The Atlantic quotes Brewer in article about Huey Long
The Atlantic quoted Mark Brewer, a professor of political science at the University of Maine, in an article about American politician Huey Long. Long’s career illustrates what could happen if a left-wing politician channeled a similar message and disregard for political conventions as President Donald Trump, the article states. Brewer said the support for the type of American populism promoted by Trump is rooted in several factors: perceived conflict between “elites” and “common people”; a sense of economic unfairness; distrust of centralized authority, especially the federal government; and a desire to “maintain a previously existing arrangement that’s under threat and, in a lot of cases, probably gone already.” Brewer said that throughout history, populist voters have felt “a sense of a loss of control about what was going on in their society. Things were happening and things were changing, and the change was unsettling, but they couldn’t do anything about it. It was almost like they were being acted on from above.”