“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” This quote, attributed to one of the League’s founders, Chief Justice Louis Brandeis, is finding new life in economic populism, a concept being promoted by people on both sides of the political aisle, as we find that a true democracy rests on economic equity.
An extension of civic populism, economic populism focuses more specifically on equality of opportunity and fair distribution of both wealth and power. Will Friedman, former Executive Director of Public Agenda, recently wrote about a number of Democrats promoting economic populism, from Mayor Zohran Mamdani to U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff. At the same time, there are also conservative advocates of economic populism, perhaps with a different emphasis, with Donald Trump being the best example, as someone who is often cited as a populist, though, some analysts say he is more of an authoritarian populist, which is defined as someone who uses “increased state coercion” against powerful forces like globalism and neoliberalism.
Populism had its beginnings in the People’s First Party of the late 19th century, when farmers banded together to combat agricultural business consolidation and falling prices, and were later joined by laborers and political activists. Echoes of these concepts were seen later in the Progressive Era, New Deal, Poor People’s Campaign of the 1960’s, Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and Make America Great Again, all of which have involved workers and regular citizens fighting against the power structure of the time.
To some degree, populism even precedes the late 19th century, reflecting our nation’s founding amidst protests against the British empire and what Alexis de Tocqueville described as a country whose democracy depended on “habits of the heart,” the customs and community norms of individual citizens in which conversations within “little republics,” voluntary associations, led to collective action.
Though it can exist on both sides of the political spectrum, populism has more recently been identified with only the right, or conservative, side of the aisle. A constant ingredient of populism, though, seems to be opposition to an existing authority or set of rules, which, to some extent, explains the rise of right-wing populism in the face of liberalism and left-wing populism in a time of conservative control.
An example of populism exhibited among people with differing philosophies is the current bipartisan anger over big tech companies, artificial intelligence, and data centers. A 2024 poll showed that 84% of Republicans and 74% of Democrats feel that social media companies have too much political power and a 2026 poll showed that 63% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats oppose a data center being built in their area to support AI. Another example is the overwhelming rejection by voters in Missouri of a referendum from the state legislature that would have made it harder to pass citizen-sponsored amendments to the state’s constitution, which garnered only 20% support.
To distinguish the current rise of populism from authoritarian populism, some writers, like Harry Boyte and Will Friedman, use the terms civic populism or democratic populism. Boyte wrote in 2025 that civic populism is “an alternative to today’s partisan politics, putting “the people” rather than strategists, technocrats, or business moguls at the center of the action.” Friedman recently wrote that civic populism gains strength in the form of economic populism “when the American people feel economically defeated and politically powerless.”
Similarly, in a 2025 article for the National Civic Review, League staff member Nick Vlahos writes that populism has grown in areas of the country experiencing economic challenges and is translating into anger at the ballot box. “The current wave of democratic disenchantment is a geographical revolt against dominant economic models supported by traditional electoral political systems,” he writes, calling for democratic innovations that engage residents in a way that also addresses “economic marginalization and inequality.”
To respond to economic populism, Vlahos and Friedman both call for civic engagement processes that involve people in innovative ways to address economic challenges, like civic assemblies and participatory budgeting. Equally important is to involve residents and business owners in the implementation of economic strategies. Many engagement programs in Dubuque, Iowa, for example, like Inclusive Dubuque and Sustainable Dubuque, focus on overall community development, which has helped the city emerge over the years from the local recession caused by loss of industry in the 1980’s.
As shown in Dubuque and many other cities, economic populism can be translated into local action by measures to improve economic prosperity in a way that is equitable, providing opportunity and benefits in a direct way to all members of a community. This is distinguished from what I think of as the “trickle-down” economic tactics of many cities, in which a local government pursues big companies and builds large public projects, hoping that the resulting jobs will lift all populations, only to find that poverty levels and working-class struggles remain.
One city engaged in community-based economic prosperity work is Atlanta, where the city is focusing on seven depressed neighborhoods through a comprehensive Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative that includes mixed-income housing along with parks, trails, transit, schools, grocery stores and health centers. Atlanta’s program includes not only public investment, but also activities that involve residents, like youth engagement and wealth creation, using a “comprehensive Anti-Displacement Playbook that features more than 20 proposed protections for legacy residents and businesses.”
These are the kinds of strategies that the National Civic League will be recognizing in next year’s All-America Cities award, whose theme for 2027 is Enhancing Economic Wellbeing through Inclusive Civic Engagement. Next year’s award will “recognize communities putting residents in the driver’s seat of local economic life, building inclusive local economies that reduce inequality, create pathways out of poverty, encourage entrepreneurship, and expand opportunity for everyone.”
In short, we’ll be showcasing cities that help everyone thrive by creating the kind of local democracy that Louis Brandeis envisioned a hundred years ago, where everyone thrives.
