Michael Kazin

The history of the Democratic party is not a history to be proud of. Until relatively recently, it was the party of white supremacy, the party that tolerated and even promoted the expansion of slavery and fought only for the rights and advancement of working white men. Early Democrats, especially from the south, didn’t try to hide this, and in What It Took to Win, Michael Kazin doesn’t try to hide it either.

But the point of the book is not simply to rehash the party’s shameful past; show more it is to show that, despite its faults, it remains the only party capable of solving the problems unique to the 21st century, problems that cannot be solved by cutting taxes and rolling back regulation—the only “solutions” offered by the party of the rich. Whether we like it or not, the government is the only countervailing force to protect against corporate greed and predation, and when one political party is actively hostile to the act of governing—serving only the interests of business and the wealthy while pretending otherwise—the ordinary person has only one place to turn: The Democratic Party.

Kazin correctly points out that the Democratic Party has been most successful during the “eras when the Democrats argued persuasively about their commitments to make the economy serve ordinary people,” specifically from the late 1820s to the mid-1850s and again from the 1930s to the late 1960s. After the 60s, things started to go downhill as the Democrats lost sight of their primary identity by drifting right economically, and continue to hurt themselves by labeling as “radical” the capable leaders—most prominently Bernie Sanders—who are trying to reestablish the party as the party willing to fight for the interests of the ordinary worker.

In a sense, the book is a depressing reminder that the party most capable of advancing the common good is a party that made and continues to make so many mistakes and missteps. When it was committed to the economic interests of the average person, it was a party filled with white supremacists. Then, when it dropped its white supremacy—it stopped working for the average person and adopted the same conservative economic policies as the right. What we really need now is a bold, inspiring leader in the vein of FDR that can speak to the average person across geographies and political persuasions and not the uninspiring, timid moderates we seem to be stuck with.

In any case, this book represents a thorough history of the party and lays the groundwork for what it should strive to become—if the party wants to reestablish the electoral dominance it enjoyed in the past. show less

In Michael Kazin’s political biography of the great American champion of the common man at the turn of the nineteenth century, the key to the problem of William Jennings Bryan comes early in the book. This is when Kazin presents us with this quote from his subject relating to the compartmentalization Bryan and his followers had between their sentimental faith, and their comfortable secular existence: “As a rule we disbelieve all fact and theories for which we have no use.” While this show more might be a workable way of life for the average person (if not very wise), the reality is that Bryan as an aspiring national political leader badly needed a theory on which to base a political strategy that was more than well-intended moralism and the politics of identity, and to get him to fifty-percent-plus-one of the votes cast.

This is just part of the tragedy of man in Kazin’s view, who is most interested in Bryan as a last expression of a time when belief in revealed religion went hand in hand with progressive politics, and which is a comment on contemporary politics with its sharp divide between conventional religiosity (where identity trumps all) and today’s progressivism of personal liberation, redistribution and environmental concern. Bryan’s non-interest (to put the best spin on matters) regarding issues of racial equality makes it impossible to draw connections between him and a Martin Luther King (the closest modern comparison), and renders him a dead end from the modern progressive perspective. On the whole, one is left with the sense that Bryan’s thinking is so much of the nineteenth century that it just seems unhelpful to anachronistically drag the man and his attitudes into the current day.

One question that Kazin’s line of argument also begs is whether Bryan could be viewed as a precursor to the contemporary protest politics of the so-called Tea Party. The man had sufficient proportion and good will that this seems unfair, but Bryan would not be the first person to complete a trajectory from the progressive to the reactionary in mentality. Bryan’s inveterate conflict with corporate interests would also make him an inconvenient hero for modern conservatism.

The other question that I still have coming away from this book is Bryan’s real attitude towards Catholicism. On one hand he was an enthusiastic prohibitionist, which is usually a litmus test for nativist, anti-papist, thinking. On the other, as a Democrat, Bryan knew that his electoral success depended at least in part on the Catholic vote. Perhaps this is just another example of an unsystematic thinker ignoring a structural issue, or it might be a commentary on how Bryan and his wife sanitized the record in regards to what they truly felt. show less

Contrary to the hysterical rhetoric of many conservatives, the United States is unique among Western nations in the absence of a truly viable left-wing political movement. Unlike in the nations of Europe, radical and socialist parties have never succeeded in establishing more than a temporary foothold in American politics. Yet as Michael Kazin notes, their failure to establish an enduring political presence stands in stark contrast to their success in shaping the moral culture of American show more society. This contrast forms the core of his new, book, a survey of the American left from the early 19th century to the present day. In it, he chronicles both the battles lost by the left in American politics and the broader wars they won to change the values and attitudes of the nation over the past two centuries.

