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The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace's Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics
Fighting fascism at home and abroad begins with the consolidation of a progressive politics
Seventy-five years ago, Henry Wallace, then the sitting Vice President of the United States, mounted a campaign to warn about the persisting "Danger of American Fascism." As fighting in the European and Japanese theaters drew to a close, Wallace warned that the country may win the war and lose the piece; that the fascist threat that the U.S. was battling abroad had a terrifying domestic variant, growing rapidly in wealthy corporatists and their allies in the media. Wallace warned that if the New Deal project was not renewed and expanded in the post-war era, American fascists would use fear mongering, xenophonbia, and racism to regain the economic and political power that they lost. He championed an alternative, progressive vision of a post-war world-an alternative to triumphalist "American Century" vision then rising--in which the United States rejected colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace's political vision - as well as his standing in the Democratic Party - were quickly sidelined. In the decades to come, other progressive forces would mount similar George McGovern and Jesse Jackson more prominently. As John Nichols chronicles in this book, they ultimately failed - a warning to would-be reformers today - but their successive efforts provide us with insights into the nature of the Democratic Party, and a strategic script for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Seventy-five years ago, Henry Wallace, then the sitting Vice President of the United States, mounted a campaign to warn about the persisting "Danger of American Fascism." As fighting in the European and Japanese theaters drew to a close, Wallace warned that the country may win the war and lose the piece; that the fascist threat that the U.S. was battling abroad had a terrifying domestic variant, growing rapidly in wealthy corporatists and their allies in the media. Wallace warned that if the New Deal project was not renewed and expanded in the post-war era, American fascists would use fear mongering, xenophonbia, and racism to regain the economic and political power that they lost. He championed an alternative, progressive vision of a post-war world-an alternative to triumphalist "American Century" vision then rising--in which the United States rejected colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace's political vision - as well as his standing in the Democratic Party - were quickly sidelined. In the decades to come, other progressive forces would mount similar George McGovern and Jesse Jackson more prominently. As John Nichols chronicles in this book, they ultimately failed - a warning to would-be reformers today - but their successive efforts provide us with insights into the nature of the Democratic Party, and a strategic script for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published April 6, 2020
About the author
John Harrison Nichols
20 booksJohn Harrison Nichols (born February 3, 1959) is a liberal and progressive American journalist and author. He is the Executive Editor of The Nation Magazine and Associate Editor of The Capital Times.
He’s the author of several books, including The Death and Life of American Journalism, The Genius of Impeachment and The "S" Word, & Coronavirus Criminals.
He’s the author of several books, including The Death and Life of American Journalism, The Genius of Impeachment and The "S" Word, & Coronavirus Criminals.
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May 26, 2020
Before his death, FDR lays out a second Bill of Rights for all “regardless of station, race, or creed.” John says the Democratic Party made a fatal compromise by ignoring FDR’s call for a racial Bill of Rights, and ignoring Wallace’s speech at the 1944 Democratic Convention demanding it again, and the DP has spent the 75 years since then paying with interest for the mistake. He says that Henry Wallace was totally on point in 1944 but failed, first because he was ahead of his time (the Democratic party then still included the Strom Thurmond racists and centrist businessmen who saw profits in peddling fear). Wallace worried about “Democrats trying to play the Republican game.” Sound familiar? Today’s Democratic Party motto really should be: “Shamelessly Drifting Right since 1944”. For Wallace, an unjust order was built “upon the crumbling foundations of racism, monopoly and militarism”. Wallace’s attack on racism, corporations and war predates MLK’s Riverside Speech by decades and yet both speeches were met at the time by the scorn of non-progressive liberals. Wallace boldly connected the dots between the Nazi concept of racial purity and US Jim Crow. Such Americans he called American Fascists. Wallace’s warnings were laughed off then but now finally even sold-out liberals are starting to see he was right. Facebook pages today are aglow with Wallace’s many relevant-to-today comments in Meme form about American Fascism. Doris Kearns Goodwin, famous for her unchanging hairstyle and centrist take on history, said Wallace was promoted to VP by FDR as a “weapon against conservatives”. The Oliver Stone “Untold History” book posits that if Wallace was FDR’s last VP, the Stalin/FDR working things out would have continued and there would have been no Vietnam War. FDR hoped that after fighting fascism overseas, a new movement might look at the MAGA southern segregationists and conservatives. Wilkie was a Republican then who actually said Wallace-like stuff to the Left of Truman, “we have practiced within our own boundaries something that admits to race imperialism”. If Democrats like Truman had said that, the Dixiecrats would have left the Democratic Party much earlier. FDR’s “Freedom from Fear” “rejected heavy-handed empire building in favor of diplomacy and cooperation”. Thanks to the post-Wallace Democratic right turn, today’s rogue bipartisan US empire still rejects FDR’s vision, by only pretending to favor diplomacy and cooperation, while smearing each adversary as some mini Hitler threatening “our way of life”.
Executive order 8839 suddenly makes Wallace the most powerful VP in history with him also chairing both the Board of Economic Warfare and the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board. FDR gave HAW lots of VP power but that got him into a lot of trouble with the conservative forces who were horrified that workers should be treated well and respected. In 1943, Wallace called what was happening, as the fight between “men and corporations who put money rights above human rights” and progressives who “put human rights above money rights”. Also in 1943, HAW learned of a race riot in Detroit. He appeared at an integrated mass rally and said that American racists were acting as American Fascism. And the NYT got upset and said, hey we need to stay united. Then NYT asked him to explain himself and so he did. He wrote that the US fascist would use the media and corporations to divide the great mass of the people. HAW didn’t try to make deals when the shit began to fly against him. Over the past few months his many meetings, he had built a huge coalition behind him. HAW calls out racism, the poll tax at the convention’s podium, and then there is huge outcry for HAW to be nominated. The problem was that the fragile New Deal Coalition of the Democrats still included Southern Segregationists. The New Deal Coalition included bankers, vicious racists and socialists all within the Democratic Party. Movements in the 60’s finally moved the party on racism.
