The Limits of Obama’s Yes We Can Politics: What Democrats Need to Learn From Huey Long’s Moral Antagonism

🧠 Huey Long as Strategic Blueprint

Recently I’ve been reading—or more precisely listening to—T. Harry Williams’ fascinating biography of Huey Long. No Kindle edition, oddly. But what strikes me is how much there is to learn from Long’s story in terms of political strategy.

FN: Huey Long: Williams, T. Harry

🧠 I. The First Thing Democrats Need to Understand About Strategy Is to Get One

The Democratic leadership focuses almost entirely on tactics. Which is fine—as far as it goes. Tactics are part of political combat. But they’re not the whole game.

Strategy is the architecture. Tactics are the plumbing. The Democrats keep fixing leaks while the house burns.

🧠 II. Moving Pieces While Hoping for a Blunder

As a student of online chess, I know my game only leveled up when I started studying openings. Before that, I was just moving pieces, hoping my opponent would blunder.

That’s how Democrats do politics. No opening theory. No game film. Just reactive moves and wishful thinking.

It’s like trying to win an NFL game without a playbook.

🔥 Huey Long on Moral Conflict and Mobilization

“Always take the offensive — the defensive ain’t worth a damn.” — p. 748 “I used to get things done by saying please. Now I dynamite ‘em out of my path.” — p. 298 “You sometimes fight fire with fire. The end justifies the means.” — p. 749 “I’d rather violate every one of the damn conventions and see my bills passed, than sit back in my office, all nice and proper, and watch ‘em die.” — p. 298

🧠 III. The Necessity of Hatred in Politics

This will shock the pious Democratic leadership. We don’t hate! We represent society’s better angels. We can’t sink to their level—not even to protect democracy. Not even to protect the millions of American women now living in states where a 13-year-old rape victim has fewer rights than her rapist.

Huey Long understood that voters respond to moral antagonism. He dramatized stakes. He named enemies. He mobilized rage.

Obama’s worldview was the opposite. In 2004, he declared:

“There is no red state America or blue state America, there is only the United States of America.”

Twenty years later? Even Sarah Palin’s mockery—“How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?”—lands harder than it should.

🧠 IV. Celestial Choirs and Political Gravity

In 2008, Hillary Clinton mocked Obama’s lofty rhetoric:

“The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing…”

She was dismissed as prose. He was crowned as poetry. But 17 years later, the Right is ascendant. Democracy is on life support. And the politics of uplift without moral antagonism has proven insufficient.

FN: HuffPost – Hillary’s Celestial Choir Hits a Sour Note FN: The Time Hillary Was Right About Obama in 2008 – The Atlantic

🧠 V. Moral Narrativization Is Essential

Establishment Democrats seem congenitally unable to grasp this. Politics needs a moral dimension to resonate. Huey Long understood this. Obama’s technocratic approach—decent people on both sides, just disagreeing on a few technical details—doesn’t meet the moment.

Indeed JVL at The Bulwark recently made a good point about Gavin Newsom’s rise: hunger helps.

“Voters reward candidates who are really hungry… They don’t like the too cool for school.”

FN: Gavin Goes FULL TRUMP! – YouTube (Start at 50:42)

Complacency in this moment—this authoritarian, crypto-fascist moment—is disqualifying. And the fascism isn’t so crypto anymore.

If you’re too cool for school while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, you might as well be campaigning from Mars.

🧠 Complacency vs. Hunger: The Political Litmus Test

The opposite of hunger is complacency. And most Americans aren’t complacent—they’re struggling, furious, and fed up with a system that feels rigged. Just look at how Luigi Mangione became a social media folk hero after murdering healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood.

FN: Luigi Mangione Has Become A Social Media Folk Hero

Complacency signals comfort with the status quo. And if you’re comfortable, how can you credibly promise change? Voters don’t want a bowl-of-cherries candidate. They want someone who’s tasted struggle—and is ready to fight.

🧠 Huey Long’s Own Mein Kampf Moment

Let’s be clear: I reject the Godwin Principle. If we can’t compare historical patterns, why study history at all? Trump absolutely invites comparison to Hitler—not because they’re identical, but because the analogies are apt. Especially when you look at what Trump’s ICE thugs have been up to in D.C.

FN: Detentions of D.C. delivery drivers leave immigrant communities on edge

And no—I’m not a fan of Hitler. Unlike many of Trump’s supporters. But I’ve read Mein Kampf because history demands vigilance.

