American populists historically sought a pact with, not a clash against, finance

Evidence

It is useful to recall here some of the historical struggles of homo speculans and, specifically, the dramatic entry of agrarian populism into the US politics of the Gilded Age. Populist Party members generated a complex speculative imagination against the political establishment of the time. Then, just as now, nativism, racism, and antimigrant sentiment were often part and parcel of such imagination (among both antigambling crusaders in the pits and agrarian populists in the farmland). At the same time, for all their great historical differences, fin de siècle populists and Hochschild’s Tea Partiers ultimately sought a pact and not a clash with finance, articulating a desire for harnessing the markets’ laissez-faire dynamism to the benefit of their hinterland constituents. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s task of showing speculation migrating into politics; the Gilded-Age-to-Tea-Party continuity gives the historical through-line.
• SEED: A piece on how ‘populism against the elites’ has repeatedly been a bid to partner with capital for hinterland benefit could test the reader’s thesis against deep history.