Wallace told a drunken Churchill to his face that the world would not take kindly to talk of Anglo-Saxon superiority, and Churchill answered, “we are superior”. According to Jennet Conant, “Wallace’s proposal for the liquidation of the British Empire inspired Churchill to ‘cataclysms of wrath’.” Earlier, Churchill had been upset by Wallace’s insistence on the upcoming Century being that of the Common Man. Children’s author Roald Dahl, was a British intelligence author who spied on Wallace while socializing and playing tennis with him. Ethically fighting Churchill made Wallace look closely at upcoming fascism in England and the US. At the time, Max Lerner said, “There is not a man in the country, or anywhere in the world who is saying the things Wallace is saying.” FDR wanted to, and had to, do a balancing act between Churchill and Stalin, and between Blacks and Southern segregationists. During this time Henry Wallace would hang with Eleanor Roosevelt playing “Russian and Spanish music on the record player” while she would knit and they would talk politics. Wallace travels the country at his own expense talking to lots of people in Union Halls and the like against racism, anti-Semitism, for women’s rights and aid for veterans embracing their movements. After WWII ended, Wallace “called for reparations for those who had been interned.” At the 1944 Convention, Wallace would have been elected by a landslide but party bosses worked non-stop to keep such a vote from happening. The Gallup polls at the time placed Wallace as supported by 46% of Americans, no other candidate came close. It is said, Roosevelt did not force Wallace on the ticket in 1944 because he did not want to lose the Southern votes. Moneymen hated Wallace talking about breaking up monopolies and removing CEO’s from government.
Sadly, this book ignores the story of Clark Clifford writing the crucial Clifford Memorandum which, by linking Wallace falsely to Communism, drove many voters successfully away in 1948. But John mentions that Clifford revealed in an interview that Truman and Clifford didn’t believe in the Cold War at the time, and so the destruction of Henry Wallace and the making of the Cold War was done for what? To merely win an election? Eric Foner, writes that the Clifford interview showed that “no threat to internal security existed.” Katherine Hepburn joins Wallace on stage in May 19th, 1947 on the night he says, “We earned the scorn of the world for lynching negroes.” (Louis B Mayer will be furious at Hepburn when he finds out her strong involvement that night, according to Ava Gardner). Truman drops the Atomic bombs, starts the Cold War, sends troops to Korea, sends the first troops to Vietnam, and by example reminds Americans why they shouldn’t play badly voiced show tunes on spinets. When Truman took power, the Chicago tribune accurately headlined: “The New Dealers are out and the Wall Streeters are in.” What kept Truman from simply being a conservative, was raising minimum wage and desegregating the US Military. But for victims of Truman’s Cold War fantasy, “stopping communists amongst us” was convenient code for stopping “union organizing, civil rights work, and other political activities.” Wallace said that to avoid the waste of the Cold War, we should put communism and capitalism to a friendly test and find out “which is can deliver the most satisfaction to the Common Man” and “let the results of the two systems speak for themselves.” The system better for all people thus might beat the system with only the biggest guns and threats. Truman did not like Wallace saying this because Wallace was then Truman’s Secretary of Commerce and so Wallace was fired. John writes, “the target of McCarthyism was not a conspiracy to overthrow the government, but the legacy of the New Deal”. George McGovern said he swung over to Wallace because he knew the Russians had experienced huge losses (27.5 million people) and certainly didn’t want any more war – and so the Cold War was a lie.
Wallace wrote, “I came out of the South with the utter conviction that segregation, racial prejudice and Jim Crow, can cost America it’s life. For these evils are not simply problems of the South.” “Both are parties of profit – and they have found prejudice a profitable business.” Truman ends up winning 1948 on a policy of fear, and the New York Times reported that Wallace “had taken the left wing into exile.” Sadly, John’s book at its own peril totally ignores the amazing Kleinman book on Wallace, “World of Hope, World of Fear” which is the riveting story of how the exile of Wallace was a Candygram to the ENTIRE left – this is what we will do to any lefty not firmly in the Reinhold Niebuhr anti-Russia camp from now on. After 1948, notice that the Dixiecrats got welcomed back, but the Progressives didn’t. According to Leah Wright, FDR used “civil rights symbolism” to secure two-thirds of the black vote for re-elections. Adam Clayton Powell was crucial in getting out the black vote to elect Republican Eisenhower. Party bosses shoot down W. Averell Harriman’s presidential bid because he suggested Democrats needed to be all in on civil rights and social progress. Ahead of his time too. Wallace wanted social progress at home with a commitment to peace – just what arms manufacturers and racist realtors in all 50 states wanted to hear. Right before his death from ALS, Wallace scratched out on a tablet, “the politics of Truman and Byrnes will make this country bleed from every pore.” MLK saw as Wallace did, “how militarism and imperialism will crush hope for change at home”.
Did you know, General Douglas MacArthur said to JFK after he was elected, “Anyone wanting to commit ground forces to Asia should have his head examined.” In 1980, Republicans outraised Democrats by ten times. To counter, Clinton sells out the party for the cash but now in that “bargain” you can’t allow any activists in the Party upset Big-Ag or Big-Pharma or Wall Street. Oops… No problem, as long as each administration offers “social policies less generous and less expensive than in the past” the Public (the frog) will never sense the water coming to a boil.
And so, constantly moving to the Right, the party that once chose FDR and Henry Wallace soon liked Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. The new manta during the slide to the Right has been, “We are still slightly better than the Republicans”. Wallace did not want the party to “run up the center”, he wanted a party “that had a soul”. John is upset that Wallace has been historically vilified in essence because he was premature in wanting détente to come, or wanting all forms of racism to stop. John believes Wallace sacrificed his power and position for the vision that the Democratic Party tragically chose to abandon. Noam Chomsky was part of Henry Wallace’s campaign (and Howard Zinn personally gave me an 8x10 of himself introducing my grandpa on stage in 1948). Bernie Sanders tours Henry Wallace’s birthplace on August 11th, 2019.
This is a very good book, but this book strangely ignored the superior Kleinman book on Wallace, and also when this book mentions Wallace’s financial achievements the author totally ignores that through (non-GMO) hybridization, one out of three eggs eaten around the world come from Wallace. More wheat, sorghum, alfalfa and colors of gladioli today comes come from his experiments than anyone else’s – for these reasons, many right wingers openly respected Henry Wallace as a businessman while hating on him as a politician. This book should have mentioned the Wallace connection to Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, Yip Harburg and Woodie Guthrie, Studs Terkel, and stories of the Southern travels involving Paul Robeson. This book strangely ignores the Wallace Action Fund which (by funding Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and the strongest progressive leaders) stands well to the Left of the mentioned Wallace Global Fund (which stands strangely silent on Israel/Palestine and all US foreign policy). The Wallace Action Fund also created the Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, the largest database anywhere on US police crime against women and minorities, as well as the Henry A. Wallace National Security Forum TV Series featuring Noam and many others.
