Book review from the left: Progressive Review
This review came from Sam Smith's Progressive Review online version called Underground News.
--Sean Scallon
BEATING THE POWERS THAT BE
Sean Scallon
Are third or non-major party politics a dead end in this age of two highly polarized major political parties? New author, Sean Scallon, argues no and shows why in his new book Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and Their Relevance for Third Parties of Today. Scallon shows examples of successful, non-major parties that have organized themselves on the basis of local economies, ethnic groups and religions. He highlights three of them that happen to be from the region he calls home, the Upper Midwest. They are the Non-Partisan League of North Dakota, the Farm-Labor Party of Minnesota and the Progressives of Wisconsin. In so doing, he provides examples and ways current, non-major political parties and independent political movements can fulfill their traditional role in U.S. politics. Anyone involved in third party politics or interested in their impact will want to read this book.
posted by Sean Scallon @ 3:23 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Hi, Sean. I'm posting a comment on your site because I couldn't find an e-mail address for you.
I ran across a reference to your book on Clark Stooksbury's blog. The book sounds interesting. I've ordered a copy for our college library and I'll probably buy one for myself too. I grew up in Iowa and now live in Minnesota. The NPL, FLP, and Wisconsin PP are among my favorite historic entities. It's hard to beat folks like William Langer, Gerald Nye, Henrik Shipstead, Floyd Olson, John Blaine, and the La Follettes.
I have a book being released this month entitled Where Did the Party Go: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy (University of Missouri Press). It partly focuses on the Democratic-based counterparts of the agrarian populist/progressive movement your book deals with (i.e., People's Party and WJB).
I have an article slated to be published by Chronicles entitled "Don't Blame Bryan." I disagree with Michael Kazin's thesis that Bryan was a forerunner of FDR and the New Deal. He wasn't. Roosevelt was an elitist, statist, militarist, and imperialist. Bryan was none of those things. Unfortunately, Humphrey belonged to the Roosevelt tradition and played a key role in importing those noxious -isms into the merged DFL Party.
I'm looking forward to reading your book. Congratulations on its publication. I think you and I have a lot in common. I favor Feingold for president in '08, although I think it's quite unlikely he'll win the nomination. It's an almost impossible quest considering the "Powers That Be" which have dominated the national Democratic Party for the past century. With the possible exception of McGovern in 1972, the party has not nominated a genuine democrat for the White House since 1908. That's a lot of history to overcome! It goes far deeper than the DLC or the corrupt Clinton machine.
Anyway, best regards and good luck with your book!
-- Jeff
http://www.popcorn78.blogspot.com
Dear Jeff,
Thanks for responding to my email and thanks for buying copies of my book. I hope you will enjoy it.
I agree I do not think Bryan was a forerunner of the New Deal. He was a populist pure and simple. He bolted from the Wilson Administration when he dealt with the real forerunners of the New Deal.
As for Humphrey, I think one could say he started out in the Bryan tradition given his background growing up on the prairie in Huron, South Dakota where the Depression help bankrupt his family's pharmacy business and his graduate school studies in Louisiana where he found a cause in the civil rights movement from the conditions of African-Americans in the state at that time. He was also a student activist in the Farm-Labor Party during the 1930s probably heavily influenced by Floyd Olson.
The move towards a more conventional liberalism on his part I believe came about as he became more urbanized. Bryan was always a man of rual America. As Humphrey began to live in the Twin Cities, teaching at Macalester, becoming mayor of Minneapolis, he began to be shaped by the envrionment around him. The New Deal was an urban movement made up of urban liberals even though it had support from prairie populists like George Norris of Nebraska and William Borah of Idaho. As American urbanized during the period between World Wars I and II, so too did liberalism became an urban/union based phenomena. Humphrey's rise reflected that as well. That's where his poltics began to turn until by the 1970s he was a pretty conventional liberal instead of a prairie populist like George McGovern.
McGovern was not a genuie Democrat, at least not back when his public career began. It is interesting in the sense that as former Republican he most closely resembles Borah and Norris in his thinking and perhaps some influence from NPL figures in neighboring North Dakota as well. Like a lot of college-educated, professional Republicans at that time, he moved into the Democratic Party thanks to the influence of Adali Stevenson (in fact McGovern became a Democrat the night he heard Stevenson's acceptance speech painting his home and immediately stopped what he was doing and drove three hours into the night to find a local Stevenson headquarters to volunteer for his campaign.)
