- Glen Iris, Victoria, Australia
- American Communism and Anti Communism, Australian Communism and Anti Communism, History of Communism; Cold War: International relations, American Political History, 20th Century American Political History, Australian Political History, and 6 moreAmerican History, Australian History, Australian Politics, history of American radicalism, Political Extremism/Radicalism/Populism, and Interwar period, 1919 - 1939edit
- Nick is an accomplished scholar and commentator and a recognized authority on the history of anticommunism in the U.S... moreNick is an accomplished scholar and commentator and a recognized authority on the history of anticommunism in the U.S. and Australia. He has published on a broad range of subjects, including history, criminology, politics, historiography and road safety, and is the author of Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism (Illinois, 2016). His work has been reviewed in the New York Review of Books, Choice, and prestigious academic journals. In a diverse career, Nick has taught at Monash and RMIT universities (in Australia), managed graduate student programs, written speeches for senior government ministers, and developed public policy in health professions regulation, transport, education and other portfolios. He is currently the history reviews editor of the Australasian Journal of American Studies.edit
- Professor Mark Andrew Peel, Director of Educational Innovation, University of Leicester, Emeritus Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor of History, Graeme Davisonedit
This chapter examines the rise of Jacob Spolansky as part of a class of professional spies fostered by the growth of anticommunism during the First World War and the Red Scare. Spolansky was a migrant from Ukraine who arrived in the... more
This chapter examines the rise of Jacob Spolansky as part of a class of professional spies fostered by the growth of anticommunism during the First World War and the Red Scare. Spolansky was a migrant from Ukraine who arrived in the United States around 1910 and was recruited into the US Army's Military Intelligence Division as well as the Bureau of Investigation. During a thirty-year career, Spolansky rotated in and out of government and corporate service and spied on and infiltrated radical and labor organizations. He used legislative committees, business associations, and media outlets to engender support for harsh measures to deal with political and industrial radicals. His career highlights included coordinating the Palmer Raids in Chicago, arresting several Communist Party leaders in Michigan in 1922, and formulating Michigan's 1931 “Spolansky Act.” This chapter first considers Spolansky's early life and how he became a spy active both in law enforcement and political and industrial counterespionage before discussing his career highlights, his later years, and his legacy as a professional spy and anticommunist.
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This chapter examines the role of the Better America Federation (BAF), a business lobby headquartered in Los Angeles, in promoting the doctrine and practice of anticommunism during the interwar period. BAF and other business lobbies... more
This chapter examines the role of the Better America Federation (BAF), a business lobby headquartered in Los Angeles, in promoting the doctrine and practice of anticommunism during the interwar period. BAF and other business lobbies harnessed the passion and the infrastructure of the Red Scare to promote their economic and industrial agenda. They used anticommunism (and generous financial inducements) to revitalize and reorient urban police “Radical and Anarchist Squads.” This chapter first considers the open shop movement's fight against communism before discussing big business' domination of of economic and industrial policy during the 1920s. It then looks at the rise of the BAF and its use of the Red Squad and the California Criminal Syndicalism Act as instruments of labor suppression. It also describes the BAF's cultural war against Bolshevism, along with the scandal involving the BAF as well as the federation's demise and resurrection. The chapter shows that the BAF dominated anticommunism on the Pacific Coast from around 1920 until well into the Cold War as part of the Anticommunist Spider Web.
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This chapter traces the origins of American anticommunism by focusing on the years between 1860 and 1917. It suggests that anticommunism was a response to the failure of US political institutions and traditions to resolve the fundamental... more
This chapter traces the origins of American anticommunism by focusing on the years between 1860 and 1917. It suggests that anticommunism was a response to the failure of US political institutions and traditions to resolve the fundamental challenges of the latter nineteenth century. Anticommunism became an effective and influential political doctrine and strategy woven into America's “countersubversive” tradition of politics, prosecuted by a blend of corporate, government, and social entities comprising powerful public-private or state-society partnerships. This chapter first provides an overview of capitalism and corruption in the Gilded Age before discussing how the combination of fear, resentment, and denial culminated in the birth and support of a doctrine that styled labor organization, industrial action, and unemployment relief as illegitimate and even subversive threats to American civilization. It also examines the political purposes of anticommunism, along with several incidents of national importance that associated political and industrial radicalism with labor organization, immigration, and communism. Finally, it describes organized labor at the close of the Gilded Age.
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This chapter examines how wartime and Red Scare repression expanded into a general cultural war on “Bolshevik” causes, individuals, and organizations targeted by the Anticommunist Spider Web during the 1920s. It considers a combination of... more
This chapter examines how wartime and Red Scare repression expanded into a general cultural war on “Bolshevik” causes, individuals, and organizations targeted by the Anticommunist Spider Web during the 1920s. It considers a combination of federal, state, and local ordinances that effected political repression, suppressed free speech and economic liberty, and promoted Americanization in formal education settings led by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion. The chapter demonstrates how this climate of repression also led to the collapse of progressivism and impeded social welfare initiatives, gave rise to an amendment designed to make constitutional change virtually impossible, and resulted in the demise of the Roosevelt administration's Federal Theatre Project (FTP). It shows that the Spider Web members and their supporters created a repressive infrastructure of blacklists, witch hunts, loyalty oaths, and compulsory patriotism. In the process, the Spider Web strengthened its influence not only on the doctrine of anticommunism but also on the nation's political culture.
Research Interests:
The McCarthy-era witch hunts marked the culmination of an anticommunist crusade launched after the First World War. With Bolshevism triumphant in Russia and public discontent shaking the United States, conservatives at every level of... more
The McCarthy-era witch hunts marked the culmination of an anticommunist crusade launched after the First World War. With Bolshevism triumphant in Russia and public discontent shaking the United States, conservatives at every level of government and business created a network dedicated to sweeping away the “spider web” of radicalism they saw threatening the nation. This book shines a light on right-wing activities during the interwar period. Conservatives, eager to dispel communism's appeal to the working class, railed against a supposed Soviet-directed conspiracy composed of socialists, trade unions, peace and civil liberties groups, feminists, liberals, aliens, and Jews. The rhetoric and power of anticommunism made for devastating weapons in a systematic war for control of the country against progressive causes. But, as the book shows, the term “spider web” far more accurately described the anticommunist movement than it did the makeup and operations of international communism. The book details how anticommunist myths and propaganda influenced mainstream politics in America, and how its ongoing efforts paved the way for the McCarthyite Fifties—and augured the conservative backlash that would one day transform American politics.