Executive order 8839 suddenly makes Wallace the most powerful VP in history with him also chairing both the Board of Economic Warfare and the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board. FDR gave HAW lots of VP power but that got him into a lot of trouble with the conservative forces who were horrified that workers should be treated well and respected. In 1943, Wallace called what was happening, as the fight between “men and corporations who put money rights above human rights” and progressives who “put human rights above money rights”. Also in 1943, HAW learned of a race riot in Detroit. He appeared at an integrated mass rally and said that American racists were acting as American Fascism. And the NYT got upset and said, hey we need to stay united. Then NYT asked him to explain himself and so he did. He wrote that the US fascist would use the media and corporations to divide the great mass of the people. HAW didn’t try to make deals when the shit began to fly against him. Over the past few months his many meetings, he had built a huge coalition behind him. HAW calls out racism, the poll tax at the convention’s podium, and then there is huge outcry for HAW to be nominated. The problem was that the fragile New Deal Coalition of the Democrats still included Southern Segregationists. The New Deal Coalition included bankers, vicious racists and socialists all within the Democratic Party. Movements in the 60’s finally moved the party on racism.
Wallace told a drunken Churchill to his face that the world would not take kindly to talk of Anglo-Saxon superiority, and Churchill answered, “we are superior”. According to Jennet Conant, “Wallace’s proposal for the liquidation of the British Empire inspired Churchill to ‘cataclysms of wrath’.” Earlier, Churchill had been upset by Wallace’s insistence on the upcoming Century being that of the Common Man. Children’s author Roald Dahl, was a British intelligence author who spied on Wallace while socializing and playing tennis with him. Ethically fighting Churchill made Wallace look closely at upcoming fascism in England and the US. At the time, Max Lerner said, “There is not a man in the country, or anywhere in the world who is saying the things Wallace is saying.” FDR wanted to, and had to, do a balancing act between Churchill and Stalin, and between Blacks and Southern segregationists. During this time Henry Wallace would hang with Eleanor Roosevelt playing “Russian and Spanish music on the record player” while she would knit and they would talk politics. Wallace travels the country at his own expense talking to lots of people in Union Halls and the like against racism, anti-Semitism, for women’s rights and aid for veterans embracing their movements. After WWII ended, Wallace “called for reparations for those who had been interned.” At the 1944 Convention, Wallace would have been elected by a landslide but party bosses worked non-stop to keep such a vote from happening. The Gallup polls at the time placed Wallace as supported by 46% of Americans, no other candidate came close. It is said, Roosevelt did not force Wallace on the ticket in 1944 because he did not want to lose the Southern votes. Moneymen hated Wallace talking about breaking up monopolies and removing CEO’s from government.
Sadly, this book ignores the story of Clark Clifford writing the crucial Clifford Memorandum which, by linking Wallace falsely to Communism, drove many voters successfully away in 1948. But John mentions that Clifford revealed in an interview that Truman and Clifford didn’t believe in the Cold War at the time, and so the destruction of Henry Wallace and the making of the Cold War was done for what? To merely win an election? Eric Foner, writes that the Clifford interview showed that “no threat to internal security existed.” Katherine Hepburn joins Wallace on stage in May 19th, 1947 on the night he says, “We earned the scorn of the world for lynching negroes.” (Louis B Mayer will be furious at Hepburn when he finds out her strong involvement that night, according to Ava Gardner). Truman drops the Atomic bombs, starts the Cold War, sends troops to Korea, sends the first troops to Vietnam, and by example reminds Americans why they shouldn’t play badly voiced show tunes on spinets. When Truman took power, the Chicago tribune accurately headlined: “The New Dealers are out and the Wall Streeters are in.” What kept Truman from simply being a conservative, was raising minimum wage and desegregating the US Military. But for victims of Truman’s Cold War fantasy, “stopping communists amongst us” was convenient code for stopping “union organizing, civil rights work, and other political activities.” Wallace said that to avoid the waste of the Cold War, we should put communism and capitalism to a friendly test and find out “which is can deliver the most satisfaction to the Common Man” and “let the results of the two systems speak for themselves.” The system better for all people thus might beat the system with only the biggest guns and threats. Truman did not like Wallace saying this because Wallace was then Truman’s Secretary of Commerce and so Wallace was fired. John writes, “the target of McCarthyism was not a conspiracy to overthrow the government, but the legacy of the New Deal”. George McGovern said he swung over to Wallace because he knew the Russians had experienced huge losses (27.5 million people) and certainly didn’t want any more war – and so the Cold War was a lie.
Wallace wrote, “I came out of the South with the utter conviction that segregation, racial prejudice and Jim Crow, can cost America it’s life. For these evils are not simply problems of the South.” “Both are parties of profit – and they have found prejudice a profitable business.” Truman ends up winning 1948 on a policy of fear, and the New York Times reported that Wallace “had taken the left wing into exile.” Sadly, John’s book at its own peril totally ignores the amazing Kleinman book on Wallace, “World of Hope, World of Fear” which is the riveting story of how the exile of Wallace was a Candygram to the ENTIRE left – this is what we will do to any lefty not firmly in the Reinhold Niebuhr anti-Russia camp from now on. After 1948, notice that the Dixiecrats got welcomed back, but the Progressives didn’t. According to Leah Wright, FDR used “civil rights symbolism” to secure two-thirds of the black vote for re-elections. Adam Clayton Powell was crucial in getting out the black vote to elect Republican Eisenhower. Party bosses shoot down W. Averell Harriman’s presidential bid because he suggested Democrats needed to be all in on civil rights and social progress. Ahead of his time too. Wallace wanted social progress at home with a commitment to peace – just what arms manufacturers and racist realtors in all 50 states wanted to hear. Right before his death from ALS, Wallace scratched out on a tablet, “the politics of Truman and Byrnes will make this country bleed from every pore.” MLK saw as Wallace did, “how militarism and imperialism will crush hope for change at home”.
