Upton Sinclair was a progressive, a socialist, a muckracker. He was famous for the book "The Jungle" exposing the terrible working conditions in the meatpacking industry, which helped lead to major reforms. By 1934, when the Great Depression had made the public more open to his politics, he ran for governor of California on the 'End Povert In California' (EPIC) program he created - which, as Wikipedia puts it, helped lead the Democratic Party to be 'known as the party of change and of reformers.'
The first political campaign firm in the US, "Campaigns, Inc.", was in California, made up of a married couple. The current governor, Frank Merriam, hired them to defeat Sinclair.
They developed a smear campaign that may sound familiar - as the template for what seems like every race against a democrat since then (with some worse additions).
They had stories planted about Sinclair seducing young girls. To counter his appeal as a progressive, they arranged with Hollywood studios who then ran the theatres to show phony newsreels with phony Sinclar supporters wearing rags and calling for a Soviet-style takeover of the United States.
The couple, after winning, commented on how they won:
(Thre's a direct line from them to Murray Chotiner who worked closely with Nixon who was famous for dirty campaigning, leading to Reagan and Lee Atwater, to Karl Rove - not to mention Nixon's hiring of Roger Ailes, who later founded Fox News so he could more explicitly publish political propaganda without the constraints of merely working in a campaign).
Sinclair, later in 1951, commented on how the word socialism is taboo in the US:
(The book "Banana Republicans" provided the facts above).
In short, it's remarkable how little has changed since he dawn of these political propaganda campaign operations. They've usually been terribly effective.
The formula is the same, big money operations hiring these operations to manipulate the public to get their agendas voted in that are in their interest, and not the public interest.
All the while, the manipulated public has no idea, and thinks they're savvily fighitng whatever straw man they've been handed, such as 'Sinclair the Communist'.
The first political campaign firm in the US, "Campaigns, Inc.", was in California, made up of a married couple. The current governor, Frank Merriam, hired them to defeat Sinclair.
They developed a smear campaign that may sound familiar - as the template for what seems like every race against a democrat since then (with some worse additions).
They had stories planted about Sinclair seducing young girls. To counter his appeal as a progressive, they arranged with Hollywood studios who then ran the theatres to show phony newsreels with phony Sinclar supporters wearing rags and calling for a Soviet-style takeover of the United States.
The couple, after winning, commented on how they won:
(Thre's a direct line from them to Murray Chotiner who worked closely with Nixon who was famous for dirty campaigning, leading to Reagan and Lee Atwater, to Karl Rove - not to mention Nixon's hiring of Roger Ailes, who later founded Fox News so he could more explicitly publish political propaganda without the constraints of merely working in a campaign).
Sinclair, later in 1951, commented on how the word socialism is taboo in the US:
(The book "Banana Republicans" provided the facts above).
In short, it's remarkable how little has changed since he dawn of these political propaganda campaign operations. They've usually been terribly effective.
The formula is the same, big money operations hiring these operations to manipulate the public to get their agendas voted in that are in their interest, and not the public interest.
All the while, the manipulated public has no idea, and thinks they're savvily fighitng whatever straw man they've been handed, such as 'Sinclair the Communist'.
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