This is backstory. I'm Peter Onuf. Plenty of voters are fed up with the political establishment.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders say they are too. But does that make them populous, as many pundits claim?

Trump is the sort of the billionaire populist. And then you've got Sanders, who's the socialist populist.

Trump and Sanders are unlikely political bedfellows. But in the 19th century, during the original

populist movement, economic distress forged some surprising political alliances.

These sort of very moving moments of African Americans working with poor white people who were

Confederate soldiers. Today on backstory, the history of populism, from the demigar

agree of George Wallace, to early forms of populist protest, like the smallpox riots and colonial

massachusetts. You have people throwing rocks and demonstrating against the richer people who could

afford an inoculation. Coming up on backstory. Populous in America. Don't go away.

Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the

Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory.

Welcome to the show. I'm Ed Ayers, here with Peter Onough,

Dan and Brian Ballot. Hey there Ed. We're going to begin today with a word that's awfully

popular these days. If you've been watching the 24 hour news networks in the last few months,

chances are you've heard it a lot. Populous? Yes, absolutely. That's kind of the populist thing.

Most of this country right now is populist, on a far right and a far left.

Populous from the Democrats means grow government, populist from the conservative side means

kind of shrink government. Populous rage. Populous economics. Populous. Populous.

Populous. Populous. What is the opposite of populist? What would be the antithesis of that?

Those are voices from Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News using the political buzzword

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