A Conservative History of the American Left

by Daniel J. Flynn

From Communes to the Clintons

Why does Hillary Clinton crusade for government-provided health care for every American, for the redistribution of wealth, and for child rearing to become a collective obligation? Why does Al Gore say that it’s okay to “over-represent” the dangers of global warming in order to sell Americans on his draconian solutions? Why does Michael Moore call religion a device to manipulate “gullible” Americans?

Where did these radical ideas come from? And how did they enter the mainstream discourse?

In this groundbreaking and compelling new book, Daniel J. Flynn uncovers the surprising origins of today’s Left. The first work of its kind, A Conservative History of the American Left tells the story of this remarkably resilient extreme movement–one that came to America’s shores with the earliest settlers.

Flynn reveals a history that leftists themselves ignore, whitewash, or obscure. Partly the Left’s amnesia is Who wouldn’t want to forget an ugly history that includes eugenics, racism, violence, and sheer quackery? Partly it is Bold schemes sound much more innovative when you refuse to acknowledge that they have been tried–and have failed–many times before. And partly it is The Left is so preoccupied with its triumphal future that it doesn’t pause to learn from its past mistakes. So it goes that would-be revolutionaries have repeatedly failed to recognize the one troubling obstacle to their grandiose reality.

In unfolding this history, Flynn presents a page-turning narrative filled with colorful, fascinating characters–progressives and populists, radicals and reformers, socialists and SDSers, and leftists of every other stripe. There is the rags-to-riches Welsh industrialist who brought his utopian vision to America–one in which private property, religion, and marriage represented “the most monstrous evils”–and gained audiences with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. There is the wife-swapping Bible thumper who nominated Jesus Christ for president. There is the playboy adventurer whose worshipful accounts of Soviet Russia lured many American liberals to Communism. There is the daughter of privilege turned violent antiwar activist who lost her life to a bomb she had intended to use against American soldiers. There are fanatics and free spirits, perverts and puritans, entrepreneurs and altruists, and many more beyond.

A Conservative History of the American Left is a gripping chronicle of the radical visionaries who have relentlessly pursued their lofty ambitions to remake society. Ultimately, Flynn shows the destructiveness that comes from this undying pursuit of dreams that are utterly unattainable.

Genres: Politics, History, American History, Nonfiction

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Drick]

I saw this book when at my father's house and read about 2/3 of it. Flynn gives what my be called a history of ideas pertaining to "the American left." The purpose of the book is to portray the American political left as a group who historically have sought to undermine the family, free enterprise, private property, religion and put all power under a centralized government. He does this by linking the Left to every utopian and whacko group over the last 200+ years of US history. At times his language is offensive (e.g. he refers to unmarried women as "old maids") and his perspective extremely narrow minded (the plight of slaves or Native Americans are only mentioned as they support his thesis). He often takes quotes out of context, and rarely discusses the social and political context that gave rise to certain social change movements (e.g. he never mentions the "robber barons" (Vanderbilt, Morgan Rockefeller) when discussing the beginning of the labor movement). At other times he was just plain wrong (e.g. calling Highlander Folks School a "communist training camp" - a common appellation for Highlander's foes but patently untrue).

Having said that I found this book to be an interesting study of how extreme conservatives think. To read this book one would think every effort for social improvement was part of a communist plot. In fact he uses the word "communist" freely, even referring to the Puritans as early communists.

Having said that, Flynn affirms my suspicion that much of American liberalism is more influenced by Christian millenialism than it is Marx. As such the left is a form of "anonymous Christianity" where the left has often forsaken its reliigous roots while maintaining its values. In fact in the final chapters Flynn admits the key figure of liberalism, Hillary Clinton, is a devout Methodist.