McGovern's problem was that he had a background and set of views that I think could have been sold to the voters in 1972, but the kinds of people he attracted to his banner repelled them away. Even my mother, tree-hugging liberal that she is, was offended by some of the people that attached themselves to McGovern. The New Left viewed McGovern as the candidate of liberation and attached themsleves to him instead of the candidate of "Come Home America." and that's what killed him. A former Republican turned Democrat priairie populist Protestant from a GOP state just could not lead an urban, union-based, Catholic and Jewish and Southern based Democratic Party. It was not a perfect fit and the only way McGovern won was the jiggering of the rules in his favor.
But like a lot losers in politics, he had an impact that reached far beyond 1972. Ultimately the Democratic Party then became the GOP now and the New Left basically took over the Dems, his supporters. McGovern was never as radical as they were but it was his opposition to the war in Vietnam that made him their candidate. Feingold does have some of that in him, but I wish he had the depth of McGovern's background as a family man and former World War II veteran. Looking back it was very attractive. It's too bad the incompetence of his campaign never let people know that about him.
Feingold can win in Iowa and New Hampshire, but he needs to win places like South Carolina and Michigan and Illinois too and that's his daunting task. The only way he can do so is by attracting minority votes to his side and I don't know how he does that especially with Hilary Clinton around. Only his strong opposition to the war can change that, so we'll see what the landscape looks like in January 2008 to see if that will happen.
Again thanks for commenting and good luck with your book. I'll make sure to get a copy.
Sean - I pretty much agree with everyone you've written. We're on the same page. I still have a soft spot for McGovern. I was only 11 in the fall of 1972 but I went downtown to the local Democratic HQ and picked up a few McGovern-Shriver buttons I still have.
As for Bryan, you put it well: "He was a populist pure and simple. He bolted from the Wilson Administration when he dealt with the real forerunners of the New Deal." Precisely. Woodrow Wilson is featured prominently in my book because his departure from Jeffersonian principles under the guise of "progressivism" or "liberalism" set the stage for the wholesale abandonment under FDR.
The seeds of Humphrey's growth into a full-fledged leader of the Vital Center occurred even before he became urbanized. While it's true that his father in South Dakota was an admirer of Bryan and the Populists, he was an even bigger admirer of Wilson. The inherent contradiction between Bryan and Wilson was eventually settled for his son by siding with the latter. Humphrey Sr. remained more populist than his son. Mayor Humphrey's heroes in the 1940s were less populist and less liberal (in the Jeffersonian sense) than Bryan. It was true of FDR and also of Henry Wallace (as the incomparable Dwight Macdonald pointed out in his 1948 book).
When I mentioned Floyd Olson I was really thinking of Elmer Benson. Olson may have been a great guy too. Minnesota and Wisconsin have certainly had their share of great statesmen. I'm originally from Iowa. We can claim James Weaver. I lived in South Dakota for five years--there you can find Richard Pettigrew, Peter Norbeck, and James Abourezk. And, finally, there's Missouri with William Stone, James Reed, and Bennett Champ Clark.
You're right about Feingold. If he can't appeal to folks in South Carolina and Michigan then he won't get much traction. I think it will partly depend on how he "markets" himself...a sad term but unfortunately appropriate in the context of modern politics. If he runs like Kucinich did in '04, then he's going to have a very small base of support among left-wing activists. If he runs nationally like he has in Wisconsin, then he might build a broader populist coalition. Even if he doesn't come close to winning, significant showings and building of bridges would be helpful to the commonwealth.
What have you written for Chronicles? I'm sure I've read your pieces because it's a magazine I read cover-to-cover. I don't always agree with the articles, but it's truly thought-provoking.
Take care. --Jeff
One other thing. I love Sam Smith and his Progressive Review site. He's been a watchdog during both the Clinton and the Bush Jr. years. No lapdog is he. The same can't be said for so many better-known partisan hacks. I quote Smith in the closing chapter of my book. He's a truly wise person.
Jeff, just do a google search for my name and you'll find plenty of my Chronicles articles and my pieces on Etherzone.com as well.
Jeff, just do a google search for my name and you'll find plenty of my Chronicles articles and my pieces on Etherzone.com as well.
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