Evan Barker’s book is packed with inside info about the current characters in charge of “progressive” politics.
Some of the activities are new to me. Politicians now spend most of their time and energy begging rich people for money, which doesn’t seem to accomplish anything. It’s not quid pro quo, it’s just endless quid. If this begging was common before, I didn’t see it or hear about it.
The character types are perpetual. I encountered most of them in 1968 when I was campaigning for Gene McCarthy. And they were already familiar to me in ’68 because I’d read about them in an obscure 1943 book, Barefoot Boy with Cheek by Max Shulman. A typical NYC boy goes to college and gets involved in leftist politics.
Those same “progressive” types often popped up in radio comedy in the 30s. Gracie Allen attended a feminist lecture at the YWCA and came home full of revolutionary fireworks, eventually damped by reality.
Geographical distribution is another variable. In 1940 those types were exclusive to NYC, or at least publicly visible in NYC. In ’68 they were visible in college towns. Now they’re everywhere.
Speculating based on what I saw, there was a concerted effort to spread progressive influence in the 70s. Intellectual cults like Ecumenical Institute and EST sent missionaries to non-college places, and the older organizations like YWCA were doing the same thing. They succeeded.
Polistra's Mill 