globalization as
well and this impacted both the right
and the left of the political spectrum
the left’s response was Bernie Sanders
and his Democratic Socialist ideals he
is against Paul he is for things such as
free college and free health care for
all Americans and he is against things
such as the trans-pacific partnership
and the North American Free Trade
Agreement which are both free trade
agreements that he believes are
detrimental to the American worker
he is also anti big business and he is
effectively anti billionaire and he
believes that Wall Street billionaires
have too much influence in our political
system because of again their ability to
donate which he compares to legal
corruption he is the ideal leftist
populist and he is also similar to the
populist of the 1890s he appeases the
fear of people being left behind with
his policies on big business and health
care and college and he is also similar
to Huey Long in the fact that he
supports effective wealth redistribution
free college and free health care are
effective wealth redistribution Donald
Trump on the other hand does the exact
same thing just was a little bit of a
different style he responded to
globalization by appealing to nativists
and xenophobes
he also his use of slogans such as build
the wall and make America great again
has become the cry of xenophobes such as
the KKK and the American Nazi Party who
Trump has failed to distance himself
from he has also promised to rollback
government regulation this appeases the
fear of those being feeling like they’re
being left behind because a lot of those
people are manufactured manufacturing
workers and coal miners who have false
hopes that we can return to
manufacturing dominance the American
economy has moved on and that is Blakes
simply not possible
he also appeals to rural voters who
believe their way of life is under
attack
now Jackson called Jackson is similar to
Trump because he called
call Jackson massively successful of
course to Jackson being massively
successful was disobeying the Supreme
Court and blatantly doing unconscionable
unconstitutional things but it’s not
like Trump is proposed to do anything
like this right Trump is also similar to
to know nothing’s on his stance on the
deportation of undocumented immigrants
and his Muslim ban he is a
through-and-through nativist and
xenophobe we must realize that Donald
Trump was elected into office simply
because his challenger Hillary Clinton
could not appease the fear of Americans
Trump offered reverting to the past
Clinton offered going into the future
and Trump won because he validated and
calmed the fears of some Americans just
like so many before him the fact is
Trump came into office because he is a
populist and he is neither the first nor
will he be the last populist for the
American people historically speaking
the fear of the American people has
generally been the same we fear banks
after every major economic crisis
examples include 1819 than 1893 2008 the
Great Depression a lot of us still don’t
trust banks today and then a lot of
Americans today also fear big government
they fear that it will control too much
of our lives and we will lose our
precious freedom
some Americans today also still fear
immigration and an example of this is
the anti-catholic feelings that have
occurred have been in the United States
for years in fact President John F
Kennedy his ability to be President was
doubted because he was a Catholic and it
was believed that he would not be able
to answer to the American people he
would instead answer to the Pope
now we direct that fear today towards
undocumented immigrants and Muslims and
we believe that Muslims can never be
truly American and that Hispanics can
never be truly American the bottom line
is the fear of the American people has
not evolved we are scared of the same
things as our ancestors were and our
descendants will probably be the same
scared of the same things that we are
and they too will have their own wave of
populism thank you
[Applause]
am afraid of Americans but it is in fact
Americans who are afraid because at the
end of the day there is no better
political motivator than fear we like to
think that as Americans we have evolved
politically that we are not as easily
manipulated by fear we are not as easily
driven by our fears ladies and gentlemen
that is blatantly false Americans at the
end of the day have always been fearful
and this has always caused a rise of one
political movement populism but what is
populism populism is simply appeasing
the fear of the masses but what if
Americans always been fearful of change
throughout our history Americans have
always been fearful of change and we’ve
responded in similar ways
and when I say always been fearful of
change I mean always history gives us
all the examples we need of this let’s
look at Andrew Jackson aka Old Hickory
Jackson was another run-of-the-mill
populist at the time of Jackson the
government had recently started
investing in infrastructure projects and
had started infected investing into the
Bank of the United States Americans at
the time started to fear this and they
started to fear big government and they
started to fear the politicians that
were bringing this change Jackson stood
up in the election of 1824 and he firmly
believed in small government’s he won
decisively he was actually to quote
Smithsonian magazine considered the
noblest tree in the forest during that
election – Forrest being politicians he
was also considered a man of the people
even though he was extremely wealthy
notice any parallels one of the things
Jackson was vehemently against was the
