Populists were not the misguided radicals that many believed them to be. They reacted rationally and progressively to economic misfortune. Populists, who came largely from the democratic West, were keenly aware of the harsh dimpact of Eastern industrial growth on rural agrarian society and proposed reforms that would limit the powers of the new business titans. They aimed to restore a measure of control to the farmers. Many of the reforms populists advocated later became the basis for progressive legislation.

Populism resulted in some progressive reforms, but it should be noted that the movement featured both a "soft" and "dark" side. It was "soft" in that it rested on nostalgic and unrealistic myths. Populists romanticized the nation's agrarian past and refused to confront the hard realities of modern life. Populism was "dark" because bigotry and ignorance permeated the movement. Populists showed anti-Semitic tendencies and displayed animosity towards intellectuals, Easterners, and urbanites.

Populists were members of a "cooperative crusade" that battled the coercive threat of the developing corporate state. They offered a vision of truly radical change as well as an intelligent and, above all, a democratic alternative to the inequities of modern capitalism.