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This chapter examines the significance of the Anticommunist Spider Web to anticommunism. Members of the Anticommunist Spider Web formed a conspiracy against democracy that was far more influential than the “communist” conspiracy they... more
This chapter examines the significance of the Anticommunist Spider Web to anticommunism. Members of the Anticommunist Spider Web formed a conspiracy against democracy that was far more influential than the “communist” conspiracy they fought. Protecting economic advantage was only part of the Anticommunist Spider Web's purpose. Business and political interests also used anticommunism as a tool to control foreign and domestic policy in the challenging environment created by the Great War, socialist revolutions in Europe, and the bitter industrial disputes of the postwar downturn. Government intelligence operatives were among those most concerned by anticommunism, and the Red Scare put state and military intelligence services at the heart of the Spider Web. This chapter discusses the relationship between the Bureau of Investigation, the US Army Military Intelligence Division, the US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, and the private intelligence networks run by the Spider Web.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines how political terror was used in the interwar period as yet another weapon in the campaign waged by the anticommunist movement. Several incidents of political terror that occurred in the United States after the Great... more
This chapter examines how political terror was used in the interwar period as yet another weapon in the campaign waged by the anticommunist movement. Several incidents of political terror that occurred in the United States after the Great War were grounded in attitudes expressed in the prosecution of leaders of revolutionary and nonconformist organizations. These attitudes were also expressed in the incarceration and even execution of symbolic scapegoats, including political prisoners, anarchists such as Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and radicals like the Wobblies, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the prevalence of racism and nativism, perpetrated by vigilante groups, as part of anticommunism's program of political terror. The movement's objective was clear: to intimidate and prevent people from supporting certain ideas and organizations by destroying the lives of a select few.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines antidemocracy and paranoid authoritarianism as part of the Anticommunist Spider Web. It shows how anticommunist conspiracy theory, anticommunist propaganda, and the actions of many anticommunists encouraged the... more
This chapter examines antidemocracy and paranoid authoritarianism as part of the Anticommunist Spider Web. It shows how anticommunist conspiracy theory, anticommunist propaganda, and the actions of many anticommunists encouraged the destruction of democracy and its replacement by a system of government by kinship group or tribe. It argues that the propaganda issued by the Spider Web, stressing the inherent disloyalty and degeneracy of huge sections of the community, inevitably pointed toward the restriction of American citizenship to those who truly deserved it. Anticommunism sought to restrict the franchise to people of the same ethnic background and religious and political beliefs. So even though anticommunist rhetoric emphasized the virtues of republican government and the universal basis of citizenship, it ultimately sought to legitimize an antidemocratic and even authoritarian society.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines how the anticommunist movement created the so-called Spider Web Chart that articulated its narrative of a vast and deadly conspiracy against America mounted from within by Bolshevik spies, agents, and dupes.... more
This chapter examines how the anticommunist movement created the so-called Spider Web Chart that articulated its narrative of a vast and deadly conspiracy against America mounted from within by Bolshevik spies, agents, and dupes. Representatives of government, big business, high finance, and the military were linked ever tightly by the rallying cause of anticommunism. The anticommunist movement sought to coherently define their cause and promote it in the wider community. Soon enough, the movement produced its ideal propaganda in an image that satisfied its members' political and psychological needs: the Spider Web Chart. Produced by the Chemical Warfare Service of the US Army, the chart proved to be a scheme of unique power, ideal for spreading the message of anticommunism. This chapter first considers how the Spider Web Chart was conceptualized before discussing its enduring effects. It shows that the Spider Web Chart encouraged anticommunists to develop an extensive and highly connected network of kindred associations and a monolithic ideology.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines the myth of conspiracy theory perpetuated by anticommunists as part of an elaborate propaganda. It shows how conspiracy theory was employed as a political technique of choice for opportunistic and calculating... more
This chapter examines the myth of conspiracy theory perpetuated by anticommunists as part of an elaborate propaganda. It shows how conspiracy theory was employed as a political technique of choice for opportunistic and calculating anticommunists, who inflamed and manipulated emotions to advance their cause. It considers how anticommunism found its ultimate reason for being in the notion that the United States was being subjected to unceasing subversion by an army of largely imported Bolsheviks, socialists, syndicalists, and anarchists. Anticommunist propaganda and conspiracy theory insisted that this army was being aided by an even larger number of treacherous and gullible homegrown enemies, from radicalized trade unionists and embittered African Americans to what they call unfeminine feminists, softheaded peaceniks, and eccentric freethinkers. The chapter discusses the anticommunists' conspiracy mythology by focusing on their paranoid politics, their justifications for their disavowal of communism, and their idealization of life in America.
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This chapter examines how the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia contributed to the rise of the Red Scare. On November 7, 1917, revolutionaries from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party seized power in Petrograd... more
This chapter examines how the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia contributed to the rise of the Red Scare. On November 7, 1917, revolutionaries from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party seized power in Petrograd and proclaimed the world's first socialist government. The Bolsheviks endorsed violent, class-based insurrection and policies of land and resource nationalization. News of the Bolshevik uprising intensified the wartime atmosphere in the United States, in which fear of treachery was rampant. This chapter first considers American intervention in Russia during the period 1917–1920 before discussing the emergence of the Red Scare in 1919–1920 and of anticommunism in the labor movement. It also looks at the strikes, bombings, and deportations in 1919 that offset whatever prestige the American Federation of Labor (AFL) accrued during the First World War. Finally, it describes the end of the Red Scare following US attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer's fall and the release of the National Popular Government League report.
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This chapter examines John Bond Trevor's contribution to anticommunism. Trevor is probably the only man who significantly influenced both the doctrinal evolution of... more
This chapter examines John Bond Trevor's contribution to anticommunism. Trevor is probably the only man who significantly influenced both the doctrinal evolution of anticommunism and the revolutionary immigration acts of the early 1920s. As director of the New York City branch of the US Army Military Intelligence Division (MI) during the Red Scare, Trevor directly observed and suppressed “radical” elements of the populace. His opinions about the sources of radicalism and the composition of the radical community were solicited by companion organizations, especially the Bureau of Investigation, and MI headquarters in Washington, D.C. He was also a crucial proponent of immigration restrictions as a credible and practicable means of protecting the United States from Bolshevism. This chapter first looks at the origins of Trevor before discussing his collaboration with Archibald Stevenson in forming the Lusk Committee to study the “Bolshevist movement.” It also explores how Trevor synthesized and translated the scientific theories of the eugenics movement into coherent legislation.
