in this episode of history as it happens a podcast for people who want to think about current events historically. i'm martin decaro and with us today, michael kazen historian of georgetown university. it's good to see you great to have you good to have you get to be here. yes, that's right and pandemic handshake. how about that assistant? it's good. you've been on the podcast a couple of times before and it's nice to see you in the flesh. finally same i'm tired of zoom and we have a lot to talk about today a book out, march 1st what it took to win the history of the democratic party. you've been a prolific scholar for decades now writing about leftist political and social movements. what brought you to write your magnum opus, maybe the whole the whole thing in one small volume smaller volume. well, i've always been. intrigued by the history of democratic party because i've been involved as a canvasser campaigner. arguer for the democratic party since i was in grade school 1960. i came paid for john kennedy and my little town englewood, new jersey. that's out of new york city. it's our handy on leaflets and yeah leaflets and wearing a big button the size of a little pot pie for and johnson and i got away from party for a while. i was a radical and late 1960s early 970s and felt that democratic party was corrupt party because they were prosecuting the war in vietnam. especially but in the end we have a two-party system and one of the two parties gonna win and i was certainly on the side of the democratic party winning. so i gravitated mac towards the democratic party and as a story and i noticed an unusual lack that is historians right about all kinds of subjects politically in america but very few right about the major parties, you know the history of the major parties. maybe they write about it for one election or one president of course or two presidents or when controversy surrounding a party but this very few books on the whole history either the republican or the democratic party. so historians like to write about things that people have written about before though. obviously we use lots of books and documents that people who have written about it before so this is an attempt to sort of sum up the whole history of the party. what it stood for when and as a title has it, you know when it was successful and why and so that was the theme and when i saw your title what it took to win i thought of james carville as it turns out you quote him early in the book political parties exist to win elections. that's a debate going on right now democratic party needs to get his act together what we can eventually get to current events but by your own admission a selective history as i mentioned, it's a smaller smallish volume nothing wrong with that does not have to be a 1200 page book on, you know books that people aren't going to be exactly right, but it's a lot of material to get into one volume. the party is basically the history of the democratic party is essentially history of american politics so when you say selective, what do you mean? i try to understand. how the democratic party put together a winning coalition based on interests based on ideas based on social movements based on policy, of course and how that coalition one at certain times how it disintegrated how democrats built back a different kind of coalition very often and how those coalitions those ideas those policies track larger themes in american history as well, you know expansion of the electorate the politics of industrialization and post industrialization ethnicity race relations racial conflict class conflict. so many ways. the democratic party really history democratic party, you can say use the history of american politics, you know with with sort of in half. it's it's a history of parties as you mentioned as disintegration twice the party almost permanently ruptured it managed to come back together after the civil war after the civil rights revolution of the 1960s the dixiecrat revolution dixiecrat convention in 1948. we're going to get to all of that, but you know whenever i prepare for a podcast interview. i try to see five anything in common with my guest and this is a stunning coincidence. we were both born in new york city imagine that right two people from this. yeah. you're a baby boomer. sorry. i'm generation x great note to start off talking about how old you are, but baby boomer you already mentioned you you came of age politically in the 60s handing out leaflets for kennedy. then you took a more radical turn in your politics. how did this inform your your journey to becoming a professional scholar. who as i mentioned has been writing about this issue multiple books for decades. a lot of historians write about you know, the distant past why brother countries, then the ones they're from but for me the main motivation for writing books of history and most articles as well is to figure out something that's happening politically in the present, you know, so i've written a book about biography of william james brian who will probably get to you know, one of the the great democrats ran for president three times as a democratic nominee, but what that book when the the christian right was surging i wanted to understand what it was like when the lead of democratic party wasn't evangelical protestant who believed in a little truth of the bible, you know, that's for example, i wrote books about the american left when the american left was in trouble, you know doing the bush administration beginning with bush administration. so every book i've written has sort of been a way to understand the roots of a current political question that i want to answer. so you say in your book to be sure my commitment to the democrats is an ambivalent one alloyed with regret and caution party's history is rife with missteps and outrages yet for all there for all our faults. so, where's the scholarly detachment michael kays and i i'm detached in the sense that i can explain why the party went wrong or very wrong. i'm at times before i was born and times when i was alive as well, you know, but that doesn't mean that i think there's another political vehicle for progressive change in this country. it's powerful and as large as democratic party because there isn't so that's that's the bottom line on that part. i agree currently. you're correct about that. yeah, you say the democrats remain the only electoral institution in 21st century america abel and willing to help solve the serious problems facing the united states. so the history of the democratic party in one volume, why don't we start