We’ve been told many times that Trump won the 2016 election because his populist appeal won the white working class. Populism is the problem, in this view -- populism mobilized the irrationality, bigotry, & authoritarianism of the white working class. Tom Frank say that’s all wrong -- he wrote the classic “What’s the Matter with Kansas?,” and now he has a new book out: “The People, NO: A Brief History of anti-Populism.”
And Ella Taylor reviews a documentary about fascism in the Philippines – where the regime of President Rodrigo Duterte has killed 30,000 people, claiming they were drug dealers – and drug users.
Also: Mike Davis talks about LA in the Sixties –the huge nonviolent direct action campaign for integrated housing that came before Watts. The defeat of that campaign, in a statewide referendum, was one of the things that made the Watts rebellion, 55 years go this month, inevitable.