[lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading but Notfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind

Jesse Lemisch utopia1 at attglobal.net
Tue Oct 10 12:32:41 PDT 2006


Has anyone on this thread cited Michael Rogin's McCarthy and the Intellectuals, a rigorous study by an unfortunately prematurely dead Berkeley political scientist. This takes apart Hofstadter et al and shows that McCarthyism commenced in elites rather than from the grass roots. And James Weinstein and a collaborator had a classic article on how slow McCarthy was to pick up anti-Communism, becoming alerted to the issue in part by Norman Thomas.

Jesse Lemisch ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Cc: "Jon Wiener" <jonwiener at earthlink.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading but Notfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind


>
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Michael Pugliese wrote:
>
> > http://hnn.us/articles/30629.html
>
> I've just read five of Hof's books, and I gotta say Jon Wiener is
> deeply, but all too typically, unfair in this paragraph:
>
> > Hofstadter's argument that the historical roots of McCarthyism lay
> > in the Populist tradition, on the other hand, is simply wrong. He
> > argued that the Populist movement of the 1890s was deeply
> > irrational and essentially proto-fascist. The Populists saw the
> > principal source of injustice and economic suffering in rural
> > America in what they called "the money power." In Hofstadter's
> > analysis, this was evidence of irrational paranoia, of "psychic
> > disturbances." Moreover, Hofstadter argued that these denunciations
> > of "the money power" were deeply anti-Semitic. Alas, his evidence
> > of Populist anti-Semitism was embarrassingly thin: a handful of
> > lurid quotes from a few Populist leaders about the "House of
> > Rothschild" and "Shylock," and an argument that Henry Ford's anti-
> > Semitism came from his background as "a Michigan farm boy who had
> > been liberally exposed to Populist notions."
>
> This is a tremendous exaggeration. Hofstadter conceded the populists
> had reasonable complaints and many virtues. The passages on anti-
> Semitism take up just a few pages, and are not the centerpiece of his
> analysis (and, though he doesn't mention this, isn't Bryan's choice
> of imagery, "crucified on a cross of gold," rhetorically interesting,
> coming from a time when the Jews were blamed for nailing up Jesus?).
> He points out that American populism is a political ideology of petty
> producers - and rightly, I think, underscores the radical departure
> of the New Deal from the individualist roots of American radicalism
> for something much more collective. That kind of collectivism, which
> lasted into the 1970s, is exactly what the New Right has been trying
> to reverse all along, and they've accomplished a good bit of the
> task. Hof's emphasis on the individualism of American white
> protestantism is highly relevant now - it illuminates what's the
> matter with Kansas, since American white protestants love The Market
> as an instrument of reward and discipline. That love is not some
> recent confidence trick perpetrated by Karl Rove, but has deep roots.
>
> Doug
>
>
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