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Research Interests: History, American History, American Studies, Art, Genealogy, and 15 moreBiography, Film History, Australian History, Acting, Classical Hollywood, American film history, Euripides Medea, Adelaide, Historical Studies, Dysfunctional Family, Elocution, Australian Historical Studies, Broadway History, Australian Theatre History, and Judith Anderson
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http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/eras/an-inspiration-misunderstood-australian-anti-communists-and-the-lure-of-the-us -1917-1935/ Throughout the twentieth century, communism influenced western societies like no other political ideology. In... more
http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/eras/an-inspiration-misunderstood-australian-anti-communists-and-the-lure-of-the-us -1917-1935/ Throughout the twentieth century, communism influenced western societies like no other political ideology. In the United States, it became a political obsession, the dominant influence on foreign policy after the Second World War, as well as a primary source of identification for American citizens. While its significance in Australia was less marked, and its character less extreme, anti-communism was a major influence on foreign policy and communism was an anathema to a majority of Australians. Yet, for all its significance, western reactions to communism remain understudied and misunderstood. While the impact of anti-communism during the Cold War is widely recognised, its evolution and development before this time is infrequently discussed. This article examines one little-known but important facet of early Australian anti-communism: its debt to its American variant. This relationship is worth exploring for several reasons. In both nations, the triumph of anti-communism was the result, to a considerable extent, of the efforts of a surprisingly small number of government officials, intelligence and security professionals, and special interest groups. The intimate relationship between these officials, spies and special interests jeopardised democratic government, as anti-communist fervour encouraged a massive, unprecedented and largely unnoticed transfer of administrative power from more accountable branches of government to new, permanent bureaucracies: the security and intelligence services. Anti-communism underpinned and justified political surveillance and other forms of authoritarian behaviour. It became more than a political ideology, mutating into a force for social conformity and a central arbiter of the relationship between government and citizens, which was progressively characterised by governmental mistrust of and antipathy for citizens. Yet, there were telling differences in the ways that Australian and American anti-communists could and did respond to the threat of communism. These differences, along with the muted success Australian anti-communists enjoyed in attempting to introduce American political ideas, throw other common and particular characteristics of American and Australian socio-political culture into relief. It is expedient here to make a few general remarks regarding the scholarship of Australian and American anti-communism, both to situate this article and explain its particular focus. As noted above, pre-Cold War anti-communism is a comparatively neglected subject. Moreover, a number of problematic perceptions about early anti-communism continue to exercise considerable influence, in spite of the efforts of a few scholars. The most problematic of these perceptions is that anti-communism's influence dramatically dissipated after the great Red Scare of 1918-19 before resurfacing after the Second World War. Much of the literature on the Red Scare directly
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... Wade also forwarded copies of O'Hare's speeches to authorities in districts where she planned to speak, so that they might ... 18 See Australian Archives (AA), “Records of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch” (CIB),... more
... Wade also forwarded copies of O'Hare's speeches to authorities in districts where she planned to speak, so that they might ... 18 See Australian Archives (AA), “Records of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch” (CIB), numerous records; Nadine Helmi and Gerhard Fischer, The ...
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The United States has pursued unrelenting “tough on crime” policies for half a century. The accepted political wisdom that being “tough on crime” is a vote winner has been all but unshakable. The U.S. is now the world’s largest... more
The United States has pursued unrelenting “tough on crime” policies for half a century. The accepted political wisdom that being “tough on crime” is a vote winner has been all but unshakable. The U.S. is now the world’s largest incarcerator by a massive margin; incarceration levels have increased fourfold in four decades, with more than two million Americans currently serving time behind bars. Legal and criminology scholars had argued — seemingly in vain — for decades that mass incarceration is flawed policy. They highlighted its extreme expense, causing of gratuitous suffering, and failure to reduce the incidence of crime. Despite this, lawmakers have largely refused to budge. However, in one of the most striking policy shifts in recent history, lawmakers have radically changed their approach to dealing with crime. They are now promulgating policies that will result in the release of offenders from prison, rather than sending more of them there. Especially remarkable is that it was the conservative Republican federal government, led by then-President Donald Trump (publicly an advocate for “tough on crime” policies), that was most active and effective in reducing prison numbers. Incredibly, the U.S. is now moving towards a period of decarceration. This process has accelerated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce health risks to some prisoners. The number of incarcerated African Americans (who are overrepresented in prisons) has also significantly declined in recent years. This article explores the catalysts for this change. The correction to American criminal justice policy and practice that we are now witnessing provides compelling evidence that the democratic system in the U.S. can lead to profound policy changes over time. This article also identifies challenges that the U.S. will face as it attempts to craft and implement a less punitive response to crime. The article also seeks to establish a roadmap for introducing sound and empirically valid sentencing reforms that can ensure that the current momentum of reducing prison numbers is not reversed.
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Research Interests:
The United States is experiencing a mass incarceration crisis. More Americans are imprisoned per capita than any other people on earth, and by a large margin. The financial toll of current rates of imprisonment on the American community... more
The United States is experiencing a mass incarceration crisis. More Americans are imprisoned per capita than any other people on earth, and by a large margin. The financial toll of current rates of imprisonment on the American community is no longer sustainable, and the hardship inflicted by imprisonment on the great majority of prisoners is morally unjustifiable. The striking aspect about this crisis is that it was utterly predictable. For decades, sentencing experts have noted that several objectives that have been pursued to justify harsher sentences, such as general deterrence and general incapacitation, are flawed. These warnings have been ignored by law-makers, who instead have pursued an unremitting “tough on crime” agenda. This has resulted in an almost total disregard of expertise in sentencing law and a substantial gulf between practice and what is achievable in sentencing law. This Article argues that the major causes of the crisis are long-standing punitive attitudes to ...
