Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, May 25, 2020

Henry Wallace? Seriously?

John Nichols has written a thing about how Henry Wallace suggests a road map for Sandernistas to take over the Democratic Party.  Jon Chait effectively dismantles it here. Wallace had been FDR's Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture, but he was bounced from the ticket in '44, because he was too far left and FDR's health made the Veep selection very important. He then ran as a third party candidate in '48 (along with Strom Thurmond who broke to create the Dixiecrat Party).

There's a line buried in there about how Wallace fell under the spell of thinking his tiny coterie of enthusiasts represented a critical mass of the electorate.  Chait quotes from Thomas Devine's actual history tome:

 “even though Wallace claimed to have the backing of the ‘common man,’ his primary base of support had always been limited to a relatively small group of left-leaning intellectuals, middle-class professionals, and CIO labor leaders.”

That pretty much sums up the Sandernistas. Except "middle class professionals" isn't great, more like "creative class malcontents." I came across this beautiful hit piece about Meagan Day and Walker Bragman.  Bragman was on Twitter snidely belittling Neera Tanden's battle with Covid-19, because he's an arrogant little shit.

These self-styled revolutionaries adopt a pose that they think elevates their moral standing without really understanding what morality is in the first place.  These are the Leftists from the '60s who became Reagan Neocons in the '80s. It's just an article of clothing you put on because it flatters you and it's easy to change.

Henry Wallace was a fool. His "movement" was a joke. That anyone would think otherwise is sad.

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