Washington

By CHARLES J. ABBOTT

Populism: left, right or meaningless adjective

"WHEN I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more or less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master — that's all."

That snippet from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll is a pithy commentary on how people can seize a word for their own purposes. "Traditional values" these days carries the glint of the New Right's social agenda but sounds wholesome. "Progressive" is nearly interchangeable with "liberal" (and has the advantage that politicians will not complain about the tag).

"Populism" is becoming another of those all-purpose words; it resonates with the plain-spoken sensibility of the agrarian activism of the 1890s while serving as a catchword for contemporary politicians. Some modern-day proponents recently tried to define where the "new populism" is going, left or right. "Which ideology will win is clear," said Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-6, Ga.), a founder of the Conservative Opportunity Society. In his view, the return to traditional values carries with it a dislike for government intervention and expensive programs that do not work. A number of conservatives describe populism as the desire of people to get the government and the establishment off their backs. They also see it as a gathering wave in America.

But there's a progressive version of populism, too. "Conservatives say the problem is big government," argues Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). "They're missing the point: Who does the government work for?" Changing the structure of government to work for people, according to Harkin, is the true definition of populism. In 1983 Harkin and a dozen Democratic congressmen formed a populist caucus with the tenet that government activism is needed when too few people have too much power. The caucus now has 28 members (four from Illinois), including three who won Senate seats after joining as members of the U.S. House. On June 12, 1985, Harkin, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower and U.S. Rep. Lane Evans from Illinois (D-17, Rock Island) created the New Populist Forum to spread the progressive version of populism across the nation. The forum has made one splash already: Its day-long conference in May pulled in a good number of political writers and coverage by C-SPAN, the outfit best known for live broadcasts of Congress. One of the purposes of the conference was to tell the Democratic party to try populism.

The way Harkin and Evans phrase it, populism is economics: Fix economic problems and people will take care of themselves. Populists can be identified, they explained, by support for fair taxes, for small business and farmers and for job training and assistance to workers. The emphasis on economics can sound like a neat dodge to complaints about Democrats and social engineering, but it has a purpose, too. "We [Democrats] should have stuck with economic issues," Harkin said, because social issues divide people. At the May conference, Hightower said that the social side of progressive populism is tolerance and economic fairness while conservatives offer too much 'Im-right-and-you're-wrong-ism.'' "Progressive populists see human beings on a different level," said Harkin. They talk economics, he said, but it leads to better people.

Conservatives view it a bit differently. Deputy Treasury Secretary Richard Darman, active in developing the administration's tax reform plan, says that populism emerges when people, idealistic and well-enough educated to know they deserve better, organize to fix a problem. "Populism is not inherently ideological," he said, but is reactive to whatever caused the problem. He believes that populism will fade unless it also develops a list of what it supports. That "positive message" approach, for instance — "America is back, standing tall" — is why President Reagan won handsomely, he said.

As opposed to Harkin, Gingrich believes that social issues must be given consideration. "When people say they want more control of their lives, they don't just mean at the bank. Social issues and foreign policy . . . really do fit into that." In a debate with Harkin and Hightower, Gingrich used the example of school vouchers that would let parents direct financial support to the schools where they send their children. That would assure better schools, he said, but "it doesn't fit the liberal idea of bureaucrats handing out goodies."

Social issues carry weight. The anti-abortion movement surprised America with its force when it got into politics a decade ago. Now, religious fundamentalists are expressing their beliefs in political actions: Consider the murmurs over religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and the presidency.

So what is the new populism? The progressive side talks economics but says the result is better people. The conservative contends that it represents good people who express populism through specific actions. There is no simple resolution of these opposites. Nor is it clear, considering that so much is still undefined, whether the new populism will be just an adjective, a way of describing political appeal, or a philosophy itself. For the moment, everyone has a base of supporters and wants to latch onto the big bloc of votes the middle and lower-middle class. "We're hunting the same animal," says Hightower. "We're hunting with different dogs, I suppose."

42/July 1986/Illinois Issues