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Published by University of Illinois Press, May 2016
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his presentation introduces a new National Transport Commission project, undertaken in collaboration with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, to develop a national framework to collect and analyse fatigue data by the end of 2016.... more
his presentation introduces a new National Transport Commission project, undertaken in collaboration with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator, to develop a national framework to collect and analyse fatigue data by the end of 2016. Historic challenges associated with reforms of the national heavy vehicle fatigue regulations are highlighted; and in particular the need for an improved evidence-base before further amendments of fatigue laws are considered. For example, agencies today are collecting enforcement and crash investigation data using different processes and formats. This limits opportunities to collate and compare meaningful fatigue data and an initial step would be to standardise fatigue reporting. From this foundation, a number of improvements can be made. For example, one improvement could involve recording in a standardised format when a driver in a fatigue-related crash is accredited in a government scheme that permits more than “standard” hours of work. The NTC has dev...
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John McLaren, Free Radicals: Of the Left in Postwar Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publications, Melbourne, 2003, pp 386, pb $39.95, ISBN 174097025X.
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This chapter examines how wartime and Red Scare repression expanded into a general cultural war on “Bolshevik” causes, individuals, and organizations targeted by the Anticommunist Spider Web during the 1920s. It considers a combination of... more
This chapter examines how wartime and Red Scare repression expanded into a general cultural war on “Bolshevik” causes, individuals, and organizations targeted by the Anticommunist Spider Web during the 1920s. It considers a combination of federal, state, and local ordinances that effected political repression, suppressed free speech and economic liberty, and promoted Americanization in formal education settings led by the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion. The chapter demonstrates how this climate of repression also led to the collapse of progressivism and impeded social welfare initiatives, gave rise to an amendment designed to make constitutional change virtually impossible, and resulted in the demise of the Roosevelt administration's Federal Theatre Project (FTP). It shows that the Spider Web members and their supporters created a repressive infrastructure of blacklists, witch hunts, loyalty oaths, and compulsory patriotism. In the process, the Spider Web strengthened its ...
Research Interests:
This chapter examines the role of the Better America Federation (BAF), a business lobby headquartered in Los Angeles, in promoting the doctrine and practice of anticommunism during the interwar period. BAF and other business lobbies... more
This chapter examines the role of the Better America Federation (BAF), a business lobby headquartered in Los Angeles, in promoting the doctrine and practice of anticommunism during the interwar period. BAF and other business lobbies harnessed the passion and the infrastructure of the Red Scare to promote their economic and industrial agenda. They used anticommunism (and generous financial inducements) to revitalize and reorient urban police “Radical and Anarchist Squads.” This chapter first considers the open shop movement's fight against communism before discussing big business' domination of of economic and industrial policy during the 1920s. It then looks at the rise of the BAF and its use of the Red Squad and the California Criminal Syndicalism Act as instruments of labor suppression. It also describes the BAF's cultural war against Bolshevism, along with the scandal involving the BAF as well as the federation's demise and resurrection. The chapter shows that the...
Research Interests:
This chapter examines how political terror was used in the interwar period as yet another weapon in the campaign waged by the anticommunist movement. Several incidents of political terror that occurred in the United States after the Great... more
This chapter examines how political terror was used in the interwar period as yet another weapon in the campaign waged by the anticommunist movement. Several incidents of political terror that occurred in the United States after the Great War were grounded in attitudes expressed in the prosecution of leaders of revolutionary and nonconformist organizations. These attitudes were also expressed in the incarceration and even execution of symbolic scapegoats, including political prisoners, anarchists such as Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and radicals like the Wobblies, Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the prevalence of racism and nativism, perpetrated by vigilante groups, as part of anticommunism's program of political terror. The movement's objective was clear: to intimidate and prevent people from supporting certain ideas and organizations by destroying the lives of a select few.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines the myth of conspiracy theory perpetuated by anticommunists as part of an elaborate propaganda. It shows how conspiracy theory was employed as a political technique of choice for opportunistic and calculating... more
This chapter examines the myth of conspiracy theory perpetuated by anticommunists as part of an elaborate propaganda. It shows how conspiracy theory was employed as a political technique of choice for opportunistic and calculating anticommunists, who inflamed and manipulated emotions to advance their cause. It considers how anticommunism found its ultimate reason for being in the notion that the United States was being subjected to unceasing subversion by an army of largely imported Bolsheviks, socialists, syndicalists, and anarchists. Anticommunist propaganda and conspiracy theory insisted that this army was being aided by an even larger number of treacherous and gullible homegrown enemies, from radicalized trade unionists and embittered African Americans to what they call unfeminine feminists, softheaded peaceniks, and eccentric freethinkers. The chapter discusses the anticommunists' conspiracy mythology by focusing on their paranoid politics, their justifications for their di...
Research Interests:
This chapter examines antidemocracy and paranoid authoritarianism as part of the Anticommunist Spider Web. It shows how anticommunist conspiracy theory, anticommunist propaganda, and the actions of many anticommunists encouraged the... more
This chapter examines antidemocracy and paranoid authoritarianism as part of the Anticommunist Spider Web. It shows how anticommunist conspiracy theory, anticommunist propaganda, and the actions of many anticommunists encouraged the destruction of democracy and its replacement by a system of government by kinship group or tribe. It argues that the propaganda issued by the Spider Web, stressing the inherent disloyalty and degeneracy of huge sections of the community, inevitably pointed toward the restriction of American citizenship to those who truly deserved it. Anticommunism sought to restrict the franchise to people of the same ethnic background and religious and political beliefs. So even though anticommunist rhetoric emphasized the virtues of republican government and the universal basis of citizenship, it ultimately sought to legitimize an antidemocratic and even authoritarian society.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines how the anticommunist movement created the so-called Spider Web Chart that articulated its narrative of a vast and deadly conspiracy against America mounted from within by Bolshevik spies, agents, and dupes.... more
This chapter examines how the anticommunist movement created the so-called Spider Web Chart that articulated its narrative of a vast and deadly conspiracy against America mounted from within by Bolshevik spies, agents, and dupes. Representatives of government, big business, high finance, and the military were linked ever tightly by the rallying cause of anticommunism. The anticommunist movement sought to coherently define their cause and promote it in the wider community. Soon enough, the movement produced its ideal propaganda in an image that satisfied its members' political and psychological needs: the Spider Web Chart. Produced by the Chemical Warfare Service of the US Army, the chart proved to be a scheme of unique power, ideal for spreading the message of anticommunism. This chapter first considers how the Spider Web Chart was conceptualized before discussing its enduring effects. It shows that the Spider Web Chart encouraged anticommunists to develop an extensive and highl...
