On October 13, the fall 2016 Acton Lecture Series continued with a timelyaddress from Benjamin Domenech, publisherof The Federalist and host of The Federalist Radio Hour, who spoke on the rise of Americanpopulism.

Domenech looks at the history of populism in America, from Andrew Jackson toWilliam Jennings Bryan, and traces that strain in American politics straight through to the rise of Donald Trump.According to Domenech, the roots of the current populist uprising in America can be traced to the failure of elite institutions to address or even acknowledge the problems and needs of average citizens:

Today, big government and its partner big banks, business, labor, ag, and their armies of lobbyists represent mon enemy to munities and individuals. munitarianism depends on individual agency and autonomy in the market and in civil society. The breakdown of the ability of our neighborhoods to self govern is collateral damage brought about by the left’s war on individual liberty and the rise of an illiberal technocratic left, those who seek to absorb, marginalize, or extinguish institutions of civil society pete with them and the state.

Domenech’s address can be viewed in full below.