Coming soon to your radio, television, Twitter feed, YouTube screen and Facebook wall: Pitchfork Barry, the People’s Friend!

Over the last week, the president has been flight-testing a populist pitch that tries to rekindle the loyalty and enthusiasm that propelled him into the White House. The tone might be new for the Cool One, but he’s following the oldest script in the Democrats’ canon: the Little Guy vs. Big Business, Main Street vs. Wall Street, Us vs. Them.

Pitchfork Barry rolled out his new image by proposing $90 billion in new taxes on 50 of the nation’s largest financial institutions – including many that profited from emergency government subsidies last year. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” he railed, using the sort of incendiary language he was never taught at Harvard Law School.

That was only the beginning of the rebranding campaign. Banks, said the president, were guilty of making “massive profits” and paying “obscene bonuses” while “sticking the American taxpayer with the bill” for their greedy behavior and bad judgments. When he campaigned for Senate candidate Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, the First Populist cast her as a fellow gate-crasher: “She’s got your back, her opponent’s got Wall Street’s back. Bankers don’t need another vote in the United States Senate. They’ve got plenty. Where’s yours?”