Research Interests:
This chapter examines the significance of the Anticommunist Spider Web to anticommunism. Members of the Anticommunist Spider Web formed a conspiracy against democracy that was far more influential than the “communist” conspiracy they... more
This chapter examines the significance of the Anticommunist Spider Web to anticommunism. Members of the Anticommunist Spider Web formed a conspiracy against democracy that was far more influential than the “communist” conspiracy they fought. Protecting economic advantage was only part of the Anticommunist Spider Web's purpose. Business and political interests also used anticommunism as a tool to control foreign and domestic policy in the challenging environment created by the Great War, socialist revolutions in Europe, and the bitter industrial disputes of the postwar downturn. Government intelligence operatives were among those most concerned by anticommunism, and the Red Scare put state and military intelligence services at the heart of the Spider Web. This chapter discusses the relationship between the Bureau of Investigation, the US Army Military Intelligence Division, the US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, and the private intelligence networks run by the Spider Web.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines the origins of the Red Scare of 1919–1920, with particular emphasis on the role of the United States's entry into the First World War. The effort required to bring a reluctant nation into the war and quash... more
This chapter examines the origins of the Red Scare of 1919–1920, with particular emphasis on the role of the United States's entry into the First World War. The effort required to bring a reluctant nation into the war and quash dissenting voices brought the federal government into the business of systematic rather than ad hoc industrial and political repression. The civil liberties of citizens who protested either the commitment to war or its effects were suppressed. The place of nativism and antiradicalism in American politics and society became elevated. More importantly, the experience of war set political precedents that helped to spawn a new movement devoted to promoting the cause of anticommunism in American life. The chapter first considers how US participation in the First World War contributed to the emergence of “modern” anticommunism before discussing the role of the American Protective League in the repression efforts during the war. It also explores the business of ...
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This chapter traces the origins of American anticommunism by focusing on the years between 1860 and 1917. It suggests that anticommunism was a response to the failure of US political institutions and traditions to resolve the fundamental... more
This chapter traces the origins of American anticommunism by focusing on the years between 1860 and 1917. It suggests that anticommunism was a response to the failure of US political institutions and traditions to resolve the fundamental challenges of the latter nineteenth century. Anticommunism became an effective and influential political doctrine and strategy woven into America's “countersubversive” tradition of politics, prosecuted by a blend of corporate, government, and social entities comprising powerful public-private or state-society partnerships. This chapter first provides an overview of capitalism and corruption in the Gilded Age before discussing how the combination of fear, resentment, and denial culminated in the birth and support of a doctrine that styled labor organization, industrial action, and unemployment relief as illegitimate and even subversive threats to American civilization. It also examines the political purposes of anticommunism, along with several i...
Research Interests:
The McCarthy-era witch hunts marked the culmination of an anticommunist crusade launched after the First World War. With Bolshevism triumphant in Russia and public discontent shaking the United States, conservatives at every level of... more
The McCarthy-era witch hunts marked the culmination of an anticommunist crusade launched after the First World War. With Bolshevism triumphant in Russia and public discontent shaking the United States, conservatives at every level of government and business created a network dedicated to sweeping away the “spider web” of radicalism they saw threatening the nation. This book shines a light on right-wing activities during the interwar period. Conservatives, eager to dispel communism's appeal to the working class, railed against a supposed Soviet-directed conspiracy composed of socialists, trade unions, peace and civil liberties groups, feminists, liberals, aliens, and Jews. The rhetoric and power of anticommunism made for devastating weapons in a systematic war for control of the country against progressive causes. But, as the book shows, the term “spider web” far more accurately described the anticommunist movement than it did the makeup and operations of international communism....
Research Interests:
This chapter examines how the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia contributed to the rise of the Red Scare. On November 7, 1917, revolutionaries from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party seized power in Petrograd... more
This chapter examines how the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia contributed to the rise of the Red Scare. On November 7, 1917, revolutionaries from the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party seized power in Petrograd and proclaimed the world's first socialist government. The Bolsheviks endorsed violent, class-based insurrection and policies of land and resource nationalization. News of the Bolshevik uprising intensified the wartime atmosphere in the United States, in which fear of treachery was rampant. This chapter first considers American intervention in Russia during the period 1917–1920 before discussing the emergence of the Red Scare in 1919–1920 and of anticommunism in the labor movement. It also looks at the strikes, bombings, and deportations in 1919 that offset whatever prestige the American Federation of Labor (AFL) accrued during the First World War. Finally, it describes the end of the Red Scare following US attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer...
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This chapter examines the rise of Jacob Spolansky as part of a class of professional spies fostered by the growth of anticommunism during the First World War and the Red Scare. Spolansky was a migrant from Ukraine who arrived in the... more
This chapter examines the rise of Jacob Spolansky as part of a class of professional spies fostered by the growth of anticommunism during the First World War and the Red Scare. Spolansky was a migrant from Ukraine who arrived in the United States around 1910 and was recruited into the US Army's Military Intelligence Division as well as the Bureau of Investigation. During a thirty-year career, Spolansky rotated in and out of government and corporate service and spied on and infiltrated radical and labor organizations. He used legislative committees, business associations, and media outlets to engender support for harsh measures to deal with political and industrial radicals. His career highlights included coordinating the Palmer Raids in Chicago, arresting several Communist Party leaders in Michigan in 1922, and formulating Michigan's 1931 “Spolansky Act.” This chapter first considers Spolansky's early life and how he became a spy active both in law enforcement and politi...
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Conservative Australian governments, in common with their counterparts in the US and the UK, used political terror, enforced through physical violence, civil ordinance laws, incarceration, sackings and injunctions against strike action to... more
Conservative Australian governments, in common with their counterparts in the US and the UK, used political terror, enforced through physical violence, civil ordinance laws, incarceration, sackings and injunctions against strike action to retain their hold on political power during World War I, the 1920s and the 1930s. This pressure was crucial to the inter-war success that the Right enjoyed in defining the political character of Australian nationalism. Nevertheless, the Australian government was considerably less successful than governments in the US, for example, in wiping ‘Bolshevism’ and labour activism more generally from the political scene in Australia. This is demonstrated, most obviously, by the election of a federal Australian Labor Party government in 1929. After a sustained attack on labour radicalism throughout the 1920s, the election was virtually a plebiscite on the conservative Bruce government’s proposal to abolish the Commonwealth Arbitration Court. This lack of success was the result of a range of political, social and psychological factors, all of which impeded the growth and potency of Australian anti-communism. While passionate and sincere in their beliefs, Australia’s founding anti-communists nevertheless failed to steer Australia towards the kind of authoritarian and even fascist society for which many wished. To a significant extent, they failed because they lacked determination, political courage and craft. However, their influence was also limited by the political and social power of the labour movement, which was far greater than in the US.
