Critical Thinking 13-3!

What do you think were the most significant factors in bringing an end to the populist party?

The populist party was a political party that represented what the people wanted and tried to create a movement for changes like lifting debt from farmers and giving people a bigger voice in what goes on in the government. At first the party had lots of people(mostly struggling farmers and desperate laborers) supporting it. Many factors though led to the downfall of this party including the fact that they had had to chose a monetary or money system to support, that they were a smaller third party, and that they lost some of there supporters. All these things lead to bring around an end to the populist party.

During the race between the parties, one of the most important discussions for debate that was extremely important for our country future was the one about what kind of monetary system our country should use(p. 428). This meant what kind of metal our country should exchange money for; the more stable yet less abundant gold or the more plentiful silver with gold. This debate lead to the down fall of the populist party because they were not sure what side to join and what ever they chose could alienate their voters because most of there supporters were farmers and the farmers needed to be able to trade in there money so it was very important to them and if the populist party chose the wrong side to support it could cause them to lose support and the election.

The fact that the populist party was of third party status really effected them. The other two parties had more resources then them and therefore were at an advantage(p. 429). The other major parties had more money for campaigning and getting there word out. The smaller populist party did not have as much and had to work twice as hard traveling to 27 different states and giving up to 20 speeches a day just to try and compete with what the other parties could do like sending hired people out to the different states to make there speeches for them.

Also the populist popular supporters were mostly farmers and laborers. This lead to the parties downfall when the populist alienated a lot of these supporters(p. 429). They did this when they decided to support sliver in the monetary plan instead of just gold. Consumer did not like this idea because having silver would make goods more expensive. Consumers feared the possible inflation and so they decided to stop supporting the populist party. Also the populist lost the support of democrats that supported them because there were democrats that were also supportive of gold. This lead for the democrats to nominate their own candidate and stop supporting the populist party. The growing amount of lost support only added more to bring down the populist party