Did you know, General Douglas MacArthur said to JFK after he was elected, “Anyone wanting to commit ground forces to Asia should have his head examined.” In 1980, Republicans outraised Democrats by ten times. To counter, Clinton sells out the party for the cash but now in that “bargain” you can’t allow any activists in the Party upset Big-Ag or Big-Pharma or Wall Street. Oops… No problem, as long as each administration offers “social policies less generous and less expensive than in the past” the Public (the frog) will never sense the water coming to a boil.
And so, constantly moving to the Right, the party that once chose FDR and Henry Wallace soon liked Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. The new manta during the slide to the Right has been, “We are still slightly better than the Republicans”. Wallace did not want the party to “run up the center”, he wanted a party “that had a soul”. John is upset that Wallace has been historically vilified in essence because he was premature in wanting détente to come, or wanting all forms of racism to stop. John believes Wallace sacrificed his power and position for the vision that the Democratic Party tragically chose to abandon. Noam Chomsky was part of Henry Wallace’s campaign (and Howard Zinn personally gave me an 8x10 of himself introducing my grandpa on stage in 1948). Bernie Sanders tours Henry Wallace’s birthplace on August 11th, 2019.
This is a very good book, but this book strangely ignored the superior Kleinman book on Wallace, and also when this book mentions Wallace’s financial achievements the author totally ignores that through (non-GMO) hybridization, one out of three eggs eaten around the world come from Wallace. More wheat, sorghum, alfalfa and colors of gladioli today comes come from his experiments than anyone else’s – for these reasons, many right wingers openly respected Henry Wallace as a businessman while hating on him as a politician. This book should have mentioned the Wallace connection to Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, Yip Harburg and Woodie Guthrie, Studs Terkel, and stories of the Southern travels involving Paul Robeson. This book strangely ignores the Wallace Action Fund which (by funding Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and the strongest progressive leaders) stands well to the Left of the mentioned Wallace Global Fund (which stands strangely silent on Israel/Palestine and all US foreign policy). The Wallace Action Fund also created the Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, the largest database anywhere on US police crime against women and minorities, as well as the Henry A. Wallace National Security Forum TV Series featuring Noam and many others.
April 4, 2026
It was purely by chance several weeks ago that I was put in the know about THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace's Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics.
One day last month, I was listening to a podcast on YouTube in which John Nichols, the author of this book, spoke about Henry Wallace (1888-1965), who had been FDR's first Secretary of Agriculture - where his drive and progressive ideas helped to revolutionize national agricultural policy - and later became FDR's second Vice President between 1941 and 1945. What's interesting is that Wallace had been a Republican whose father had served as Secretary of Agriculture under Republican presidents Coolidge and Hoover.
At any rate, what Nichols had to say about Henry Wallace and his book piqued my curiosity about both the former and the latter. Thankfully, my local library had the book. So, I borrowed it several weeks ago, and oh, what an education it has given me!
The book traces the history of the Democratic Party from the time of the 1944 Democratic National Convention in which an ailing Franklin Roosevelt was nominated to serve for an unprecedented fourth term as President.
Roosevelt's preference was to keep Wallace on the ticket as his Vice President. But the powerbrokers within the Democratic Party - made up of Southern Democrats (segregationists) in Congress (who controlled most of the powerful committees on Capitol Hill) and various corporate and Wall Street interests conspired together to prevent Wallace from being re-nominated as Vice President and replaced with a non-liberal Democrat to their liking. (Thus it was that Harry S. Truman - then a Senator from Missouri - was nominated to be FDR's third Vice President.) By this juncture of FDR's presidency, Wallace - who had changed his party affiliation a decade earlier - had become an unabashed and strident apostle of the New Deal. A New Deal that under the pressures of World War II, was slowly being undermined and undercut by conservative Democrats who wanted to help usher in a postwar America much like what it was before the 1929 stock market crash. Wallace was a direct threat to these forces within the Democratic Party because of his liberal views and his insistence on racial and economic justice, as well as preventing the emergence of an "Americanized fascism" postwar.
The book goes to show how over the last 82 years, the Democratic Party has slowly retreated from its support of marginalized Americans, the poor and working class, and labor unions - with the 3 exceptions being the Kennedy/Johnson years (1961-1969) when much progressive legislation was promoted by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and passed into law by Congress during the 1960s, which arguably enhanced and improved the lives of millions of Americans to this day; the presidential candidacy of Senator George McGovern who ran on a progressive platform in 1972, only to lose to President Nixon in a landslide in November of that year; and the 2 runs for the Presidency made by Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, another progressive who, though he twice failed to secure the presidential nomination, was responsible for "knocking back some of the structural barriers that had been erected by the party bosses, bringing diversity to party committees and rule-making bodies" as well as recognizing the value of voter registration drives and grassroots organizing - in its quest to outraise the Republican Party and cater to corporate interests as a way of securing its electoral power and influence in the U.S. government.
So, it is that today's Democratic Party leadership - which is controlled by Centrist Democrats who are content to "do little" - has become cautious in its approach to governing rather than prescribing and promoting bold, innovative, progressive policies that answer to peoples' needs, which polls have shown enjoy widespread support. Examples: establishing a national health service (i.e. "Medicare for all with a single-payer health care system" in which the value of human life is placed above corporate profit), campaign finance reform, and a modernized New Deal that safeguards the environment against the existential threat of climate change.
For all of its 286 pages (inclusive of "A Note on Sources" which runs out to 29 pages), The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party is one that should be read by any American who is disgusted by today's status quo and wants to involve him/herself in the ongoing struggle to preserve our democracy against the current fascist threat it now faces (how prophetic Henry Wallace proved to be about what he had described in the early 1940s as an "Americanized fascism"!) and work with like-minded people and organizations to end the hold the Centrist Democrats have on the party leadership and resurrect a people-centered, progressive and proactive Democratic Party.
This book packs a lot including quotes from interviews Nichols had with Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as with Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez following her upset win in the June 2018 NY Democratic Primary against Joe Crowley, a 10-term Centrist Democrat who had been No. 4 in the party leadership in Congress at the time of his defeat.
Suffice it to say I'm so glad I listened to that John Nichols interview. The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party is a book deserving of many re-readings. I recommend it highly.