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While its impact during the cold war is widely recognised, its evolution and development before this time is less frequently discussed. It has been regarded too narrowly as a political phenomenon driven by economic concerns. Because... more
While its impact during the cold war is widely recognised, its evolution and development before this time is less frequently discussed. It has been regarded too narrowly as a political phenomenon driven by economic concerns. Because anti-communism flourished in democracies, historians have been complacent in accounting for its success and have too readily interpreted it as a creature of the sovereign people, a manifestation of collective will. Australian historians have also been more preoccupied with the political left and have failed to speculate on the broader implications of the power of conservative and reactionary forces. This is unfortunate, for anti-communism brought government officials and special interest groups into an intimate relationship that jeopardised democratic government. Anti-communism also encouraged a massive, unprecedented and largely unnoticed transfer of administrative power from more accountable branches of government to new, permanent bureaucracies: the security and intelligence services. It underpinned and justified political surveillance of civilians and other forms of authoritarian behaviour. It grew to become more than a political ideology: it mutated into a force for conservative social conformity as well as a central arbiter of the relationship between Australian governments and citizens, which was progressively characterised by governmental mistrust, antipathy and an abstract interest in citizens.
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This chapter examines John Bond Trevor's contribution to anticommunism. Trevor is probably the only man who significantly influenced both the doctrinal evolution of anticommunism and the revolutionary immigration acts of the early... more
This chapter examines John Bond Trevor's contribution to anticommunism. Trevor is probably the only man who significantly influenced both the doctrinal evolution of anticommunism and the revolutionary immigration acts of the early 1920s. As director of the New York City branch of the US Army Military Intelligence Division (MI) during the Red Scare, Trevor directly observed and suppressed “radical” elements of the populace. His opinions about the sources of radicalism and the composition of the radical community were solicited by companion organizations, especially the Bureau of Investigation, and MI headquarters in Washington, D.C. He was also a crucial proponent of immigration restrictions as a credible and practicable means of protecting the United States from Bolshevism. This chapter first looks at the origins of Trevor before discussing his collaboration with Archibald Stevenson in forming the Lusk Committee to study the “Bolshevist movement.” It also explores how Trevor syn...
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The United States has pursued unrelenting “tough on crime” policies for half a century. The accepted political wisdom that being “tough on crime” is a vote winner has been all but unshakable. The U.S. is now the world’s largest... more
The United States has pursued unrelenting “tough on crime” policies for half a century. The accepted political wisdom that being “tough on crime” is a vote winner has been all but unshakable. The U.S. is now the world’s largest incarcerator by a massive margin; incarceration levels have increased fourfold in four decades, with more than two million Americans currently serving time behind bars. Legal and criminology scholars had argued — seemingly in vain — for decades that mass incarceration is flawed policy. They highlighted its extreme expense, causing of gratuitous suffering, and failure to reduce the incidence of crime. Despite this, lawmakers have largely refused to budge. However, in one of the most striking policy shifts in recent history, lawmakers have radically changed their approach to dealing with crime. They are now promulgating policies that will result in the release of offenders from prison, rather than sending more of them there. Especially remarkable is that it was the conservative Republican federal government, led by then-President Donald Trump (publicly an advocate for “tough on crime” policies), that was most active and effective in reducing prison numbers. Incredibly, the U.S. is now moving towards a period of decarceration. This process has accelerated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce health risks to some prisoners. The number of incarcerated African Americans (who are overrepresented in prisons) has also significantly declined in recent years. This article explores the catalysts for this change. The correction to American criminal justice policy and practice that we are now witnessing provides compelling evidence that the democratic system in the U.S. can lead to profound policy changes over time. This article also identifies challenges that the U.S. will face as it attempts to craft and implement a less punitive response to crime. The article also seeks to establish a roadmap for introducing sound and empirically valid sentencing reforms that can ensure that the current momentum of reducing prison numbers is not reversed.
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Criminal sanctions involve the deliberate infliction of pain on offenders. Yet sentencing is one of the least developed and least progressive practices in our society. Sentencing systems in the US have not been reformed in response to... more
Criminal sanctions involve the deliberate infliction of pain on
offenders. Yet sentencing is one of the least developed and least progressive practices in our society. Sentencing systems in the US have not been reformed in response to technological advances and the effects of these changes - in particular, the Internet - on human behavior and society.
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the internet needs to be regulated as a utility. Like the removal of other utilities, denial of computer access therefore constitutes a deprivation to most people.
Yet prisoners are reflexively denied computer and internet access without any
regard to the newfound hardship that this imposes on them.
This Article sets forth a number of reform proposals to sentencing law and practice that would properly reflect the social revolution caused by the internet. The reforms will integrate internet access into the penal process and to make sentencing fairer and more efficient, while also ensuring that the key objectives of sentencing in the form of community protection and proportionate punishment are enhanced.
offenders. Yet sentencing is one of the least developed and least progressive practices in our society. Sentencing systems in the US have not been reformed in response to technological advances and the effects of these changes - in particular, the Internet - on human behavior and society.
Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the internet needs to be regulated as a utility. Like the removal of other utilities, denial of computer access therefore constitutes a deprivation to most people.
Yet prisoners are reflexively denied computer and internet access without any
regard to the newfound hardship that this imposes on them.
This Article sets forth a number of reform proposals to sentencing law and practice that would properly reflect the social revolution caused by the internet. The reforms will integrate internet access into the penal process and to make sentencing fairer and more efficient, while also ensuring that the key objectives of sentencing in the form of community protection and proportionate punishment are enhanced.
