The populist Louisiana governor Huey Long complained that Frances Perkins hadn’t gone far enough in her reforms; he prepared to run for president in 1936 on the slogan “Share Our Wealth” and a promise to confiscate fortunes from the rich. He was shot dead in 1935, so that policy was never tested. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, such political tumult felt very distant. But now raw populist politics is back in many parts of the Western world.
