Henry Wallace on fascism

In all American history Henry Wallace may be the farthest-left statesman to achieve national office. As FDR's Vice-President from 1941 until 1945, he proved unwieldy, undependable, and somewhat loopy, a totally unsuitable man for Roosevelt's purposes and a man who could not retain the confidence of party elders. But his time in national office proved useful to him in formally carving out, in both the nation and the Democratic Party, a lasting platform of internationalist, agrarian left-wing populism that continues to reverberate. A national figure in his own right, Wallace sought a policy of accommodation with the Soviet Union abroad and qualified socialist restructuring at home. After his tenure as VP, he became the prototypical "fellow traveler" in the rhetoric of right-wing Cold Warriors, and in much the same way that Richard Nixon and William Buckley had to make anti-communism respectable after the sad spectacle of Joe McCarthy, it fell to Adlai Stevenson and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others, to both moderate and nurture the movement Wallace briefly but powerfully championed. It is telling that he is so largely forgotten, both sides having an interest in leaving him behind.

Sixty-something years on, in our sad America writhing in a foul brew of debt, bailouts, airport scanners, an emerging cold war with China, Citizens United, jihadis, Sarah Palin, and a hundred other rattling snakes, it is staggering to read Wallace's thoughts on fascism in America. Read it here . If it has been better said, I don't know where.