Politics & Power Quote by Denis Kearney

Solidarity is the bait; power is the demand. Denis Kearney’s line doesn’t just flatter “workingmen” as the moral center of society - it drafts them into an insurgency. “We are with you” is a carefully placed handshake from above, the kind that tries to turn a volatile crowd into a disciplined bloc. The sentence then accelerates from companionship to command: form a party, take charge, dispose. Politics here isn’t civic participation; it’s a hostile takeover.

The phrase “gilded fraud” does double work. It’s a vivid class insult - the rich aren’t merely wealthy, they’re counterfeit - and it borrows the era’s most charged shorthand for corruption and spectacle in the Gilded Age. Kearney frames inequality as not just unfair but illegitimate, a rigged theater whose gold leaf is meant to distract from rot. That framing makes radical action feel like restoration, not rebellion.

“Put honest toil in power” is the emotional payload: a promise that virtue can be translated into governance. The subtext is that existing parties and institutions are captured, so ordinary labor must stop pleading and start ruling. Historically, Kearney’s agitation grew out of post-Panic economic pain and mass resentment toward elites; his populism offers clarity in a messy moment by naming villains and prescribing organization. It’s persuasive because it turns grievance into a simple civic identity: worker as rightful sovereign.