An excerpt from Robert Borosage’s What Is the New Populism?

Today, in Washington, the Campaign for America’s Future is convening a major summit on The New Populism, keynoted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (It will be live streamed on our website). What follows are excerpts from remarks I will deliver at that meeting.

What is the new populism? The Princeton dictionary defines populism as “a political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite.”

Not bad for a dictionary.

The New Populism arises from the stark truth about today’s America: Too few people control too much money and power, and they’re using that control to rig the rules to protect and extend their privileges.

This economy does not work for working people. This isn’t an accident. It isn’t an act of God. It isn’t due to forces of technology and globalization that can’t be changed. It isn’t a mistake. It is a power grab.

Decades of deregulation and top-end tax cuts, of soaring CEO pay and assaults on unions, of conservative myths and market fundamentalism have recreated Gilded Age extremes of wealth and power. Once more a new American plutocracy is emerging, doing what plutocrats always do – corrupting government to protect and expand their fortunes….

The movement that gave populism its name swept out of the Plains states in the late 19th century as small farmers and steelworkers, day laborers and sharecroppers came together to take on the trusts, the railroads, the distant banks that were impoverishing them.

They railed against a government that handed public lands to the railroads, kept interest rates high, coddled monopolies and cracked the heads of workers trying to organize.

But in challenging the corrupted government, they came to a profound realization: that in the emerging industrial economy, simply cutting back government and limiting its powers would only free monopolies and banks to gouge even more from workaday Americans.

They concluded that they had to take back the government, turning it from the arm of the privileged to the people’s ally….

Today’s new populism stands in that tradition.

People aren’t worried that the rich have lots of money. This isn’t about envy; it is about power – that the privileged and entrenched interests rig the game, so the economy does not work for working people….

Wall Street bankers – the folks whose excesses blew up the economy and cost millions their homes and their jobs – were bailed out. Now they are back, posturing as masters of the universe once more, apparently immune from prosecution for the epidemic of fraud they profited from. Jails, after all, are for little people.

The top 1 percent is capturing fully 95 percent of the nation’s income growth. CEO salaries are up and corporate profits hit record heights, while workers incomes are stagnating and insecurity is rising….

The American people get it. They don’t need to be convinced on the issues. CAF is issuing a report today at PopulistMajority.org that documents the simple fact: the majority of Americans are with us. Citizens United? Four of five Americans want it repealed, including three-fourths of Republicans. Raise the minimum wage? No question. Curb Wall Street? Lloyd Blankfein may think Goldman Sachs is doing “God’s work,” but Americans want more accountability. Protect Social Security and Medicare? Even Tea Partiers agree.

This new populism is not something we have to invent. It is already stirring. It is Occupy Wall Street putting Gilded Age inequality at the center of our political debate. It’s exploited low-wage workers protesting fast-food restaurants in over 150 cities. A left-right congressional coalition forming against continuing ruinous corporate trade policies. Moral Monday protests against the assault on voting rights and the vulnerable mobilizing thousands in North Carolina and are spreading to Georgia and South Carolina. A feisty citizen’s opposition growing in rural areas to block big oil’s effort to frack their lands….

Forceful leaders are emerging like senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders; Rep. Keith Ellison; New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The demand for change is rising from activists in the heart of the Obama majority, the rising American electorate of millennials, people of color and single women that have fared the worst in this economy. The organized base of the Democratic Party, from unions to community and civil rights groups, women and environmentalists, are pushing an agenda far bolder and broader than that now before the public….

Pundits suggest that Republicans have the advantage in the low-turnout 2014 elections, with the Democratic base discouraged by the lousy economy. Elites in both parties warn against a new populism, as if the old politics held any answers for people.

But this isn’t about one election or one leader. The pressure for change is only beginning. People are waking up to the fact that the game is rigged. They won’t tolerate it for long. It will take muckraking, organizing, teaching, protests and demonstrations, new ideas and new allies. It will face fierce resistance. The wealthy and entrenched interests will spend lavishly to defend their privileges. Our system is designed to clog change, not facilitate it.

But when the people speak, politicians listen. And this new populist movement has only just begun. The stakes are fundamental – whether the democracy can in fact check the power of great wealth and entrenched interests. This is the challenge facing our democracy and for each one of us privileged to be its citizens.

Read the whole post here.