@hightor,
hightor wrote:
Here's an example of how propagandists grab at a fact and then try to make it imply something else:
Quote:
"Just two years after Pulitzer took it over, the World became the highest circulation newspaper in New York, aided in part by its strong ties to the Democratic Party.
Using this fact to indict the press of today is about as ignorant as Gov. Paul LePage's remark a few weeks ago:
Quote:“John Lewis ought to look at history. It was Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves.(...) a simple thank you would suffice.”
Neither the Republican Party of 1860 nor the Democratic Party of 1896 bear much relationship to the institutions of today.
While they weren't EXACTLY like today, they were well on their way...
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or the Populists, was an agrarian-populist political party in the United States. For a few years, 1892–96, it played a major role as a left-wing force in American politics. It was merged into the Democratic Party in 1896; a small independent remnant survived until 1908. It drew support from angry farmers in the West and South and operated on the left-wing of American politics. It was highly critical of capitalism, especially banks and railroads, and allied itself with the labor movement.[1][2][3]
Established in 1891, as a result of the Populist movement, the People's Party reached its zenith in the 1892 presidential election, when its ticket, composed of James B. Weaver and James G. Field, won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried five states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada and North Dakota), and the 1894 House of Representatives elections, when it took over 10% of the vote. Built on a coalition of poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the Plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), the Populists represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to elites, cities, banks, railroads, and gold.
The party sometimes allied with labor unions in the North and Republicans in the South. In the 1896 presidential elections the Populists endorsed the Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan, adding their own vice presidential nominee. By joining with the Democrats, the People's Party lost its independent identity and rapidly withered away.
The terms "populism" and "populist" have been used in the 20th and 21st centuries to describe anti-elitist appeals against established interests or mainstream parties, referring to both the political left and right.