What’s striking is that Hitler, as a political figure, was the opposite of complacent. His infamous book was titled My Struggle. He had been homeless in Vienna. He knew how to weaponize hardship into political narrative.

FN: The History Place – Rise of Hitler: Hitler is Homeless in Vienna

Huey Long had a similar arc. He slept on a park bench before law school. He was penniless. His rage was righteous. His message—Share the Wealth—was rooted in lived struggle.

Trump’s rage is performative. But it fools people. It mimics moral anger. And that mimicry is politically potent.

🧠 The Power of Struggle as Narrative

My Struggle resonated because it framed Hitler as a man who had suffered—who understood the pain of the people. Who knew how tough it is out there. Obviously, his politics were catastrophic. But the narrative structure worked.

Huey Long’s story worked too. He wasn’t born into ease. He fought. He named enemies. He dramatized injustice.

Rage over injustice gives the rage a halo of righteousness.

That’s what Democrats still don’t grasp. They run on competence. Voters want conviction.

🧠 It’s the Moral Antagonism, Stupid

FDR understood this. In 1936, he didn’t just name enemies—he welcomed their hatred.

“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate… They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”

He didn’t run from moral conflict. He ran toward it. He made the stakes visceral. He made the fight righteous.

“Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

This wasn’t technocracy. It was moral warfare. And it worked.

FN: Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa.

🧠 Many in the Democratic Establishment Aren’t Mad Enough—If at All

The problem with the Democratic establishment is simple: they promise change but seem perfectly content with the status quo. Huey Long fascinates me because he was one man who took over an entire state. As T. Harry Williams argues, his domination of Louisiana was unprecedented in U.S. history.

Figures like Ross Perot—and yes, even Donald Trump, however misplaced that premise turned out to be—appealed to the idea that a rich, principled outsider could fix the system. Someone too wealthy to be bought. Whatever the merits of that idea, Huey Long actually did it. He poked Standard Oil in the eye and the system couldn’t corrupt him.

He didn’t reform the system. He built a counter-system—and ruled it absolutely.

He wasn’t an institutionalist. He fired everyone in state government and replaced them with loyalists. Despotic? Yes. Effective? Also yes. His machine laid the groundwork for what would become the New Deal.

As a liberal who despises how our institutions currently function—but also knows we need healthy institutions to reclaim democracy—I find Long’s methods both compelling and deeply unsettling.

🧠 There’s So Much Worthy of Hate Today

Trump is a textbook villain. Just one example: the White House ambush of President Zelensky in February. How do you watch that and not feel rage?

Somehow, the establishment Democrats manage. They call it a distraction. They want to talk about healthcare—or the evils of running with scissors. Respectability politics at its most mealy-mouthed. As SNL’s George H.W. Bush would say: “Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.”

How do you watch Trump’s assault on D.C.—his thugs beating up Doordash drivers—and not be enraged?

Ask the Savvy class. They’ve perfected the art of disengagement.

How do you live in a country where a 13-year-old rape victim has fewer rights than her rapist—and not scream?

Where in Texas, a woman was denied an abortion even though the fetus was dead and her life was in danger?

FN: How Did We Win A Webby Award? Behind The Scenes With The Lincoln Project

LP Podcast | “So Much Blood”: Ryan Hamilton on Dealing with Doctors in Texas Post-Abortion Ban

Where measles is making a comeback under its best friend in the White House, RFK Jr?

Where the GOP has stolen six elections since 1968—if you count 2024, which I do. Trump and Bibi, I believe, had a deal to delay a ceasefire until after the election. Just like Reagan-Bush and the Ayatollah in 1980.

But it’s all “just a distraction.” Let’s talk about healthcare. Not pass any bills. Just talk.

🔥 Final Punch

How can you not be angry? Unless you’re personally doing very well despite the fascist turn of this country, it’s hard to understand. But voters see it. They feel it. And they won’t believe you’re here to make life better for them if you seem perfectly comfortable with the way things are. Rage isn’t a liability. It’s a signal that you’re awake.

🧱 Sidebar: Huey Long and the Virtue of Hate

Huey Long understood something most technocrats never will: you need an enemy. Not just a policy disagreement—but a moral antagonist.

He didn’t shy away from hate. He weaponized it. He gave his supporters a story, a villain, and a reason to fight.

You can’t mobilize passion with spreadsheets. You need a moral narrative.