Bank of the United States
he believed that officially he believed
the bank to be unconstitutional and
believed in states rights but to be
honest with you now to historians it
seems like it just didn’t make sense to
him and it also didn’t make sense to the
people who supported him which tended to
be rural voters
it jackson was able to appease the fear
of the american people by being against
this bank
why because recently in 1819 an economic
panic had occurred and this panic which
was simply a financial bubble burst led
to mass fear of banks Jackson played
this and was able to shut down the Bank
of the United States Jackson also
appeased another fear of the American
people the fear of Native Americans
Native Americans at the time were gave
in were being given rights by the
federal government to some degree and
the American people feared this they
also feared the integration of these
Native Americans into American society
and they also feared Native Americans in
general why because violent skirmishes
were occurring between Native Americans
and white settlers Jackson proceeded to
supporting Indian Removal and he did so
by supporting the expulsion of the five
major civilized tribes in the United
States the five similar the Five
Civilized tribes with the Seminoles the
creeks the chapter the Chickasaw and the
Cherokee he was able to effectively
remove all of them with the exception of
the Cherokee the Cherokee had treaties
to back their claims to statehood and
the Cherokees sued they took him to the
Supreme Court and in the case War
Services Georgia the Cherokee stated
that they are a sovereign state and they
should have the right to statehood the
Supreme Court ruled in the favor of the
Cherokee Nation
however Jackson being a populist he had
math support of the American people and
then in 1829 gold was discovered on
Cherokee land the Dahlonega Gold Rush
occurred and thousands of white settlers
moved in to Turkey Cherokee territory
and there was nothing they could do
about it
Jackson having popular support proceeded
to deporting thousands of Native
Americans to modern-day Oklahoma it is
sort of ironic actually the man elected
Forbes all government expanded
government greatly through these acts he
there was no predecessor of his who
abused their power as much as Jackson
did after Jackson came another wave of
populism with the know-nothings
now their name originates from secret
societies who believed that who when
their members were asked about they
stated they seemed
we knew nothing about it was very
creative with the know-nothings they had
a fear of immigration and they feared
immigration for two reasons one was
blatant racism the know-nothings were
Protestant nativists who believed that
the mass immigration of Catholic
Europeans would be detrimental to
American society they believed that
these immigrants who were trying to
escape famine and economic despair from
places like Ireland and Italy would
never be able to integrate effectively
into American society and they also
believed that these immigrants would
never be truly American due to their
allegiance to the Pope the second reason
was job’s the no nothing’s believed that
these immigrants were stealing jobs from
Americans and Americans were receiving
lower wages and the Americans were not
able to get the best jobs and they also
blamed these immigrants for our rise in
violence and sexual crimes again notice
anything after the know-nothings came
the People’s Party they were also known
as the populist party and they are
probably the most famous populace in
American history they were a left-wing
agrarian party and their rise occurred
partially due to another panic the panic
of 1893 this time basically over
investment in railroad occurred and a
bubble burst causing the economy to go
into freefall after this they too didn’t
trust banks and they also didn’t trust
currency supporting the gold standard or
having money backed by gold they also
supported labor and farmers unions which
was opposite to the lies a fair or the
complete free market economy style at
the time and they were built primarily
on the fear of being left behind at the
time the rich were increasing their
power was increasing and the populous
believes that they had all the
opportunity and then poor were being
left behind industrialization was also
occurring increasing the likelihood of
this and the lower classes at a time
also felt that the wealthy were also
able to influence politics too much due
to their ability to donate and this led
to their anti-corruption stance as well
and actually in fact the head of the
snake is William Jennings Bryan the
leader of the populist party populace
the populist party became so successful
that they basically absorbed the
Democratic Party and in fact Brian was
the Democratic presidential nominee
three times and populist
populist ideals from the People’s Party
remained with the Democratic Party for
decades to come
after the know-nothings came Huey Long
he was also known as kingfish now
kingfish was almost a communist he
believed in well three distributions and
they were extremely radical he believed
that anybody was in income over eight
million dollars should have the
remainder of their wealth confiscated
and then five thousand dollars be given
to every single American that would be
about seventy two thousand dollars today
are adjusting for inflation he was
elected during the Great Depression
during the Great Depression something
that had something was occurring that
had never occurred before poverty was
spreading like wildfire the American
people had never had to face poverty to