One day last month, I was listening to a podcast on YouTube in which John Nichols, the author of this book, spoke about Henry Wallace (1888-1965), who had been FDR's first Secretary of Agriculture - where his drive and progressive ideas helped to revolutionize national agricultural policy - and later became FDR's second Vice President between 1941 and 1945. What's interesting is that Wallace had been a Republican whose father had served as Secretary of Agriculture under Republican presidents Coolidge and Hoover.
At any rate, what Nichols had to say about Henry Wallace and his book piqued my curiosity about both the former and the latter. Thankfully, my local library had the book. So, I borrowed it several weeks ago, and oh, what an education it has given me!
The book traces the history of the Democratic Party from the time of the 1944 Democratic National Convention in which an ailing Franklin Roosevelt was nominated to serve for an unprecedented fourth term as President.
Roosevelt's preference was to keep Wallace on the ticket as his Vice President. But the powerbrokers within the Democratic Party - made up of Southern Democrats (segregationists) in Congress (who controlled most of the powerful committees on Capitol Hill) and various corporate and Wall Street interests conspired together to prevent Wallace from being re-nominated as Vice President and replaced with a non-liberal Democrat to their liking. (Thus it was that Harry S. Truman - then a Senator from Missouri - was nominated to be FDR's third Vice President.) By this juncture of FDR's presidency, Wallace - who had changed his party affiliation a decade earlier - had become an unabashed and strident apostle of the New Deal. A New Deal that under the pressures of World War II, was slowly being undermined and undercut by conservative Democrats who wanted to help usher in a postwar America much like what it was before the 1929 stock market crash. Wallace was a direct threat to these forces within the Democratic Party because of his liberal views and his insistence on racial and economic justice, as well as preventing the emergence of an "Americanized fascism" postwar.
The book goes to show how over the last 82 years, the Democratic Party has slowly retreated from its support of marginalized Americans, the poor and working class, and labor unions - with the 3 exceptions being the Kennedy/Johnson years (1961-1969) when much progressive legislation was promoted by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and passed into law by Congress during the 1960s, which arguably enhanced and improved the lives of millions of Americans to this day; the presidential candidacy of Senator George McGovern who ran on a progressive platform in 1972, only to lose to President Nixon in a landslide in November of that year; and the 2 runs for the Presidency made by Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, another progressive who, though he twice failed to secure the presidential nomination, was responsible for "knocking back some of the structural barriers that had been erected by the party bosses, bringing diversity to party committees and rule-making bodies" as well as recognizing the value of voter registration drives and grassroots organizing - in its quest to outraise the Republican Party and cater to corporate interests as a way of securing its electoral power and influence in the U.S. government.
So, it is that today's Democratic Party leadership - which is controlled by Centrist Democrats who are content to "do little" - has become cautious in its approach to governing rather than prescribing and promoting bold, innovative, progressive policies that answer to peoples' needs, which polls have shown enjoy widespread support. Examples: establishing a national health service (i.e. "Medicare for all with a single-payer health care system" in which the value of human life is placed above corporate profit), campaign finance reform, and a modernized New Deal that safeguards the environment against the existential threat of climate change.
For all of its 286 pages (inclusive of "A Note on Sources" which runs out to 29 pages), The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party is one that should be read by any American who is disgusted by today's status quo and wants to involve him/herself in the ongoing struggle to preserve our democracy against the current fascist threat it now faces (how prophetic Henry Wallace proved to be about what he had described in the early 1940s as an "Americanized fascism"!) and work with like-minded people and organizations to end the hold the Centrist Democrats have on the party leadership and resurrect a people-centered, progressive and proactive Democratic Party.
This book packs a lot including quotes from interviews Nichols had with Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, as well as with Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez following her upset win in the June 2018 NY Democratic Primary against Joe Crowley, a 10-term Centrist Democrat who had been No. 4 in the party leadership in Congress at the time of his defeat.
Suffice it to say I'm so glad I listened to that John Nichols interview. The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party is a book deserving of many re-readings. I recommend it highly.
December 28, 2024
John Adams once called it: "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
LBJ more colloquially referred to it as: “Not worth a bucket of warm piss”
Yes the vice presidency has for the vast majority of its existence a political wilderness for whoever chooses to accept it, in that it’s main requirement is to keep your own views and ideas to yourself and to get in step with the President.
Some vice-presidents, mostly through fate, do make a name for themselves when they ascend to the presidency.
Henry Wallace was a little different.
FDR’s Vice President for his 3rd term, Wallace was outspoken about inequality, racism, and economic justice.
He was probably what we would today refer to as a Democratic Socialist but in the 1940’s, that almost immediately got you called a communist.
The thing about Wallace though is that while he was not a Communist, he certainly had supporters who were. To his credit, he refused to condemn them, even though doing so probably would’ve assured him of being on the ticket with FDR in 1948 and eventually ascending to the presidency with FDR’s death a short time later.
Wallace was in many ways naive in his belief that if he could just get his message out to enough people who believed in social justice that he could even run and win as a third party candidate against the two entrenched parties.
Wallace is one of my heroes, particularly in the 1940s which was a very dark time for heroes.
This book however while using Wallace as an overarching symbol of where the Democratic Party was compared to where it is today, isn’t really about him.
The parts about Wallace are interesting but the narrative here is quite disjointed.
It jumps around from Wallace, to Eugene McCarthy, to Ted Kennedy, to George McGovern, to Bill Clinton, and then back and forth among them with more Wallace stories and commentary about how a democrats have messed up over the last 80 years since him sprinkled in.
I guess I wanted more Wallace and less party analysis of what’s gone wrong over the last century. As a primer on Wallace it’s fine I guess but to really know this remarkable American, there are better options.
LBJ more colloquially referred to it as: “Not worth a bucket of warm piss”
Yes the vice presidency has for the vast majority of its existence a political wilderness for whoever chooses to accept it, in that it’s main requirement is to keep your own views and ideas to yourself and to get in step with the President.
Some vice-presidents, mostly through fate, do make a name for themselves when they ascend to the presidency.
Henry Wallace was a little different.
FDR’s Vice President for his 3rd term, Wallace was outspoken about inequality, racism, and economic justice.
He was probably what we would today refer to as a Democratic Socialist but in the 1940’s, that almost immediately got you called a communist.
