When a Novelist Ran for Governor: Upton Sinclair

 Annamaria on Monday

So.  It's California. The electoral campaign is on.  A socialist from the East is garnering enormous and enthusiastic support from the State's Democrats. The Republicans are up in arms about his unapologetic insistence on universal health care, greater support of the rights of working people, higher minimum wages, and so on.  Something must be done to stop him from ruining the heyday of the privileged class.

Sounds familiar, right?

Yes!  That's what drew me to this story.  But surprise!  It took place in 1934.  What makes it relevant today it that this Depression-era political battle gave birth to what we think of as the "modern" use of fake news, conspiracy theories, hysteria, and the merciless use of tons of money to stop a frontrunner from winning an election.

In the dead center of the Great Depression, the novelist Upton Sinclair had already lost two bids for office while running as Socialist.  He changed his tactics.  He switched to the Democratic Party, signed up to run in the party's gubernatorial primary, and declared, "There is no reason for anyone to be poor in a place as rich as California."  To reach his ends, he promulgated a plan called End Poverty in California or EPIC.  It called for those long-sought-after but (so far) elusive benefits listed above.  He won the Democratic primary by a landslide, delighting the workers and giving the privileged a hissy fit.

To defend their candidate, the Republicans went so far as to hire the first ever "professionals" at electioneering - a company invented that moment: Campaigns Incorporated, who immediately introduced techniques such as quoting Sinclair out of context, relentless pamphleteering, and trying to anticipate and defang any Democratic tactics.

The cops sided with Sinclair's opposition.  When, at a rally, he started to read the Bill of Rights, the LAPD moved in to arrest him and many of his supporters.  When challenged on behalf of the First Amendment, the head of the police contingent declared "We'll have none of that Constitutional stuff."

The elite of California threw themselves into the battle.  The ultra wealthy Chandler family, owners of the LA Times, without the slightest bow to journalistic ethics, put their paper's full force behind smearing Sinclair.  They found a favorite ploy in the famous author's body of fiction. They took outrageous statements made by his fictional characters, turned them into headlines, and ascribed the opinions to Sinclair personally.  (How would you like that to happen to you, my fellow author's out there?)

Hollywood got into the act.  Louis B. Mayer docked all his employees a day's pay and turned the funds over to the Republican Party.  Irving Thalberg (Yes that Irving Thalberg) started producing fake newsreels, using actors from his studio who pretended to be working people, espousing outrageous opinions.

The scariest flim-flam for the residents of California was the "news" that hundreds of thousands of "bums" from all over the country were flocking there to take advantage of the State's handouts once Sinclair became governor.

Newsreels were a trusted source at the time.  You can now find some of the footage on YouTube - very convincing fakes to scare the residents into voting Republican.  Of course, the granddaddy of yellow journalism, William Randolph Hearst got into the act.  And he owned movie theaters to make sure the scary fairy tales got wide distribution.

Sinclair lost.

And so did the country.  Because now we are stuck with an electioneering tradition that makes the majority of us nauseous.  But one that looks as if it will never go away.