The Populist Imperative

My grandfather, John Conner, Professor of Government at Texas A&i University (now part of Texas A&M) was proud to call himself a populist. For him, it meant standing up for the little guy, for supporting workers and farmers, rather than the big business elite. Above all, populism was about equality for ordinary citizens under the law. He considered the Warren Court’s one man – one vote decision in the early sixties to be the most important of his lifetime.

Interestingly, he had little to say a...