The thing about Wallace though is that while he was not a Communist, he certainly had supporters who were. To his credit, he refused to condemn them, even though doing so probably would’ve assured him of being on the ticket with FDR in 1948 and eventually ascending to the presidency with FDR’s death a short time later.
Wallace was in many ways naive in his belief that if he could just get his message out to enough people who believed in social justice that he could even run and win as a third party candidate against the two entrenched parties.
Wallace is one of my heroes, particularly in the 1940s which was a very dark time for heroes.
This book however while using Wallace as an overarching symbol of where the Democratic Party was compared to where it is today, isn’t really about him.
The parts about Wallace are interesting but the narrative here is quite disjointed.
It jumps around from Wallace, to Eugene McCarthy, to Ted Kennedy, to George McGovern, to Bill Clinton, and then back and forth among them with more Wallace stories and commentary about how a democrats have messed up over the last 80 years since him sprinkled in.
I guess I wanted more Wallace and less party analysis of what’s gone wrong over the last century. As a primer on Wallace it’s fine I guess but to really know this remarkable American, there are better options.
March 10, 2021
Outside of Chapter 8, every page of this book is dripping with revelations. I am now obsessed with Henry Wallace as a tragic, historic figure in American politics. The what could-have-beens keep me imagining every day. I've gone as far as placed Henry Wallace's birthplace in my Google Maps as a saved location to visit someday.
My wife has been very patient with my excitement and enjoyment with this book; I keep finding my way to a tangent on what I had just read. I have been recommending it to everyone, but as I touched on earlier, I'll be adding that readers should maybe take Chapter 8 with a grain of salt.
If I were John Nichols, I would either omit or rewrite the chapter - and possibly break it into two or three separate chapters. As I approached the Obama years and Presidencies I am more knowledgeable of, I felt somewhat betrayed by the information presented, or rather the lack of information in order to strengthen a point of view. For example, it's one thing to criticize the ACA for not having a public option, however, it's absurd to lay blame on Obama for not including it and paint him as the villain. I have been unforgiving and livid with Joe Lieberman for the better part of 12 years for his sole action of bucking the public option from the Senate bill at the 11th hour (I remember where I was reading about it and the subsequent fallout), and for Nichols to not even mention his name is a sore blunder - especially, //especially// when Lieberman is //the// prime, modern day example of a right-leaning Democrat whose actions stifle the soul of the Democratic Party.
Where in all previous chapters, I was highlighting lines that excited me, enthralled me, and inspired me, Chapter 8 had me highlighting lines where I was scratching my head asking, "Really? That's your angle? When you'd better serve yourself and theme of the book by [insert examples]?" In order to get a rounded out experience and be better informed, I'm now interested in reading more in-depth analysis of presidential campaigns from 1952 to modern day.
Chapter 8 aside, what a book. What an eye opening experience. My heart lifted from my chest more times than I can recall. I'll be talking about this one for a long time.
My wife has been very patient with my excitement and enjoyment with this book; I keep finding my way to a tangent on what I had just read. I have been recommending it to everyone, but as I touched on earlier, I'll be adding that readers should maybe take Chapter 8 with a grain of salt.
If I were John Nichols, I would either omit or rewrite the chapter - and possibly break it into two or three separate chapters. As I approached the Obama years and Presidencies I am more knowledgeable of, I felt somewhat betrayed by the information presented, or rather the lack of information in order to strengthen a point of view. For example, it's one thing to criticize the ACA for not having a public option, however, it's absurd to lay blame on Obama for not including it and paint him as the villain. I have been unforgiving and livid with Joe Lieberman for the better part of 12 years for his sole action of bucking the public option from the Senate bill at the 11th hour (I remember where I was reading about it and the subsequent fallout), and for Nichols to not even mention his name is a sore blunder - especially, //especially// when Lieberman is //the// prime, modern day example of a right-leaning Democrat whose actions stifle the soul of the Democratic Party.
Where in all previous chapters, I was highlighting lines that excited me, enthralled me, and inspired me, Chapter 8 had me highlighting lines where I was scratching my head asking, "Really? That's your angle? When you'd better serve yourself and theme of the book by [insert examples]?" In order to get a rounded out experience and be better informed, I'm now interested in reading more in-depth analysis of presidential campaigns from 1952 to modern day.
Chapter 8 aside, what a book. What an eye opening experience. My heart lifted from my chest more times than I can recall. I'll be talking about this one for a long time.
May 5, 2020
Just finished the book today. I expected it to be a history book that covered the 1944 election- which it did- but it also provided so much more. Nichols provides a sweeping analysis of the political transitions from that point on in both parties, and convincingly takes down the notion that politics need to err toward caution to succeed.
The book is incredibly reaffirming, in this time of crisis and disillusionment, of both the future, and the past. It is easy to forget, when things seem so bleak, that the country has always produced incredible people, like Henry Wallace, who were unwavering in their commitment to the good fight and gained mass support for it.
A must-read to understand the current political situation, where it might go, and where it needs to go.
The book is incredibly reaffirming, in this time of crisis and disillusionment, of both the future, and the past. It is easy to forget, when things seem so bleak, that the country has always produced incredible people, like Henry Wallace, who were unwavering in their commitment to the good fight and gained mass support for it.
A must-read to understand the current political situation, where it might go, and where it needs to go.
July 5, 2021
I actually did not know who Henry Wallace was, but learning about his role as FDR's vice president and his efforts to keep the Democratic party working to advance the New Deal was eye-opening. I have a new appreciation and understanding for how the corporate corruption of the Democratic party goes back decades to Truman and didn't start with Bill Clinton.
May 26, 2022
This collection of essays is quite good, with the exception of the last chapter. I learned a great deal about Henry Wallace's politics and the selling out of the Democratic party to corporate interests. The crashing down of progressivism in the second half of the 20th century is explained quite well. On the other hand, I believe that Nichols has too much optimism in the Democrats of today to resist that temptation, and I believe that his hopes for a contemporary Democratic return to progressivism are pie-in-the-sky nonsense.
May 27, 2020
A decent introduction to Henry Wallace but it becomes a cursory polemic against the Democratic Party more than a deep dive into Wallace's ideas and policies, which I'd been hoping to read.
December 30, 2020
A strong and suitably optimistic study of Henry Wallace, the New Deal era Democrat Party and how the promise of a socially liberal governance for the common man has been lost in successive turns toward the right within the Democratic presidencies.