See Prologue: The Machinery of Passion

🧠 It’s the Filibuster, Stupid

The big reforms don’t require abusing the system—they require radical transformation. Starting with the filibuster.

It’s ironic that Adam Jentleson, who wrote the definitive takedown of the filibuster in Kill Switch, was later peddling advice like “Maybe if we’re nice to RFK Jr, he won’t gut our vaccine infrastructure.”

FN: Kill Switch – Adam Jentleson

As we saw in Chapter President Joe’s First Mistake, Biden and Schumer had no interest in abolishing the filibuster. Or reforming the Supreme Court. But without those reforms, there’s no path to a functioning democracy.

Institutionalists handwring. Reformists act. We need the latter.

🧠 A Little Sympathy for Ezra Klein’s Abundance

I framed this as a riff on Sympathy for the Devil because Klein has a kind of demonic status on the Left. And I get it. I don’t fully trust him either—even though we probably agree on most policy.

He’s Savvy. Jay Rosen Savvy. Exhibit A: For Klein, it’s self-evident that Epstein killed himself. That’s classic Savvy class logic—“Conspiracies don’t happen. Only accidents and stupidity.”

FN: Why Trump Can’t Shake Jeffrey Epstein | The Ezra Klein Show

🧠 The “Conspiracies Never Happen” Fallacy

Klein’s contradiction is glaring: he sees Trump as an authoritarian threat, yet dismisses Epstein revelations as MAGA fantasy. That’s not skepticism—it’s selective epistemic gatekeeping.

• Pam Bondi’s memo to Kash Patel confirms 200+ pages of Epstein-related documents.
• Her later denial wasn’t a correction—it was a cover-up.
• John Kiriakou’s defense of Patel and Bongino suggests the “deep state” may have buried evidence.

FN: I discuss Kiriakou in the Prologue.

🧠 The Know-Nothingism of the Left

While I don’t entirely trust him because of Klein’s Savvy instincts the Left’s reasons are different. The Left has its own anti-expert bias—mirroring the Right. That’s how we lost herd immunity for measles.

FN: See The Death of Expertise

I’m a liberal, but I don’t fully trust Klein because of political economy. He’s part of the pundit class—Yglesias, Noah Smith, etc.—who seem clueless about how hard it is out there.

Smith even denies the fact that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. He makes the absurd claim that median American makes $180,000.

🧠 Process vs. Result

But on substance, Klein’s theory of abundance makes an important point. As the party of government, Democrats have to prove it can work.

People flirt with authoritarianism because democratic government has been flailing. The GOP creates gridlock, then uses it to argue government doesn’t work. But Klein’s right: liberalism has to show results.

FN: Abundance – Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson

A Sam Seder guest—who worked in the Clinton White House—argued Klein spends too much time blaming regulation and not enough time blaming corporate power. Fair critique.

But the core truth remains: what matters is what you pass into law. Not what you talk about.

To paraphrase Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross: “Sign on the line that is dotted.”

🔥 CODA

Except in this case, the dotted line isn’t snake oil. It’s strong reformist legislation. And if Democrats don’t deliver it, they’ll lose the moral narrative—and the country.

🧠 The Rise of Zohran Mamdani

Huey Long’s legacy is complicated. He understood that power is essential—you can’t implement ideals without it. But sometimes he treated power as an end in itself, not a tool for progress.

Long’s self-aggrandizement tour was compelling. But it wasn’t always principled.

🧠 Huey Long, Accelerationist?!

Long’s 1936 plan to sabotage FDR so a Republican could crash the economy—making Long a 1940 shoe-in—wasn’t just bad strategy. It was morally bankrupt. It echoed the logic of 2016’s “Bernie Bros” chanting “Lock Her Up” alongside Trumpists in Philly.

Accelerationism isn’t revolution. It’s collateral damage dressed up as strategy.

Long criticized the New Deal without offering real alternatives. That’s not leadership. That’s vanity.

🧠 Mamdani by Comparison Seems Driven by Principle

Zohran Mamdani feels like the real deal. He’s a NY Everyman—chatting with cart owners about $10 sandwiches, showing up where people live.

Huey Long understood the paradox: make people feel you’re one of them—and also better than them. Mamdani channels that without the ego.

I’m a center-left Democrat. I voted for Hillary three times, backed Kamala in 2020, voted for Biden. But if I lived in NYC, I’d vote for Mamdani. His appeal is broader than Bernie’s—who never cracked the Black vote and refused to engage in cultural resonance.