this degree never had hardworking
Americans had to struggle to survive and
Huey Long offered a change from the norm
that was occurring he offered he didn’t
offer a change he offered to counter
this change by offering Americans to
never have to fear poverty again and he
might have been successful too except
for he was assassinated in 1935 putting
an end to his all of his plans now let’s
take a look at the election of 2016
Americans are afraid again and we saw
the rise of not one but two populist
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders let’s
talk about what led to the rise of both
of these men 2008 the stock market crash
of 2008 caused mass fear of two things
being left behind and globalization the
2008 crisis was basically caused by
banks issuing subprime mortgages to
everybody basically they were giving
everybody mortgages no matter if you
could afford them or not and once people
couldn’t start paying them bank back
banks started defaulting people started
losing their homes they started losing
their jobs and this caused mass fear of
being left behind people thought we were
going to return to the times of the
Great Depression where poverty was going
to be widespread in the United States
and then something else happened with
everybody losing job something jobs
something came to view outsourcing of
jobs which had occurred for years in the
United States but it finally the public
started paying attention to it and
saying look these jobs are American jobs
but they’re going out of the country and
this caused a fear of globalization as
well and this impacted both the right
and the left of the political spectrum
the left’s response was Bernie Sanders
and his Democratic Socialist ideals he
is against Paul he is for things such as
free college and free health care for
all Americans and he is against things
such as the trans-pacific partnership
and the North American Free Trade
Agreement which are both free trade
agreements that he believes are
detrimental to the American worker
he is also anti big business and he is
effectively anti billionaire and he
believes that Wall Street billionaires
have too much influence in our political
system because of again their ability to
donate which he compares to legal
corruption he is the ideal leftist
populist and he is also similar to the
populist of the 1890s he appeases the
fear of people being left behind with
his policies on big business and health
care and college and he is also similar
to Huey Long in the fact that he
supports effective wealth redistribution
free college and free health care are
effective wealth redistribution Donald
Trump on the other hand does the exact
same thing just was a little bit of a
different style he responded to
globalization by appealing to nativists
and xenophobes
he also his use of slogans such as build
the wall and make America great again
has become the cry of xenophobes such as
the KKK and the American Nazi Party who
Trump has failed to distance himself
from he has also promised to rollback
government regulation this appeases the
fear of those being feeling like they’re
being left behind because a lot of those
people are manufactured manufacturing
workers and coal miners who have false
hopes that we can return to
manufacturing dominance the American
economy has moved on and that is Blakes
simply not possible
he also appeals to rural voters who
believe their way of life is under
attack
now Jackson called Jackson is similar to
Trump because he called
call Jackson massively successful of
course to Jackson being massively
successful was disobeying the Supreme
Court and blatantly doing unconscionable
unconstitutional things but it’s not
like Trump is proposed to do anything
like this right Trump is also similar to
to know nothing’s on his stance on the
deportation of undocumented immigrants
and his Muslim ban he is a
through-and-through nativist and
xenophobe we must realize that Donald
Trump was elected into office simply
because his challenger Hillary Clinton
could not appease the fear of Americans
Trump offered reverting to the past
Clinton offered going into the future
and Trump won because he validated and
calmed the fears of some Americans just
like so many before him the fact is
Trump came into office because he is a
populist and he is neither the first nor
will he be the last populist for the
American people historically speaking
the fear of the American people has
generally been the same we fear banks
after every major economic crisis
examples include 1819 than 1893 2008 the
Great Depression a lot of us still don’t
trust banks today and then a lot of
Americans today also fear big government
they fear that it will control too much
of our lives and we will lose our
precious freedom
some Americans today also still fear
immigration and an example of this is
the anti-catholic feelings that have
occurred have been in the United States
for years in fact President John F
Kennedy his ability to be President was
doubted because he was a Catholic and it
was believed that he would not be able
to answer to the American people he
would instead answer to the Pope
now we direct that fear today towards
undocumented immigrants and Muslims and
we believe that Muslims can never be
truly American and that Hispanics can
never be truly American the bottom line
is the fear of the American people has
not evolved we are scared of the same
things as our ancestors were and our
descendants will probably be the same
scared of the same things that we are
and they too will have their own wave of
populism thank you
[Applause]
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