Love him or hate him, there’s no more prototypical American demagogue than Huey Long. Even if you disagreed with his arguments or his methods, there’s no question that Huey Long had a profound influence on Franklin Rooselvelt and the overall political culture of the 1930’s. Perhaps that is why John Judis is suggesting that we need a new Huey Long to push Obama beyond where he wants to go. But I have a different view.
There’s a bumper sticker from the Bush era that says ‘If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.’ There are plenty of fact-based reasons to be outraged and to demand significant change in how Washington (including the Democrats and including Obama) operates. But there is no good reason to go beyond that and call for open demagoguery. When Congress lines up the CEO’s of all our major financial organizations in a hearing room, it’s tempting to just scream at them (and many Democrats do exactly that) but whipping up public outrage for its own sake or for your own personal engrandizement is not the answer to our problems. There is a sense in which the clarion call ‘they’re ripping you off’ is always true, and yet there has to be a positive side to that argument.
As for populism, there is already something afoot in this country with protesters littering the front-yards of bankers with cast-off couches and bedside furniture (to represent the foreclosure crisis) and politicians like Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) encouraging her constituents to squat in their homes rather than heed the banks’ notices to vacate. Economic hardship leads to populism in an organic way, without much need for actual leadership. The leadership will emerge automatically. But the quality of that leadership matters. Demagogues, by definition, are not honest leaders. They do not operate in good faith. They exploit people’s suffering just as surely as the Wall Street tycoons that brought us this crisis. And they make lazy, and easy, arguments that rouse the passions but don’t solve the problems.
If there is value in the demagogue, it is in scaring the bejeesus out of the comfortable and leading them to make concessions they would not otherwise make. But calling for mobs to influence policy is problematic, at best. In some sense, those mobs will emerge on their own if economic times get bad enough and people don’t believe the government is acting in good faith to address their hardships. But it would be better if those mobs were well-led by smart, thoughtful, and fair leaders. We have seen many times, in world history, how critical good leadership can be and how disastrous it is to have leaders that advocate the wrong tactics and strategies.
i haven’t seen too many lefty demagogues out there yet, in fact, none.
but if dems keep letting God’s Own Party set the agenda, i suspect outrage, and demagogues will appear.
one useful demagogue might be a good thing.
Sirota is not a demagogue?
I was thinking that too. Also, Glenn Greenwald.
A demagogue has to have followers. Sirota may have a lot of subscribers, but I’m not aware that he has many followers, if you know what I mean.
No, he is not. If we’re going to define demogogues thusly:
“Demagogues, by definition, are not honest leaders. They do not operate in good faith.”
Sirota is arguing in good faith. He fears Obama is too moderate and too imclined to seek compromise with Republicans even when that worsens policy. He thinks more pressure from the left, intelligently applied, would help. You may disagree with these points, but I see no evidence that they are not made in good faith.
Judis doesn’t want crazy, or a demagogue. What he says, and he’s absolutely right, is that we need a strong, coordinated movement that is to the left of Obama in order to keep pressure on from that side. If we just go along to get along, and the right pulls like crazy, where will Obama end up? Much farther right than we want him to. Obama himself said this – it’s up to us to hold him accountable.
In addition, Huey Long had a lot of good and important things to say. How would you feel if you were remembered, years after your death, for only the wildest, stupidest things you ever said, and not the many sane, important things you said?
There’s a reason Long’s legacy has been distorted. He made a powerful and articulate case for why we needed more sharing of the wealth in this country. And that was very threatening to the establishment, because his words landed so solidly on his followers.
Here’s an example:
You can hear Huey Long speak in his own words here. He’s no crazy man. He was reacting intelligently to the outrageous circumstances of his time.
I’m not in support of the side of him that was a demagogue, that twisted the system to his own political advantage. But unlike most, who do such solely for their own benefit, he really thought with enough power he could help a lot of people, so I give him some forgiveness for that. He was wrong, but his heart was in a good place.
And if anyone knows how to capture the code to embed that video here, let me know!
perhaps the most important way to understand the problem with Long is to examine the specific policy prescriptions he was advocating and compare them to what calmer heads actually came up with.
But you’re missing Judis’ point.
It was precisely because Long’s proposals WERE so radical that FDR’s looked tame by comparison. FDR managed to raise the top tax bracket to 95%! He could never have done that had not a Huey Long proposed an absolute cap on wealth altogether.
that’s funny, Lisa, because you are suggesting that a 95% tax bracket is a good thing when it is clearly insane.
Do you understand what that did for the country at the time?
And you realize, I hope, that it doesn’t mean all income is taxed at 95%.
We actually had that, and we had the largest middle class in this country’s history. It doesn’t stop wealth, it just removes the incentive for greed.
Btw – I think a minimum claim to being a progressive must include an understanding of and loud cry for a more progressive income tax.
I’m for a more progressive tax code. I’m not for a tax code that let’s you keep 5 cents of every dollar you make over a certain threshold.
I am if your threshold is way the hell beyond what it takes to pursue happiness.
The top tax rate of the 50s and 60s was not far below that, and the country seemed to prosper just fine. But this is a legitimate policy difference, not the defining line between “sane” and “insane”, and pretending it is such a defining line is demagoguery in the worst sense: you are demonizing those who disagree with you as dangerous psychopaths.
The Overton Window
Be careful what you wish for.
Any demagogue that appears is going to be right wing. Any populism is going to be right wing. It will focus on the ‘other’, and blame ‘those other guys’.
And that person is already on the scene, preparing her role.
Her name is Sarah Palin.
nalbar
That’s why progressives need to move into this space. There will be populism the times demand, and if it is not the populism of the left, it will be that of the right.
I certainly don’t think we should be standing up in violent protest, but I do believe that those of us to the left of Obama need to keep pushing. I get so mad at people who say that Obama shouldn’t have put all that “democrat stuff” in the stim. bill. As if the republican presidents, when handed power, don’t try to scratch and scramble their way to a complete republican agenda as quickly as possible. NOW is the time that the left wing needs to stand up and gain as much ground as possible. Now that there is even a window of opportunity, we need to seize it. I’ve been reading Thinking Big over the past week (it’s like the progressive cliff’s notes to public policy for this administration, just released) and I’ll quote the intro: “At such a critical moment, there are at last promising signs that the political tide is shifting. But no election–not even the most sharply defined presidential contest in memory–can be more than a first step. Neither the weakening grip of conservative ideology nor a new regime in Washington will produce the kind of wholesale change that our country so badly needs.”