OPINION:
“Trump’s populism is not unique, won’t deliver enduring prosperity” (web, Aug. 20) is rank hypocrisy and typical of the establishment economists.
Peter Morici, whose work I have been following for nearly two decades, was a strong advocate of government intervention under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He only changed a bit when Mr. Bush ignored the warnings and crashed the financial markets and again when Mr. Obama’s inept economic policies led to a stagnant nation.
Mr. Morici has been against shale gas and oil and for government control of health care and education. In this piece, he claims former President Donald Trump’s “populism” won’t work, and his contempt for average people is practically palpable. But his stance is pure elitism and ignores history.
Jacksonian populism broke up the aristocracy’s control of the economy by Virginia and Boston. Populism was a huge factor forcing the end of the slave issue in the Civil War. Populism empowered President Theodore Roosevelt to destroy the “trusts” and shatter the power of the robber barons. World War II was a populist war. Jim Crow ended due to populism from the right and the left. Ronald Reagan was a populist. Need I go on?
Mr. Morici ignores the harsh truth that American populism is democracy in action and a powerful force that has always forced real changes. And like virtually all the elites of the left, Democrats and Republicans in name only, Mr. Morici fails to recognize that the populist movement is the tea party of 2010 and they are the ones who picked Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has never claimed to have created it. The power of the movement is deeply rooted, and the left still does not understand it. Nor does Mr. Morici, apparently.
JAMES BARENDS
Wayne, Pennsylvania
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