Editing People's Party (United States) (section)

== Collapse ==
[[File:Populist Party campaign poster 1904.jpg|thumb|left|People's Party campaign poster from 1904 touting the candidacy of [[Thomas E. Watson]]]]

The Populist movement never recovered from the failure of 1896, and national [[electoral fusion|fusion]] with the Democrats proved disastrous to the party. In the Midwest, the Populist Party essentially merged into the Democratic Party before the end of the 1890s.<ref>Goodwyn (1978), pp. 285–286</ref> In the South, the National Alliance with the Democrats sapped the Populists' ability to remain independent. Tennessee's Populist Party was demoralized by a diminishing membership, and puzzled and split by the dilemma of whether to fight the state-level enemy (the Democrats) or the national foe (the Republicans and [[Wall Street]]). By 1900 the People's Party of Tennessee was a shadow of what it once was.<ref>Lester (2007)</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2018}} A similar pattern repeated throughout the South, where the Populist Party had previously sought alliances with the Republican Party against the dominant state Democrats, including in Watson's Georgia.

In North Carolina, the state Democratic Party orchestrated a propaganda campaign in newspapers across the state, and created a brutal and violent white supremacy election campaign to defeat the North Carolina Populists and GOP, the Fusionist revolt in North Carolina collapsed in 1898, and white Democrats returned to power. The gravity of the crisis was underscored by a [[Wilmington Insurrection of 1898|major race riot in Wilmington in 1898]], two days after the election. Knowing they had just retaken control of the state legislature, the Democrats were confident they could not be overcome. They attacked and overcame the Fusionists; mobs roamed the black neighborhoods, shooting, killing, burning buildings, and making a special target of the black newspaper.<ref>Andrea Meryl Kirshenbaum, "'The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina': Gender, White Supremacy, and the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898," ''Southern Cultures'' 4#3 (1998) pp. 6–30 [http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/southern_cultures/v004/4.3.kirshenbaum.html online]
</ref> There were no further insurgencies in any Southern states involving a successful black coalition at the state level. By 1900, the gains of the populist-Republican coalition were reversed, and the Democrats ushered in disfranchisement:<ref>Eric Anderson, ''Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872–1901'' (1981)</ref> practically all blacks lost their vote, and the Populist-Republican alliance fell apart.

In [[U.S. presidential election, 1900|1900]], many Populist voters supported Bryan again (though Marion Butler's home county of [[Sampson County, North Carolina|Sampson]] [[1900 United States presidential election in North Carolina#Results by county|swung heavily]] to Republican McKinley in a backlash against the state Democratic party), but the weakened party nominated a separate ticket of [[Wharton Barker]] and [[Ignatius L. Donnelly]], and disbanded afterward.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}} The prosperity of the first decade of the 1900s helped ensure that the party continued to fade away.<ref>Brands (2010), p. 529</ref> Populist activists retired from politics, joined a major party, or followed Debs into the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]].

In 1904, the party was reorganized, and Watson was its nominee for president in [[U.S. presidential election, 1904|1904]] and [[U.S. presidential election, 1908|1908]], after which the party disbanded again.

In ''A Preface to Politics'', published in 1913, [[Walter Lippmann]] wrote, "As I write, a convention of the Populist Party has just taken place. Eight delegates attended the meeting, which was held in a parlor."<ref>Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics, New York and London: Mitchell Kennerley, 1913, p. 275.</ref> This may record the last gasp of the party organization.