George Wallace Populism

George Wallace was a segregationist. He was a pro-union Democrat who railed against federal power and pointy-headed bureaucrats. He demanded law and order while standing up for downtrodden, working class whites. He ran for president as an independent in 1968, winning 13 percent of the popular vote and five states. George Wallace was a right-wing populist with a talent for performative politics. And at a time of frequent comparisons between the crisis of American democracy and the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, Wallace's enduring influence is overlooked today. His inheritors have found a home in the prevailing, pro-Trump wing of the GOP. In this episode, historian and Wallace biographer Dan Carter discusses the politics of rage eating at the body politic in the age of Trump.