November 8, 2024: The 1924 Election: Foreshadowing the Future

[This hasbeen a particularly crazy last year/decade/eternity, but it’s not the firstnutty presidential campaign and election. 100 years ago wascertainly another, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of 1924 electioncontexts, leading up to some reflections on this year’s electoral results!]

Three waysthat the 1924 election foreshadowed future political events.

1)     Progressive programs: I don’t want to repeattoo much of where I ended yesterday’s post, but I don’t think it’s possible tooverstate the significance of La Follette’s third-party run and success.Coolidge’s win was due in large part to perceptions that the economy was booming—butfive years before the stock market crash, La Follette’s success reflected asizeable contingent of Americans for whom things weren’t going so well, and adesire for a government that could support and help those folks. Less than adecade later, the federal government would dedicate itself to doing so in waysthat would extend into at least the1960s and in many ways the rest of the century.

2)     Catholic candidates: A major reason for theridiculous deadlock at the 1924Democratic National Convention was that one of the two leading contenders forthe nomination, New York Governor Al Smith, wasCatholic, and thus the target of the same longstanding anti-Catholicprejudices I highlighted in thispost a couple months back. If Smith did not ultimately break through thoseprejudices in 1924, however, he was able to do so just four years later, winning the Democratic nominationat the also-contested 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston. Smith lostto Herbert Hoover in November, and there’s no doubt that hisCatholicism played a role; but progress is progress, and I believe Smith’sprogress in the 1920s absolutely foreshadowed Kennedy’selection in 1960 (as well as the non-issue that Biden’s Catholicism hasbeen in our current moment).

3)     Right-wing extremism in New York: Both ofthose were genuine and positive legacies of the 1924 election, and I don’t wantto minimize them by ending on a darker note. But the presence and influence ofthe Ku Klux Klan at the Democratic Convention in New York City was a powerful momentof foreshadowing in its own right, and I’m not talking here about the immigrationrestrictions and exclusions I highlighted in Wednesday’s post. Instead, I’m thinkingabout another, even more extreme right-winggathering in Madison Square Garden fifteen years later, one that trulyreflected the presenceof such American extremists. I think it’s fair to say we’re still dealingwith that presence lo these 100 years later.  

2024election reflections this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other crazy elections you’d highlight, or thoughts on this oneyou’d share?