06-11-2012, 04:45 PM
I am guilty of premature thread-title formation. The original title of this thread, I am now convinced, is inaccurate, because it presupposes more similarities between Joseph K. and Hearst than actually existed.
I still maintain that there are some interesting similarities between Hearst and Joe K. Both were sort of loose pages in the New Deal Coalition who needed to be placated and were wooed by the opposition but for different reasons. Hearst for economic reasons after 1935 (but similarities persisted over foreign policy as FDR's interventionism became more overt) and Joseph K because of Isolationism that increasingly conflicted with FDR's interventionism.
Both were to some extent big city machine oriented political players who were wild cards who could generate The Undecided vote.
But those who would describe Joe K's isolationist as inherently ONLY rightist would be very hard pressed to explain the consistency of his isolationism once the Cold War Started. Hearst of course, was a key player in McCarthyism. The new book on Joe K is better than the author's last one on Hearst. I give it four out of five stars and the Hearst book either a two or a three. Joe K. is truly a complex figure, and one who was at very eye of big media generated polemical hurricane. He is on the high cliff of a Sea Change in the history of the Democratic party, so he is easy to overgeneralize about.
There are certain similarities between Joe K's critique of Cold War policies and those of his son. At the same time there were some differences in how they framed these common perspectives.
I still maintain that there are some interesting similarities between Hearst and Joe K. Both were sort of loose pages in the New Deal Coalition who needed to be placated and were wooed by the opposition but for different reasons. Hearst for economic reasons after 1935 (but similarities persisted over foreign policy as FDR's interventionism became more overt) and Joseph K because of Isolationism that increasingly conflicted with FDR's interventionism.
Both were to some extent big city machine oriented political players who were wild cards who could generate The Undecided vote.
But those who would describe Joe K's isolationist as inherently ONLY rightist would be very hard pressed to explain the consistency of his isolationism once the Cold War Started. Hearst of course, was a key player in McCarthyism. The new book on Joe K is better than the author's last one on Hearst. I give it four out of five stars and the Hearst book either a two or a three. Joe K. is truly a complex figure, and one who was at very eye of big media generated polemical hurricane. He is on the high cliff of a Sea Change in the history of the Democratic party, so he is easy to overgeneralize about.
There are certain similarities between Joe K's critique of Cold War policies and those of his son. At the same time there were some differences in how they framed these common perspectives.