In the end Flynn just proves he despises anyone left of him and it doesn't matter how they got there. If this is the best the conservatives have to offer, they are going to be much shorter lived than I thought.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, the title makes the book sound like it's going to be some sort of Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh drivel that attempts to smear the left. If one takes the time and patience to actually read the book, however, it is a surprisingly academic look into the history of the leftist movement. The research is very sound and I commend Flynn for writing a historical account rather than an unwarranted smear campaign. That said, the history of the American left is so scary that Flynn's commentary was not needed in order for the reader to make the conclusion for himself based upon the evidence presented.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel J. Flynn. Daniel Flynn convincingly draws a more or less straight line between the Utopian colonies of post colonial New England to the climate change panic of the 21st century. The book explains that utopianism is often attractive, particularly to people who want to believe it and want to believe in it. Perhaps four words, from the description of the belief in the New Deal, sum it up best: "Action, not outcomes, mattered."
But I digress. The book starts with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock:

The Pilgrims, like America's secular communists of the nineteenth century, hoped to build a city upon a hill. And like other sectarian groups that later found refuge in America, the Pilgrims attempted to build their utopia upon communist principles****Under communism, which reigned in Plymouth colony from 1620 to 1623, Pilgrim bellies and investor wallets starved, Historians look back and ascribe myriad causes for these lean years. But the man whom the Plymouth colonists elected as their governor more than thirty times emphasized the role communism played in the colony's early woes. In Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford wrote:

"For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense."

The author makes the case that the more things change, the more things stay the same. The New Harmony commune in Indiana collapsed in ruins in the 1820's and 1830's. Some similar colonies fared marginally better, some worse. Some became sexual playgrounds for their leaders. Certain exploits, including those of the famous researching Alfred Kinsey, are unprintable.
The author traverses the 1960's and the self-immolation of a prosperous, promising era on college campuses. Shades of what is happening now.
In the early 2000's, the "climate change" hysteria has taken over:

Hysteria over global warming combined the worst of the primitive and the modern. Global warming emerged as the Armageddon for people who ridicule people who believe in Armageddon. The disturbing omens that primitives divined from mysterious eclipses, crippling droughts, and foreboding skies, urban sophisticates saw in ever-so-slight changes in the weather-save they had the nerve to call their auguries science. From the climate-controlled, indoor world where man presses a button to make it hot or cold, breezy or not, man hubristically imagined himself the master of the outdoor weather, too. Not the sun, not volcanoes, not the wind currents, but man was exclusively responsible for global warming a theory more heavily steeped in narcissism than pre-Copernican notions of a geocentric universe. And if gluttonous man could destroy the world, enlightened man could save it. Global warming allowed true believers to cast enemies as evil destroyers and themselves as noble redeemers.
Mankind stood on the brink of the end times. Sacrifices to the gods-offerings of recycled cans, forbearance from flushing the toilet, holocausts of SUVs-might appease Mother Nature. Failure to make the proper oblations certainly would unleash her righteous wrath.

Quoting Al Gore:

“Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem…Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."

…. (T)he solutions curiously antedated, and are endorsed independent of, the problem. Public restrictions on use of private property, state punishment of large corporations, international bodies dictating national laws, and other long-standing dreams of the Left somehow reemerged as curatives to environmental woes. Alas, if the problem disappeared, the true believers would urge enactment of these suspect solutions as enthusiastically as ever.

A Conservative History of the American Left is clearly a tour d'force and worth the read (though it is a slog because so much information is new and unfamiliar). Then why am I giving it a "four?" The author does indulge in some demonization of the Left. While I am no fan of FDR, he comes close to calling him a Communist. Like many books of this genre, for example The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives' War on Fun by Noah Rothman, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America by Victor Davis Hanson and others, the books do not concede any redeeming value to other beliefs. Put simply, they are strident.

I personally am not a conservative, though I am open to their ideas. This book doesn't help inch me to the right.

[Burt Schoeppe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty, pretty good.

The title says it all.

From the time of the Pilgrims/religious left through to Hillary Clinton.

Well-written, comprehensible history of the American left told by a conservative with conservatives as the target audience.

[Matt Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good explanations of liberal activists in this book, but Mr. Flynn takes too many liberties in lumping certain people in with leftists (Henry George is one example). The footnotes are sound. It is truly a history of the American left, because some of these characters would be considered conservative in the old European sense of the word.

[Paul Marin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very tough slog. It had it's moments, but to get to them required more patience than should have been required. Mr. Flynn is not the best writer, and at times his prose proves a bit too purple. Still, I did learn things about the "Progressives" that I hadn't known before.

[Craig Bolton]

A Conservative History of the American Left by Daniel J. Flynn (2008)

[Duane Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read. One of the most detailed accounts of leftism in America.

Recommended highly.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating tour of the left wing of the American mansion. We have had a great array of glorious weirdos.

[Martin Keast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, shows the craziness of the leftists, why we must distrust them and their crazy beliefs.