at the beginning but that's even difficult to do because for a long time thomas jefferson would have been a surprise to he would have been surprised to hear. this was considered the founder of the democratic party. this thing called jeffersonian democracy is probably a construction. he did not use but you say that rests in part on a couple of myths that jefferson really shouldn't be considered the founder of the democratic party. why is that well, like most founding fathers all family fathers for that matter jefferson didn't life the idea of competitive parties, you know, he want he believed in what was called small our republicanism. that is men of education and standing and property who understood the virtues of the commonwealth should get together and make those laws and they shouldn't have these factual disagreements. so he obviously had a disagreements with alexander hamilton famously and and with john adams they ran against each other for president. but when jefferson became president 1801 he said basically enough with this partisan party stuff. we should all be he said is inauguration speech nature one. we're all republicans were all federalists by which he meant. we don't have any parties anymore. and in fact, he was saying we're all republicans. that's right. stop criticizing exactly and also this was not a mass party even when he had a party. it was really a collection of notables. i think i call it. i'm trying to remember the exact number of people who voted for president in 1800. there's about 50,000, you know, they're more people in the suburb of bethesda north of washington dc twice as many than the word voting for president, you know for both candidates in 18. the electorate was tiny even among those who could vote. most people didn't bother voting in national elections. exactly. the federal government was a distant. most people couldn't vote because you had to have property you have to be a white man and you of course over 21 so sean will answer historian you're familiar with when it comes to jefferson as founder of a party. i think you're right. it wasn't a party but when it comes to small d, jeffersonian democracy, he argues that in a sense jefferson was this this founder against condescension and determined obstructionism jefferson and his party vindicated the political equality of the mass of american citizens citizens in effect laying the groundwork for the democratic reform that would come later with jackson and van buren and and others. do you agree with that? i think that's true of course is a big except there to be accept is african americans. everyone was well property was slave, but no certainly true. i mean jefferson famously said, you know eco lights for all special privileges to none and he was opposed to a strong central government not for the reasons that conservatives today are at least some conservatives today are but because he thought a strong sense of government would always be monopolized by the land of elite people like himself and he thought that small farmers should small white farmers should be the heart and soul of the country and they were of course the majority at the time and he wasn't in favor of expanding the electorate to include people who didn't have property even though that didn't happen very his own lifetime. mean by mass political party. i mean we today take for granted that all political parties even in autocracies need to appeal to public opinion mobilized publics or engaged public's campaign rallies party organization, but in the 1820s if we want to date the formation of what was called the democracy to that time that took a while to develop even then right when one once rather the democratic party started to a mass political party, right? you know to be a mass party you have to have a lot of the resources and elements that we again take for granted today. democrats were the first mass political party in the first political party in the world to have a press dedicated to the party not just in one city, but every major town and city in the country newspapers. they had that regular conventions to nominate the candidates. they had a machine that is people to turn out the vote they had agendas and policy agendas that they try to discipline their elected officials to carry out and also they were able to raise enough money so that their candidates would not have to dig into their own pockets to pay for their own campaigns. so all these things we now take for granted, but the democrats were the first political party in the world to institute all these these changes and they also of course the fact that the electorate was growing that by the 1830s the large majority of white men, whether they had property or not could vote constituencies were forming people wanted more of a say in the decisions that were taking place and when we say people we're still pretty much talking about white man here in the 1820s, but immigration was a huge factor immigrants were a major constituency even as early as the 1820s 1830s the irish coming coming to the united states just name one group, right? yeah, that's one thing the democrats were known for in the early days and it still are in many ways. i think it's one of the continuities in the party's history. they were very open to immigrants coming in. they believe that the united states should be what tom payne called an asylum for all mankind, you know, they believe that it was important to welcome as many people as possible free white people to the united states. and and that includes the irish and there's also the fact that democrats tend to be more tolerant towards different religious groups matter too because most the irish became especially during the famine generation were were catholic of course and democrats were often seen in 19th century as the more pro catholic party compared to the whigs and republicans. and as you say they were the first not merely to acquiesce in the reality of competition quoting from your book what it took to win. they wanted to brawl, but when the democrats are coming alive as a party as we would define it today there weren't really other parties. we had the virginia dynasty and kind of a period where national politics for lack of a better term seem kind of dull when this a virginia planter aristocrat winds eight years eight years eight years. but soon enough there were competitive parties that saw what the democrats were doing doing. they were competing all over the country as you said they had newspapers all over the country trying to win over new voters all over the country it was it the whigs so were the first main