The right has a very active political movement trying to deny and discredit these moments. This idea that populism is just about rallying around a demagogue is something that actually existing Texas populism disproves. That was the source of American populism, and of Texas populism in particular. LZ: If Texas populism was rooted in farmers’ alliances, labor organizations, radical newspapers, traveling lecturers, and communities studying their own conditions, what happened to it? When they threatened to create a schism and leave for another political movement, they actually had a social base as leverage.