All y'all…

…that are all excited about the prospects of some kind of new populism taking hold in the Democratic Party and bringing the Bubba vote back should take note of this from Digby. He starts out quoting Jack Balkin...

History teaches us that populism has recurring pathologies; it is especially important to recognize and counteract them. These dangers are particularly obvious to academics and other intellectual elites: They include fascism, nativism, anti-intellectualism, persecution of unpopular minorities, exaltation of the mediocre, and romantic exaggeration of the wisdom and virtue of the masses.

And concludes that "nativism and racism are powerful populist impulses pretty much everywhere. It may change colors and creeds, but it's always there." There's a lot of valuable ground covered in between. You should read the whole thing.

It's no doubt true that economic populism should work to our advantage, but one of my principle objections to the emphasis it's receiving in some Democratic circles is the tendency to reduce human beings to a bundle of economic interests. Life is more complicated than that, and so is developing a successful populist agenda.

It's not that we shouldn't look there, but we should look very carefully before we go there...