This is classic populist language, with echoes of William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long and Theodore Roosevelt – politicians who exploited the public’s frustration with shadowy special interests and their enablers in the political establishment. “When they call the roll in the Senate,” Roosevelt once said, “the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not Guilty.'”
In an era, like ours, marked by wrenching economic change and political dysfunction, Roosevelt railed against puppeteers and gravy trains: “The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others,” he said.
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