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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