competitors here? yeah this really, you know, the democrats began this match part in the 1820s. they first called the jackson party because andrew jackson was there sort of charismatic leader. um, but they also called themselves the democracy as you mentioned the people's party from demos people. but the whigs began in the 1830s as the anti-jackson party, they call themselves the whigs because the whigs in great britain had been the faction in the british house of commons, which opposed the absolute powers of the king. so the whig said, well this guy jackson, he's throwing his way around he thinks he's better than everybody else. he's taking on dictatorial powers. he's cool. he's king andrew the first well, we're going to be the whigs to oppose king andrew the first and the wigs then also. um imitate a lot of the initiatives the innovations in politics that the democrats had begun they have their own press they have their own mass rallies with torch lights and elsewhere. they have their own barbecues and give that free liquor and so forth. so it's really the two-piece system as we know it is really born in the 1830s that the candidate himself probably weren't campaigning in person at this point, right? oh, no, they were oh they were okay the presidential candidate. okay not president because george washington didn't campaign for himself. so that was the father of the country the greatest american so to speak you didn't want to do something. he didn't do the office was supposed to seek the man that wasn't true for for people running for congress state legislature mayor. corner and so forth. no they can't pay for themselves. you mentioned jackson. i feel like we should bounce back a little bit between past and present. we don't need to stick to a straight chronology, right? that might be different. yeah, maybe difficult too and in a relatively short conversation, but we've barely made it out of the 1820s you mentioned. jackson he and jefferson are how shall we say somewhat falling out of favor with the modern democratic party and so far as honoring them. i don't think they call the the jefferson jackson dinner or the jackson dinner. that's anymore. they call something else jefferson statue was taken down inside the new york city council chambers because of his his history of slave owning and all you make a reference to presentism early on in your book. you started the ref you started to research your book when donald trump won the election and that sent democrats into a state of disarray. what are your thoughts on how the democratic party is? well, let's start with the jackson jefferson thing. these are two huge figures in the party's history if you will who are out of favor now, i guess that's not all that surprising. no because more and more historians, especially in a lot of americans too realize he how central slavery is two american history you can argue about 1619 project whether the correct about about that or not, but clearly we had the most important event in american history some would argue as a civil war. i would probably agree civil war i would say and the civil war was of course about whether a part of the country could break away to preserve slavery. so it's not surprising that two presidents who were incredibly popular figures at the time when they were president when they're alive, but also were major slave owners independent slavery. in fact in jackson's case wanted to expand it into the western territories taking from mexico. it's not surprising that present-day democrats in this multi-racial multicultural party are not going to be very, you know, happy about celebrating jackson jefferson or return to that point, but just briefly about you starting your research and trump wins and democrats are in a state of disarray. how did the present influence at all if at all the way you approach this book? you know partly i think it's what i wanted to write the book because i want to understand how we got to this point, you know as i mentioned before i will start with the present question, but also democrats have always been a very heterogeneous party. they've always been a party which had to put together different constituencies whether class or ethnicity or more recent decades race, and that's always well to win and the republicans i think is fair to say have usually been much more homogeneous and sometimes if you're more homogeneous a party, it's easier to decide what you stand for. it's easier to know who you're going to appeal to primarily. it's easy to decide what policies you're going to pursue. where's the democrats? it's more difficult, you know, one of the things i i was on a a conference sort of a private school not exactly podcast with tom perez tom perez when he was a chair of the democratic national committee back in 2017 dncj and i asked i asked tom paris i said, what does democrat stand for? he sort of talked about values we have good organization, you know i said, but that's not really telling me what the democrats stands those aren't principles. where's republicans whether under former president trump or others. usually have much easier time saying that and this is not because democrats are not very smart or not good at politics. it's because it's more difficult for democrats to say what they stand for because they are such a heterogeneous point. it's difficult to keep those types of coalitions together when you have people who say may disagree on social issues like abortion, but they may see eye to eye on labor issues or other issues about jackson and jefferson and slavery. well one of the major arguments in your book are these competing tendencies i want to get to this get to it now these competing tendencies that tell the story of the history of this party. you said the idea of liberty for african americans posed threat to his ambition. that would be jackson's of a party that could win a majority in every region or was that that may have been van buren here. i am quoting your book and i forgot who that pronoun is supposed to but this idea that white liberty rested upon black lack of liberty inequality for african americans. that was one of the ugly aspects of the party's history for quite a while. yeah, it's a good example. i think of the how difficult was for democrats to stay united, you know for very long. they stated remained one party, but often different factions in that party who battling with one another mount civil rights because for example in the 1840s and 50s when the democrats with majority party in america, they were the majority party because they could put together the votes of most white south