Populism in the U.S.

This chapter employs a structuralist conception of both left and rightwing populism as a retrograde discourse, in order to distill the essence of a phenomenon splayed out across the different levels of the political Lebenswelt – from movements to heads of state. one finds Coughlin's demonization of Jews, Wallace's racist discourse targeting African-Americans, Nixon's 'Law and Order Society,' the Tea Party's 'socialism,' and Trump's demonization of Muslims, Mexicans, Latinos, Jews, immigrants, and terrorists and his pronounced inaugural return to the 'Law and Order Society.' In placing the emergence of both left and right U. S. populism in its proper historical context, a structural discursive analysis emerges capable of navigating between these cases. Scholars have long argued that the conditions of capitalism are eroding the democratic institutions and that capitalism can only perpetuate itself and the levels of social inequality it generates through more forms of authoritarianism.