During the last month or so I have seen numerous commentaries and letters in the Enterprise concerning “populism.” Folks are arguing about what it means and how it works and who benefits from it.

Every political movement has its adherents and detractors, but the fuss here is about an interpretation of a movement that began 130 years ago. Things today are quite different than some people wish they were, but we cannot impose our desires on a reality that has changed drastically since the historical advent of populism, William Jennings Bryan style.

That style had deep roots in 19th century agrarian areas where the embattled farmers struggled to make a living despite huge corporations such as railroads, grain companies and banks taking giant bites out of their profits simply because these companies had the wealth, centralized organization and sheer gall to impose their will on the farmers. Big-business corrupted our democratic ideals and banded together in an alliance of greed whereby a tiny number of investors forced millions of farmers to kow-tow and pay tribute to the big boys in Chicago. The Populist message, carried by Mr. Bryan, was pro-American and deeply Christian.

This was probably the last time any politician was so sincerely taken with the economic ideas expressed in the Bible that described the plight of the farmers from our true Christian perspective. It was Bryan who quoted, “the love of money is the root of all evil,” and “it would be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to attain the kingdom of heaven,” and, of course, “blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.”

But in 2022 not a single populist-conservative ever utters these righteous phrases. Instead, they are full of hatred against the wrong people (the meek!) and oblivious to the Golden Rule, which urges: “do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.”

In today’s conservative-Republican culture, Christ’s Golden Rule has been twisted by the rich to get our citizens to believe that “they who got the gold make the rules,” and now millions of our people blindly acquiesce to corporate demands and sign contracts in which they agree to not sue the corporation in court when the corporation cheats them in some way, even if it harms their families.

We have been tricked into surrendering our Constitutional right to sue those that harm us even though this very right to “petition for a redress of our grievances” was listed in the Declaration of Independence as a reason for our Revolution.

Most Americans lived on farms and the law that gave homes and farms to millions more Americans, the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, enabled them to obtain their own piece of land without a single dollar changings hands in what was easily the greatest socialist give-away program in history. People got land for free and worked it until title was awarded after five years of improving the land, no borrowing needed, nor any down-payment, and the happy result was a flourishing civilization across most of the western half of this continent.

The state of Oklahoma was created by populists in 1908 who wrote the longest state-Constitution ever that included this doozy of a law: “No corporation organized or doing business in this State shall be permitted to influence elections … by contributions of money or anything of value.” (Article 9 section 40.) It also says that all interest rates are capped at 10% and in some cases, 6%. (Article 14, section 2.) This is true populism, but the hate-mongers prefer to ignore these laws and continue their spree of venal vitriol and hatred financed by a tiny number of wealthy white-trash who well understand money buys power, which then wins more money and power, on and on and on, ad-nauseum.

Another alarming way the corporations oppress our farmers occurs today across our agricultural-heart lands. Farmers, who have a well-deserved reputation for being “jacks-of-all-trades,” are now beset by the greedy actions of farm machinery suppliers like John Deere, which seem to have deliberately made modern tractors and other equipment impossible to repair by the average farmer, who now lacks the special tools and know-how to just fix it immediately, where it broke, with spare parts stored in the barn. Now the farmer must ship his machine to a distant repair center and wait and wait, only to fork over hard-earned bucks when he previously just fixed it in the traditional “do-it-yourself” American way.

Today, even the very notion of homesteading has been warped for the benefit of the rich. In the states of Florida and Texas, laws lurk that help the rich avoid paying what they owe to creditors, subverting our traditional honest way to “meet on the level and depart on the square.”

Texas and Florida have “Homestead Exemptions” that permit the rich to get away with cheating their out-of-state creditors. These wily states originally passed legislation that allowed the abject poor who live in shacks and trailers to retain their “principal residence” without having to give it up to pay their creditors.

But a loophole was created that allowed out-of-state millionaires who own, say, $6,000,000, but owe $5,000,000 to keep it all by officially moving from their indebted state to buy a home in Texas or Florida and use all their capital to obtain the new house and live there at least 183 days during the first year, which qualifies them to keep this “principal residence” worth $6,000,000, free and clear, upon completion of their bankruptcy action in their home state.

After they finish cheating their creditors, these entrepreneurs find themselves living in a house they own that is worth $6,000,000, so they sell the white elephant, keep the money and start over again all because the reactionary States of Florida and Texas specialize in helping dead-beats from the north cheat their creditors.

If we had a true populist society, creditors would never get cheated like this by politically well connected greed-heads.

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Rick Gombas lives in Saranac Lake.