Kazin begins in the 1820s with the emergence of the first social movements dedicated to the moral transformation of the country. These groups pioneered the basic approach that would be followed by their successors: charters establishing their goals, the use of street protests to demonstrate their commitment, and the exploitation of media to broadcast their message. Though such groups pursued a range of goals, Kazin focuses on those which campaigned for the abolition of slavery and the rights of women. These movements challenged not just the legal shackles binding these groups but the prejudices underlying them as well. While the campaign for women’s rights stalled, the cause of abolitionism grew in popularity with the outbreak of the Civil War, turning “anti-slavery firebrands into respectable figures.” (pg. 49) Motivated by the moral arguments of abolitionists, Northern politicians turned the Civil War into a war for freedom, eventually bringing about the emancipation of the slaves.

Emancipation did nothing to bring about racial equality, though. Here Kazin develops another theme persistent in the history of the American left: the role of racism played in fragmenting their political efforts. Nowhere was this more evident than in the burgeoning labor movement in the nineteenth century. With the concentration of wealth becoming a pressing issue in post-Civil War America, workers sought to band together to demand more equitable treatment. Yet for all the efforts of a few activists, workers usually remained divided along racial and ethnic lines, frustrating attempts at unity. Racism also plagued the formation of a successful socialist movement in the late 19th century, with organizers forced to bow to racist attitudes in their efforts to win over working-class Americans to their cause. Kazin’s examination of socialism in America is one of the strengths of the book, as he identifies three different, yet concurrent, socialist movements that existed in the country at the turn of the century: that of midwestern workers and farmers, that of secular Jewish immigrants from Europe, and that of a “modernist left” of the bohemian communities of major cities in the northeast and midwest. In the end, though, none of these succeeded in creating a viable political movement, and collapsed amid the “Red Scare” at the end of World War I.

The political left reemerged in the 1930s amid the economic collapse of the Great Depression. Socialism had been replaced by Marxism, with a Communist Party trading obedience to the Soviet Union for financial support. With the widespread suffering of the 1930s, thousands flocked to the Communists searching for a better way, and while the party remained small, Kazin notes the disproportionate cultural influence they exerted through this period in a variety of arenas and credits them with reintroducing the issue of racial equality into the political scene. Though the Communist Party ultimately failed to establish itself more broadly, the issue of equal rights for African Americans survived the party’s collapse, taking hold as a key issue of the New Left that emerged in the 1950s. Kazin details the massive shift the New Left effected in the attitudes of most Americans towards women and minorities, yet the triumph of equality overshadowed a failure to establish an enduring radical movement in the country, a failure which impeded prospects for further change as the 20th century came to an end.

Kazin’s book is an insightful study of the history of American radicals and their impact upon the nation. In an age of historical specialization, his effort to provide an encompassing overview provides a useful account of how the left evolved over the course of American history, particularly in response to the larger social and economic forces shaping the nation’s development. Some may quibble with particular aspects of his analysis, but the overall narrative he provides is insightful and convincing. With its accessible prose and helpful bibliography at the end, this is a superb book that should be read by anyone seeking to better understand the often derided or overlooked role the left has played in shaping America into the country in which we live today. show less

A well-written biography that neither lionizes nor destroys its subject. Each issue of controversy was dealt with in an even-handed manner, which helped me immensely, as Bryan has always been somewhat of an historical/religious enigma to me. My only concern was that Kazin was not entirely consistent with his portrayal of some events (i.e. positive spin on event in one chapter, negative recollection in next chapter). However, that concern is completely outweighed by the treatment of the show more subject. Highly recommended for those interested in politics, the intersection of religion and politics, liberalism, and those rare creatures known as public evangelical Christian liberals. show less