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This Article examines the gulf between sentencing knowledge and practice, and makes recommendations regarding measures that could be taken to bridge that gap, so that lawmakers bring sentencing practice into line with current knowledge in... more
This Article examines the gulf between sentencing knowledge and practice, and makes recommendations regarding measures that could be taken to bridge that gap, so that lawmakers bring sentencing practice into line with current knowledge in this area and make it fairer and more efficient. This is a greatly under-researched area of law and policy. If proposals were adopted, incarceration rates would be substantially reduced, far less taxpayer dollars would be spent on prisons, and the community would likely be safer. The authors argue a key reason for the United States’ mass incarceration crisis and, ultimately, the separation between sentencing knowledge and practice, is an historical preference for retributive justice. While criminologists have attributed this emphasis to the so-called “tough on crime” rhetoric and policies that dominated criminal justice policy in the 1960s, “tough on crime” policies are deeply rooted in political, social, and economic traditions that were entrenched in American society well before the 1960s and, in some cases, even the 1860s. The diverse sources of these attitudes are explored in detail. The Article demonstrates that such punitive attitudes have been generated and fuelled by racism, the national crime wave c. 1960 to 1980, economic instability over the past three decades, and the privatisation of aspects of criminal justice policy and practice. The authors maintain that, despite this longstanding attraction to retributive justice and criminals’ lack of political capital, attitudes can change and it is possible for sentencing practice to be reformed in response to expert knowledge
Research Interests: United States History, HISTORY OF CRIME AND LAW, United States Political History, History of Law, United States Politics, and 6 moreHistory of Crime and Punishment, History of Crime and Criminal Justice, History of Crime and Criminology, History of Criminal Law, History of Criminal Justice, and History of Crime and Criminality
abstract As combatant nations commemorate the centenary of the " Great War, " it is important to acknowledge the role of the war ushering in a new era of state propaganda. The technological advent both of total war and of modern... more
abstract As combatant nations commemorate the centenary of the " Great War, " it is important to acknowledge the role of the war ushering in a new era of state propaganda. The technological advent both of total war and of modern communications media encouraged governments to attend as much to the morale of civilians as enlisted men. While all combatant governments invested heavily in propaganda, US government propaganda was recognized as being distinctive, both for the quality and breadth of its operations and for having brought all such activity under the control of a purpose-built official agency, the Committee on Public Information. The committee was not only an American but a world first. Its legacy was profound and complex. Its ingenuity is disputed, as are its goals and the methods it used to achieve them. The sense of many Americans in the 1920s and '30s that they had been manipulated by the committee strengthened isolationist sentiment and made more difficult Franklin Roosevelt's task of persuading the electorate to support war against the fascist powers of Europe and Asia. Although the CPI's tainted reputation influenced Roosevelt's decision not to revive the committee, the messages and techniques it pioneered were widely used to help wage the Second World War and also the Cold War.
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http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/eras/an-inspiration-misunderstood-australian-anti-communists-and-the-lure-of-the-us -1917-1935/ Throughout the twentieth century, communism influenced western societies like no other political ideology. In... more
http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/eras/an-inspiration-misunderstood-australian-anti-communists-and-the-lure-of-the-us -1917-1935/ Throughout the twentieth century, communism influenced western societies like no other political ideology. In the United States, it became a political obsession, the dominant influence on foreign policy after the Second World War, as well as a primary source of identification for American citizens. While its significance in Australia was less marked, and its character less extreme, anti-communism was a major influence on foreign policy and communism was an anathema to a majority of Australians. Yet, for all its significance, western reactions to communism remain understudied and misunderstood. While the impact of anti-communism during the Cold War is widely recognised, its evolution and development before this time is infrequently discussed. This article examines one little-known but important facet of early Australian anti-communism: its debt to its American variant. This relationship is worth exploring for several reasons. In both nations, the triumph of anti-communism was the result, to a considerable extent, of the efforts of a surprisingly small number of government officials, intelligence and security professionals, and special interest groups. The intimate relationship between these officials, spies and special interests jeopardised democratic government, as anti-communist fervour encouraged a massive, unprecedented and largely unnoticed transfer of administrative power from more accountable branches of government to new, permanent bureaucracies: the security and intelligence services. Anti-communism underpinned and justified political surveillance and other forms of authoritarian behaviour. It became more than a political ideology, mutating into a force for social conformity and a central arbiter of the relationship between government and citizens, which was progressively characterised by governmental mistrust of and antipathy for citizens. Yet, there were telling differences in the ways that Australian and American anti-communists could and did respond to the threat of communism. These differences, along with the muted success Australian anti-communists enjoyed in attempting to introduce American political ideas, throw other common and particular characteristics of American and Australian socio-political culture into relief. It is expedient here to make a few general remarks regarding the scholarship of Australian and American anti-communism, both to situate this article and explain its particular focus. As noted above, pre-Cold War anti-communism is a comparatively neglected subject. Moreover, a number of problematic perceptions about early anti-communism continue to exercise considerable influence, in spite of the efforts of a few scholars. The most problematic of these perceptions is that anti-communism's influence dramatically dissipated after the great Red Scare of 1918-19 before resurfacing after the Second World War. Much of the literature on the Red Scare directly
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Veteran historian Robert Goldstein is perhaps best known for sweeping surveys of political repression in the United States, including Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to the Present (1978) and Little Red Scares:... more
Veteran historian Robert Goldstein is perhaps best known for sweeping surveys of political repression in the United States, including Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to the Present (1978) and Little Red Scares: Anti-Communism and Political Repression in the US, 1921–1946. His latest book, Discrediting the Red Scare, takes a different approach, focusing on the travails of one man to demonstrate the grave effects of Cold War laws on the professional and personal lives of American citizens. The man in question, James Kutcher, was in many respects unremarkable. By his own admission, Kutcher had expected his existence to be noted by the wider world on just two occasions: the coming and leaving of it. Yet by demonstrating what Goldstein describes as “absolutely extraordinary stamina, determination, and courage” in fighting the government for the restoration of his rights, Kutcher helped consign the federal employees’ “loyalty” program to the dustbin of history.
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Research Interests:
This article focuses on the vital contribution made by a network of inter-war activists in the US government, the military, the security services, eugenics institutes and big business lobbies to the creation of American anti-communism.... more
This article focuses on the vital contribution made by a network of inter-war activists in the US government, the military, the security services, eugenics institutes and big business lobbies to the creation of American anti-communism. Long before the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, this network helped entrench an ideology of anti-communism in the center of American political life. Its members developed political propaganda and mythology, and spread their message across the political, economic and social spectrum. In particular, the article debunks the myth of the 1920s as a period of political “normalcy”; describes the linkages between nascent anti-communism and America’s immigration policy revolution of the mid-1920s; explains the prevalence of racial theory, anti-labor views and cultural prejudice in the US’s growing national security apparatus; ties the emergence of 20th century anti-communism to long-standing anti-labor views and activity; describes the rise of “100% Americanism” in response to communism; and explains how doctrines of innate inequality were used to justify what was described as “anti-communist” repression.
