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Stew Of Discontent:“Middle Class” Americans' Economic Populism In The 1990s And Beyond, Jonathan Martin

Jonathan Martin

This article highlights the hidden subtlety of ordinary Americans' economic populist sentiment, a longstanding and politically pivotal form of popular resentment concerning class inequalities. Based on my research in the late 1990s, I describe how economic populist attitudes in the United States can be much more complex than suggested in the relevant literature. I use data from interviews with a small number of “ordinary middle class” Americans to illustrate little known nuances in these attitudes and to highlight how such subtleties are overlooked in prevailing characterizations of public opinion. I suggest that the oversight is the result of the fragmentary …