It doesn't seem as though W has ever seriously read _any_ u.s. political history, his declarations aboat it being so off the point.
The Republican Party began life as a "Third Party," and the background to it's ultimate success includes a great deal of non-electoral activity. Alternative histories are always extremely iffy -- but it's arguable that were it not for Jhn Brown the DP would not have split. But Brown's strategy was, in fact, not merely nutty -- and the Southern slaveocracy was driven batty by the nightmare of a slave insurrection. Perhaps W can't see ana anything but final products in the form of legislation, but that is an utterly empty way of understanding history. If you focus merely on the two parties, you won't understand the origins of Social Security. The '30s are not intelligible if you leave out Huey Long, Townsend, the Bonus marchers, the CPUSA, and a number of other events and organizations the existence of which cannot be incorporated into an understanding of "formal" political events of the period.
Incidentally, I suspect that there is no evidence that popular "opinion" _ever_ had significant impact on legislation.
Carrol
On 6/16/2011 10:54 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
On Jun 16, 2011, at 10:12 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
As opposed to third parties which, as we all know, achieved stupendous political successes in the US history.
Though they haven't won, they've changed the discourse - from Debs to Perot.
Doug