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Published by University of Illinois Press, May 2016
Research Interests:
Published by University of Illinois Press, May 2016
Austrailan order form
Austrailan order form
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Alexander Hamilton, as many people are currently (re)discovering, was an uncommonly gifted man. Perhaps the most overlooked Founding Father, Hamilton combined prodigious talent with equally prodigious ambition and energy. Like very few... more
Alexander Hamilton, as many people are currently (re)discovering, was an uncommonly gifted man. Perhaps the most overlooked Founding Father, Hamilton combined prodigious talent with equally prodigious ambition and energy. Like very few others in European and American history, he excelled as a political theoretician, administrator and military commander; Leon Trotsky arguably combined similar talents and achievements. Christian Parenti, professor of economics at City University of New York, has written this book to correct what he describes as the US's "strange relationship" with Hamilton. Overlooked or criticized for much of the twentieth century, Hamilton has suddenly been made "hip" by an unusual and successful musical based on his life. Yet, Parenti claims, Hamilton's most important contribution to the US and indeed the wider world, his "dirigiste" (interventionist) economic theory is routinely ignored. His "theory of state" is disconnected from "his full theory of economic development" because it contradicts free market theory. Nevertheless, Hamilton's influence on economic development in the US and abroad has been enormous and is in vogue again under the Biden Administration.
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The fame great actors enjoy is more ephemeral than that of great poets and writers. Desley Deacon, a specialist in gender history, revives in this biography the fame and repute of a great star of US stage, film, television and radio, the... more
The fame great actors enjoy is more ephemeral than that of great poets and writers. Desley Deacon, a specialist in gender history, revives in this biography the fame and repute of a great star of US stage, film, television and radio, the now largely forgotten Judith Anderson. Born in Adelaide in 1897, Anderson migrated to the US shortly after the First World War and soon established herself as a premier performer of the stage, lauded as the equal and even superior of Olivier and Laughton. She was thought to have brought an Australian physicality to her roles but is now best remembered for her star turn as Mrs Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's 1939 film "Rebecca". This biography charts a remarkable career in diverse media, studded with triumphs and inevitable lows. Valuable cultural history of the US, Australia and cross-cultural relations features.
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An erudite, concise polemic that explores fundamental ideas of “academic freedom,” and describes how academic research has both shaped and been buffeted by the changing regard of broader society for enduring and fact-based knowledge.... more
An erudite, concise polemic that explores fundamental ideas of “academic freedom,” and describes how academic research has both shaped and been buffeted by the changing regard of broader society for enduring and fact-based knowledge. Covering roughly 125
years of academic history in America, the book comprises five essays: an introduction and four discrete but related discussions of aspects of academic freedom.
years of academic history in America, the book comprises five essays: an introduction and four discrete but related discussions of aspects of academic freedom.
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Review of Robert Goldstein's "Discrediting the Red Scare: The Cold War Trials of James Kutcher, 'The Legless Veteran'" (University Press of Kansas: 2016). Describes the trials and tribulations of James Kutcher, a WW2 veteran who lost both... more
Review of Robert Goldstein's "Discrediting the Red Scare: The Cold War Trials of James Kutcher, 'The Legless Veteran'" (University Press of Kansas: 2016). Describes the trials and tribulations of James Kutcher, a WW2 veteran who lost both his legs in battle in Italy in 1943, and was stripped of his job in the Veterans Administration in 1948, for membership of the Socialist Workers Party. Kutcher helped dismantle the U.S. Government's loyalty program but was then forgotten to history.
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This book demonstrates the importance of the period c.1920–45 to the development of anti-Communism in the USA and of the Cold War. A growing number of scholars have in recent years paid greater attention to the era of pre-“McCarthy”... more
This book demonstrates the importance of the period c.1920–45 to the development of anti-Communism in the USA and of the Cold War. A growing number of scholars have in recent years paid greater attention to the era of pre-“McCarthy” anti-Communism. The book offers a good spread of subjects, including civil liberty, the FBI, citizen activism, legislative inquiries, the congressional precursor to the House Un-American Activities Committee, education wars, the domestic impact of the Spanish Civil War and the association of Communism with feminism.
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Review of "Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union
Activism", by Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson (eds.), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Activism", by Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson (eds.), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
An interesting exercise to perform half-way through the president’s term of office involved contextualizing the conduct of Donald Trump and his administration’s legislative, executive and administrative activity. In 2019, the presidency... more
An interesting exercise to perform half-way through the president’s term of office involved contextualizing the conduct of Donald Trump and his administration’s legislative, executive and administrative activity.
In 2019, the presidency turned 230 years old. That gives plenty of comparative data to assess:
1. The personal character of the current president (is it so much worse than his predecessors’?)
2. The political importance of the current president and the office of the president (i.e. the relative power of the office and of the incumbent, mediated by Congress, the Supreme Court, governors, the major parties, the media and other forces)
3. The state of American politics and society more broadly.
In 2019, the presidency turned 230 years old. That gives plenty of comparative data to assess:
1. The personal character of the current president (is it so much worse than his predecessors’?)
2. The political importance of the current president and the office of the president (i.e. the relative power of the office and of the incumbent, mediated by Congress, the Supreme Court, governors, the major parties, the media and other forces)
3. The state of American politics and society more broadly.
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The rise of Trump is explicable when we consider three factors. First, the living standards of America’s middle and working classes have been declining in real terms for many years. This has fuelled a second factor, namely economic and... more
The rise of Trump is explicable when we consider three factors. First, the living standards of America’s middle and working classes have been declining in real terms for many years. This has fuelled a second factor, namely economic and social fears about the impact of immigration on the prospects and safety of “real” Americans. And third, the Republican Party has been unable to control these anxieties or at least convince voters that the policies its preferred candidates are offering are the best available solutions to their problems.
In this respect, the “Grand Old Party” is finally reaping what it has long been sowing. Twenty years of bashing minorities on Fox News, coupled with 35 years of support for “trickle-down” economics, has drawn voters to a populist candidate who marries economic nationalism with racist nativism.
In this respect, the “Grand Old Party” is finally reaping what it has long been sowing. Twenty years of bashing minorities on Fox News, coupled with 35 years of support for “trickle-down” economics, has drawn voters to a populist candidate who marries economic nationalism with racist nativism.