Father Coughlin

[the Left™]

My roommate and I got into a bit of a discussion...

He was writing a paper. A paper where he claimed Father Coughlin was a champion of progressive ideals. More liberal than FDR, and an advocate for social justice policies way ahead of his time.

I told him while that may be true he was a very reactionary catholocist, espousing anti-semitic politics, and other reactionary ethnic tropes about nation and race.

Well, is he a reactionary even if he supported things like the living wage? :S who is right? :confused::confused:

[Susurrus]

reactionary. Racism divides the working class against itself and works in favor of the oppressors.

[Ocean Seal]

My roommate and I got into a bit of a discussion...

He was writing a paper. A paper where he claimed Father Coughlin was a champion of progressive ideals. More liberal than FDR, and an advocate for social justice policies way ahead of his time.

I told him while that may be true he was a very reactionary catholocist, espousing anti-semitic politics, and other reactionary ethnic tropes about nation and race.

Well, is he a reactionary even if he supported things like the living wage? :S who is right? :confused::confused:
Fascism is reactionary despite what pro-worker rhetoric it uses. So yes, he was a reactionary not a progressive. What he wanted to do was to steer workers away from class politics much like Hitler and Mussolini who also used faux anti-capitalist rhetoric.

[The Douche]

Father Coughlin was a right-populist in the style of third positionists/strasserists/national-syndicalists.

Some professors teach that he was a leftist and hold him up alongside people like Huey Long.

[mrmikhail]

My roommate and I got into a bit of a discussion...

He was writing a paper. A paper where he claimed Father Coughlin was a champion of progressive ideals. More liberal than FDR, and an advocate for social justice policies way ahead of his time.

I told him while that may be true he was a very reactionary catholocist, espousing anti-semitic politics, and other reactionary ethnic tropes about nation and race.

Well, is he a reactionary even if he supported things like the living wage? :S who is right? :confused::confused:

He was hardly more liberal than FDR, he was very reactionary, so much so he took the side of Hitler and Mussolini on many issues especially jews, and attacked jewish bankers in america. He was violently anti-communist and anti-socialist, and anti-capitalist because it forwarded the leftist agenda.

Supporting a living wage and such is also noted of Fascism and Nazism, which I would classify him as. So yes, you are right in him being very reactionary.

[Os Cangaceiros]

He was a populist demagogue. Populist demagoguery was kind of popular from the "Progressive Era" through the Great Depression. Huey Long, like cmoney said, is another good example.

[CornetJoyce]

"A demagogue is a politician who don't keep his promises. I keep mine."- Huey Long

[Thug Lessons]

He was a populist demagogue. Populist demagoguery was kind of popular from the "Progressive Era" through the Great Depression. Huey Long, like cmoney said, is another good example.
'Populism' doesn't really mean anything ideological though, it's more of a rhetorical style. There are right-wing 'populists' in Norway, they scream bloody murder about how the immigrants are flooding in and leeching off social services, and sometimes they murder dozens of teenagers. Their rhetoric of populism and protection of the welfare state doesn't mean a thing, they're still reactionaries, and so was Father Coughlin. Anyone who says he was a leftist doesn't know what they're talking about, in fact he was virulently anti-leftist.

[Os Cangaceiros]

:confused: I never claimed he was a leftist. I don't like populist demagoguery anymore than anyone else, I could care less about glorified references to "the people".



"A demagogue is a politician who don't keep his promises. I keep mine."- Huey Long

mighty self-conscious of him. ;)

[Thug Lessons]

I never claimed he was a leftist
Yes that part was more towards meme guy who made the thread.