Often, we find that history is written about the winners and the more powerful citizens. Because of this, the day to day lives and feelings of the lower class or peasants are often very poorly documented and recorded. This leads to the generalizations that we have about the lower class sort of being a group of static farmers, or lower class artisans who did not have much influence and presumably do not have opinions, political views, or special interests. Blackbourn's article goes against this concept of a cookie-cutter image for the peasants and expands on it declaring that they were living very dynamic lives which influenced them enough to gain and act on their political views.

At this time, the peasantry were facing economic pressures due to economic depression in the 1870s, falling grain prices, and tariffs. This led them to have a resentment and misunderstanding of the market because they were not able to peak their heads above the walls of their small community to see the national economic problems that trickled down and affected them. They see the three enemies of the school, military, and railroads as the enemy coupled with the distrust they had for the city.

In protest of tough times around them, the peasants began to vote protestingly against the main political parties not because they supported the smaller interest groups, but largely because they blamed the major political parties for the issues that affected their daily lives. By losing this mass of support, the main political parties were forced to adopt platforms that the masses would support so that they could remain in office.

In short, the powerful political parties were unfocused on the peasantry interests and its policies eventually angered the peasantry. In response, the peasantry voted against these political parties in hope that their protests would force the parties to adopt more favorable platforms. This is a perfect example of changing politics from the ground up.