Nichols sets his stall out early as someone committed to social justice, workers rights and a commitment to the 'common man' of Wallace rhetoric. Through this prism he assiduously critiques and condemns the rightward drifts into managerialism and compromise from Truman through to Rahm Emmanuel managed Obama. It is Nichols claim that this opens up the space for a radical right led by Trump, and a large part if this book is dedicated toward showing an equally radical continuity of vision on the Democratic left that has failed to win the electoral support if the party at crucial junctures throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
For someone with only a cursory understanding of US politics in the early 20th century, Wallace was not a figure on my radar. For that reason alone this book is invaluable. However, where its real strengths lie are in the way it challenges engrained conceptions of both Democratic and Republican parties, that history shows to be transitory at best. Democratic racism in the 50s and 60s recontextualises Biden's early political forays, for example. The books coda manages to create a necessary head-of-steam around the new democratic radicalism of the likes of AOS and Ro Khanna. Only time will tell whether they have the principled courage to force Democratic politics back into a leftward space, or whether, like Obama before them, they will run for the cover of a hollowed out centre ground.
One last thing. There is a superb lengthy quote from Sanders in the 9th chapter of this book, that made me seriously reconsider US foreign policy. In effect Sanders says that the fixation with terrorism is utterly disproportionate to the actual acts of terror in the world. By viewing this problem in such a magnified manner, America is creating a state if permanent conflict, that the radical fundamentalist around the world could only dream of. This is also what is greatly responsible for corroding the soul of US democracy and planting fertile political ground for the radical right.
Nichols sets his stall out early as someone committed to social justice, workers rights and a commitment to the 'common man' of Wallace rhetoric. Through this prism he assiduously critiques and condemns the rightward drifts into managerialism and compromise from Truman through to Rahm Emmanuel managed Obama. It is Nichols claim that this opens up the space for a radical right led by Trump, and a large part if this book is dedicated toward showing an equally radical continuity of vision on the Democratic left that has failed to win the electoral support if the party at crucial junctures throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
For someone with only a cursory understanding of US politics in the early 20th century, Wallace was not a figure on my radar. For that reason alone this book is invaluable. However, where its real strengths lie are in the way it challenges engrained conceptions of both Democratic and Republican parties, that history shows to be transitory at best. Democratic racism in the 50s and 60s recontextualises Biden's early political forays, for example. The books coda manages to create a necessary head-of-steam around the new democratic radicalism of the likes of AOS and Ro Khanna. Only time will tell whether they have the principled courage to force Democratic politics back into a leftward space, or whether, like Obama before them, they will run for the cover of a hollowed out centre ground.
One last thing. There is a superb lengthy quote from Sanders in the 9th chapter of this book, that made me seriously reconsider US foreign policy. In effect Sanders says that the fixation with terrorism is utterly disproportionate to the actual acts of terror in the world. By viewing this problem in such a magnified manner, America is creating a state if permanent conflict, that the radical fundamentalist around the world could only dream of. This is also what is greatly responsible for corroding the soul of US democracy and planting fertile political ground for the radical right.
January 10, 2021
Nichols gives a good history of the Democratic Party between the leftists and the center-right. Backdropped against my boy Henry Agard Wallace, he clearly describes the different inflection points of the party: the 1944 convention, the 1948 election, Vietnam, Bill Clinton.
Nichols's hope is to inspire change in the Democratic Party, and he makes a lot of good points along the way. Decidedly liberal and big-D Democrat, his vision for the Democratic Party is both one of looking back and forward. He sees the big vision liberals of the past and how their fight for Wallace's "Century for the Common Man" (interestingly, that was the basis of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, which as a Copland fan myself, did not know. How's that for white washing history, all the books I've read about Copland.) and how that is currently relevant. As a history, Nichol's does a good job telling the story with minimal interjections, until his concluding chapter. I really liked this style of book explicitly linking the history to the present.
Overall, it was a good read; Nichols is a fine writer.
Small political rant to end it. We need a party that cares. Not just a few politicians. Not just about economic "growth". Not just about winning elections. The US faces problems, but none are impossible to fix. Nations around the world have shown universal health care is possible in many ways (multi-payer, single-payer, single-prover). Expansive broadband is available in South Korea to nearly 70% of its population. The train system in Europe is good! The issue isn't that the problems are unsolvable, it is that we don't have a party (a whole party) that is willing to fix them. The GOP has long since lost its roots in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, or the vision of Wilke or the pragmatism of Eisenhower. And as Nichols says, the Democrats have also lost their way. But the thing about being lost, is there's always hope that you can be found.
Nichols's hope is to inspire change in the Democratic Party, and he makes a lot of good points along the way. Decidedly liberal and big-D Democrat, his vision for the Democratic Party is both one of looking back and forward. He sees the big vision liberals of the past and how their fight for Wallace's "Century for the Common Man" (interestingly, that was the basis of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, which as a Copland fan myself, did not know. How's that for white washing history, all the books I've read about Copland.) and how that is currently relevant. As a history, Nichol's does a good job telling the story with minimal interjections, until his concluding chapter. I really liked this style of book explicitly linking the history to the present.
Overall, it was a good read; Nichols is a fine writer.
Small political rant to end it. We need a party that cares. Not just a few politicians. Not just about economic "growth". Not just about winning elections. The US faces problems, but none are impossible to fix. Nations around the world have shown universal health care is possible in many ways (multi-payer, single-payer, single-prover). Expansive broadband is available in South Korea to nearly 70% of its population. The train system in Europe is good! The issue isn't that the problems are unsolvable, it is that we don't have a party (a whole party) that is willing to fix them. The GOP has long since lost its roots in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, or the vision of Wilke or the pragmatism of Eisenhower. And as Nichols says, the Democrats have also lost their way. But the thing about being lost, is there's always hope that you can be found.
November 20, 2022
This account of the legacy of Henry Wallace - FDR's Vice President - shows that, at times in American history, deep, radical democracy did exist and was fleetingly close to coming into reality via a robust New Deal between WWII and the onset of the Cold War.
