Oakland has long manufactured demagogues from the left: Carroll Fife, Pamela Price, Cat Brooks and Nikki Bas in recent years, or Desley Brooks, Angela Davis and the Black Panthers from days gone by. In a town as “progressive” and racially mixed as Oakland, this is not surprising.
What is a “demagogue”? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “A leader of a popular faction, or of the mob; a political agitator who appeals to the passions and prejudices of the mob in order to obtain power or further his own interests.” James Fenimore Cooper, the nineteenth-century American writer, in 1838 recognized four essential traits of demagogues:
They present themselves as a man or woman of the common people, opposed to the elites
Their politics depends on a visceral connection with the people, which greatly exceeds ordinary political popularity
They manipulate this connection, and the raging popularity it affords, for their own benefit and ambition
They threaten or outright break established rules of conduct, institutions, and even the law
The American scholar, lay church worker and educator Allan Louis Larson, who died in March at the age of 93, described how demagogues "pander to passion, prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance, rather than reason." Our own era’s Rachel Maddow similarly notes the rise of “a talented demagogue [Ed: You know whom she meant] who uses the constant grievances that are always there and channels them into a simple solution: I will take care of you, I will be your protector. All of these things in politics that vex you and that you worry about and that we’ve been fighting about for so long, you will no longer have to worry about them, you will no longer have to think about them, they will be settled…The people who annoy you and who make you uncomfortable and who disagree with you will disappear.”
America is particularly vulnerable to demagogues because it is a democracy, and the people are susceptible to demagoguery especially during times of economic turmoil and social upheaval, such as we have now. Demagogues reduce all political questions to us vs. them: as the political scientist Patricia Roberts-Miller observed, demagoguery “erodes rational debate, so that intelligent policymaking grinds to a halt,” thus “inflaming the cells, tissue and organs of democracy, like a cancer,” as the Australian political scientist John Keane put it.
In Oakland, our traditional preoccupation with the sharp edge of radical revolution seems to have been designed to provoke left-wing demagogues. But what if there were an opportunity for a right-wing demagogue here? Unlikely as it sounds, it could happen, if the right agent-provocateur arose with the right message at the right time.
That message would appeal to the frustrations, fears and prejudices of a class of Oaklanders that is increasingly alienated from the city’s (and the State’s) current direction. This class cuts across all other traditional classes—measured by income, race, age, political party, sexual preference or educational level. It includes all voters who take a look at what Oakland has become (a garbage heap of crime, homelessness and political grifting) and then conclude that our traditional orientation toward liberal values has been an abject failure. In thoughtful reaction, they veer to the opposite side of the spectrum—conservatism—and seek a leader who expresses their own fears, in their own language, and who seems to possess the strength, wits and vindictiveness to combat their mortal enemies. This is how the authoritarian ruler—the rightwing demagogue—rises to power.
The aspiring demagogue has studied the careers of those who went before him: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, Jerry Falwell, Donald Trump, not to mention Hitler and Mussolini. He has figured out the tactics they shared in common for their rise to power: scapegoating, fearmongering, lying, threatening opponents, use of personal insults and ridicule, folky posturing, vulgar behavior. He has realized that the more outrageous he is, the more attention he attracts. And, more to the point, he has figured out (or thinks he has) that Oakland—of all places!—is ready to support a demagogue of the right.
Is the aspiring demagogue correct in this assessment? There are individuals out there, right now in this town, who are exploring the possibilities. They are testing the waters, speaking publicly before whatever audience will hear them, experimenting to see how far they can go. They are raising money for themselves. They are forming political links with like-minded reactionaries in the crevices of East Bay rightwing politics. The media, for the most part, ignores them, except for outlets like Fox News, which promotes them. This has always been the modus operandi of demagogues like Hitler. They grow, undetected, under the radar, until their movement takes root and then—before you know it—seizes power. It could happen here unless we recognize it, pull it up from its roots, and stamp it out before it metastasizes. Am I referring to anyone in particular? Yes.
Steve Heimoff