Jesse Jackson Was Populist, for Good and Ill

"True, Jackson inflamed racial tensions for personal enrichment and fudged his biography for political gain more brazenly than his contemporaries. But unlike them, in his quest for self-aggrandizement Jackson frequently stood with the American majority against the donor class and the leadership of both political parties by opposing job-killing trade deals, undeclared wars, and corporate bailouts while uplifting the impoverished Appalachians who now typify the MAGA movement."

"On trade, Jackson opposed NAFTA, GATT, and permanent normal trade relations with China. Other nations "employ lobbyists from both parties to control access to their home markets while Uncle Sugar opens up our markets," noted Jackson. "The American worker can compete with the Mexican worker or the Chinese worker. The American worker cannot compete with slave labor and should not have to." Competent trade agreements would "raise [foreign] standards and not lower our own.""

"Jackson routinely exposed self-defeating corporate welfare that disadvantaged American workers. "It does not make sense to close down 650,000 family farms in this country while importing food from abroad subsidized by the U.S. government," Jackson proclaimed in his "Keep Hope Alive" speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. "It does not make sense to be escorting all our tankers up and down the Persian Gulf, paying $2.50 for every $1 worth of oil we bring out, while oil wells are capped in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.""

Jesse Jackson was a highly polarizing political figure who both inflamed racial tensions and embellished his biography while championing populist economic policies. He opposed major trade deals including NAFTA, GATT, and permanent normal trade relations with China, arguing that American workers cannot compete with slave labor and that trade should raise foreign standards. He criticized corporate welfare and pointed to contradictions such as closing family farms while importing subsidized foreign food and escorting tankers for costly oil while domestic wells remained capped. During the Clinton-Bush years, his populist rhetoric often mirrored that of the populist Right.

Read at The American Conservative