Nichols' account shows consistently that Wallace's view of democracy as a societal project would entail approaches that were:
- Anti-racist
- Anti-fascist
- Anti-sexist
- Anti-imperial and Anti-colonial
- Anti-oligarchal, Anti-kleptocratic, Anti-corporate state *i.e. very pro-labor union
- Anti-militaristic
- Anti-theocratic
- Anti-violent
- Anti-poverty (today's Wallace Foundation)
- Anti-disease (ditto)
- Anti-climate change (ditto)
Wallace subscribed to an expression of radical democracy that entailed "using a nonviolent, tolerant, and democratic way the forces of education, publicity, politics, economics, business, law and religion to direct the ever-increasing power of science into channels which will bring peace and the maximum well-being, both spiritual and economic, to the greatest number of human beings."
Nichols' book then describes the evolution of both the Democratic Party and GOP within the landscape of American politics - the catastrophic opportunities lost - ultimately transitioning the New Deal consensus (ca. Great Depression to Reagan) to the neoliberal consensus (ca. Regan to the fractious rifts of today). But it is also documentation of what is possible, through what was done.
Wallace sadly became a Cassandra for the tragedy of gross upward distribution of wealth, austerity, patriarchal white supremacy, fascist authoritarianism, and abject kleptocracy of the present moment. Yet it remains a window into a moment when the fertile ground was planted for American deep democracy and a very different world order which could have manifested after World War II, and elements of a framework that can be revisted today - for content or inspiration.
Nichols' account shows consistently that Wallace's view of democracy as a societal project would entail approaches that were:
- Anti-racist
- Anti-fascist
- Anti-sexist
- Anti-imperial and Anti-colonial
- Anti-oligarchal, Anti-kleptocratic, Anti-corporate state *i.e. very pro-labor union
- Anti-militaristic
- Anti-theocratic
- Anti-violent
- Anti-poverty (today's Wallace Foundation)
- Anti-disease (ditto)
- Anti-climate change (ditto)
Wallace subscribed to an expression of radical democracy that entailed "using a nonviolent, tolerant, and democratic way the forces of education, publicity, politics, economics, business, law and religion to direct the ever-increasing power of science into channels which will bring peace and the maximum well-being, both spiritual and economic, to the greatest number of human beings."
Nichols' book then describes the evolution of both the Democratic Party and GOP within the landscape of American politics - the catastrophic opportunities lost - ultimately transitioning the New Deal consensus (ca. Great Depression to Reagan) to the neoliberal consensus (ca. Regan to the fractious rifts of today). But it is also documentation of what is possible, through what was done.
Wallace sadly became a Cassandra for the tragedy of gross upward distribution of wealth, austerity, patriarchal white supremacy, fascist authoritarianism, and abject kleptocracy of the present moment. Yet it remains a window into a moment when the fertile ground was planted for American deep democracy and a very different world order which could have manifested after World War II, and elements of a framework that can be revisted today - for content or inspiration.
April 2, 2026
I'm just thrilled that there's modern (2020) recognition of Henry Wallace. I thought the memory of that man would be put in a vault in the center of the earth.
There's a lot of quotes and not a whole lot of argument. I'm still not really sure what the thesis of this book is. But I dug what I read. It was informative of Wallace the person and the ideas he presented and some of his policies. Also his failures. His third party presidential run failed to achieve much and his Progressive Party ultimately died.
What I loved about this book: The author acknowledged that the Democratic Party of the USA has lost its way and doesn't hold a candle to the FDR/New Deal days. The author even called out Democratic failings from Clinton to now (I'm looking at you, Obama years!).
There's optimism at the end of the book about the future of that party. I'm not so bold as to believe in them.
There's a lot of quotes and not a whole lot of argument. I'm still not really sure what the thesis of this book is. But I dug what I read. It was informative of Wallace the person and the ideas he presented and some of his policies. Also his failures. His third party presidential run failed to achieve much and his Progressive Party ultimately died.
What I loved about this book: The author acknowledged that the Democratic Party of the USA has lost its way and doesn't hold a candle to the FDR/New Deal days. The author even called out Democratic failings from Clinton to now (I'm looking at you, Obama years!).
There's optimism at the end of the book about the future of that party. I'm not so bold as to believe in them.
July 6, 2026
Five-star read! Published in 2020 but incredibly prescient for today's political landscape with increasing electoral victories for DSA candidates!!! The book's central protagonist (Henry Wallace) and topical focus (democratic party politics) were both really informative and interesting. New Dealism over Western dualism; let us understand and seize the critical junctures of US history. Project-wise, the book was really inspiring -- I'd love to work on something similar within the foreign policy space, along the long, inevitable arc of justice toward a progressive internationalism. I have very minor critiques of the book's heroic individualism and inconsistent microscopy, but overall I highly recommend a read.
June 4, 2020
A succinct, well-researched and smartly argued examination of the Democratic Party's cyclical tendency to repeat the same mistake - silencing progressive voices with bold but popular ideas for a better version of the country - while expecting different results every single time.
Nichols ends on a hopeful note that the world's events in 2020 have undermined, and that will unfortunately dull the book's message somewhat. But that does not make the historical context it gives to our current national moment any less valuable.
Nichols ends on a hopeful note that the world's events in 2020 have undermined, and that will unfortunately dull the book's message somewhat. But that does not make the historical context it gives to our current national moment any less valuable.
July 11, 2023
The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party provides important information. That is, you'll learn how and why FDR's New Deal has evaporated, over the decades. But. The book is largely a collection of direct quotes, which makes it a tedious read. On the other hand, it's good for researchers, with all the necessary documentation and footnotes.
February 3, 2021
I greatly enjoyed Nichol’s brisk writing style when going over the 75+ years from the New Deal to the present. He writes with an optimism that I miss in some left publications, which encouraged me and made me hungry for change!
January 6, 2022
Reading this in the aftermath of Biden's win over Bernie and Warren and listening to all the Clintonite-Third Way types crow about the virtues of moderation and the wisdom of not upsetting any corporate apple carts was probably not a great mental health move.
December 31, 2023
Very interesting take, wish it had delved a bit more into modern day politics
June 13, 2020
Political whitewashing for a very small price: let Nichols' guys in the race as well.
November 6, 2020
I am afraid that I don't have a grasp of exactly what the many different movements or philosophies that John Nichols mentions entail. I need to do some basic United States history in order to understand the whole of this book.
I have found a basic explanation of these political movements via Google which will help me better understand this book.
I have found a basic explanation of these political movements via Google which will help me better understand this book.
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