Gilded Age agrarian populists combined speculative imagination with nativism and racism

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). — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 439

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ and moral-panic literature, and to Hofstadter’s famous paradox of populist anti-modernity. — connects to: Neopopulist leaders use speculative imagination to re-embed society on exclusionary terms — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 262; Populists combine nationalism with speed rhetoric and a govern-by-chaos doctrine — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 251; Agrarians and lay speculators shared a speculative imagination despite resource limits. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 111 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Neopopulist leaders use speculative imagination to re-embed society on exclusionary terms #expands (0.90) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 262
• Gilded Age farmers saw themselves as profit-seeking speculators as well as laborers. #corroborates (0.82) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 131
• Agrarians and lay speculators shared a speculative imagination despite resource limits. #corroborates (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 111
• Populists combine nationalism with speed rhetoric and a govern-by-chaos doctrine #expands (0.78) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 251