Mamdani gets it. Bernie didn’t even try.

Bernie did offer a moral narrative—“the millionaires and the billionaires, the drug companies, the big banks.” But it was too Marxist in its abstraction. It focused on impersonal economic forces. That’s good. But not sufficient.

Even structural critique needs personification. Rage needs a face.

You have to name villains. Not just systems. Not just forces. But individuals who embody the rot—who profit while others suffer. That’s what Mamdani does better. He doesn’t just talk policy. He makes it personal.

So the moral narrative has to be personal, not just structural.

🧠 The Epstein Files as Moral Narrative

In this vein a very good example of an effective moral narrative is the Epstein Files furor. Many Savvy Democrats AND ultra leftists made the mistake that “this is a distraction.”

The Epstein saga isn’t just about corruption. It’s about impunity—how the superwealthy commit horrific crimes and walk away untouched. Katie Johnson alleged in court that both Trump and Epstein raped her. That allegation alone should have shattered the political landscape.

This isn’t just oligarchy. It’s misogyny. It’s patriarchy. It’s the abuse of women and girls—by men who believe they’re untouchable.

And they are. That’s the point.

The Epstein Files expose the machinery of elite protection. The sealed documents. The buried flight logs. The sanitized media coverage. It’s not just about wealth—it’s about who gets to live above the law.

Bernie’s structural critique—“the millionaires and the billionaires”—is valid. But it’s abstract. The Epstein narrative makes it personal. It names names. It shows faces. It tells stories of pain, silence, and survival.

It’s the same critique. But with blood and bone. With victims. With stakes.

This is what moral antagonism looks like. Not just policy failure. But human betrayal. And it’s why the Left needs to move beyond spreadsheets and slogans. You don’t mobilize with charts. You mobilize with truth.

The Epstein Files aren’t a distraction. They’re a case study in elite impunity, gendered violence, and the machinery of silence. They dramatize the very thing Bernie gestures toward in abstract terms—but with visceral, personal stakes. And by naming that failure to engage, because moral antagonism isn’t optional—it’s the engine of political resonance.

🧠 Policy, Vibes, and Bold Experimentation

I’m not sure Mamdani’s free busing and government-run supermarket plan will work. But with cost of living sky-high, people are ready to try.

As FDR said: “Bold experimentation.”

Kamala didn’t lose because of Biden’s age. She lost because she backed off a progressive agenda—thanks to consultant-class advice. Her brother-in-law warned against penalizing price gouging-a policy proposal of hers which had the convenience of being not just good but popular. Consultants told her and Walz to stop calling Republicans weird.

FN: Harris was convinced not to run a progressive campaign. So Democrats stayed home | The Independent

Mamdani’s playbook: be a regular guy, center affordability, and show up. The one thing missing? Wages. Free buses help lower the cost of living to an extent. But raising wages hits the root of why so many people have an inadequate standard of living.

🧠 The Fallacy of Independents

The “duopoly” myth—that both parties are terrible—is political illiteracy dressed up as wisdom. It’s a branding failure by Democrats not to challenge it effectively.

🧠 To Paraphrase Hillary Clinton: It Takes a Party

Fetishizing “independents” reflects a deeper historical ignorance. Democrats should teach the history of their own party. But how many know it themselves?

🧠 Why Former Conservatives Give Better Advice Than the Consultant Class

Matthew Sheffield, a former conservative, offers sharper insights than most Democratic insiders. Why? Because it’s hard to be worse than the consultant class.

Trump won’t deliver for voters, but do Democrats actually want to defeat him?

🧠 Ken Martin Promised to Fire the Consultant Class. What Happened?

Martin said if he won, the consultant class would be gone. Instead?

FN: Critics of DNC Chair Ken Martin savage his tenure: ‘Weak,’ ‘whiny’ and ‘invisible’ – POLITICO

He’s been anything but an upgrade over Jaime Harrison—who was scapegoated from the start. And last I saw the consultant class isn’t “gone.”

🧠 Democrats Have a Coalition. Republicans Have an Ecosystem.

Matthew Sheffield nailed it: the GOP has an ecosystem. Democrats have a coalition. One is organic. The other is fragile.

But Sheffield also makes another crucial observation: Democrats tend to shy away from their own record as the party of social progress.

Which brings me to a larger point: how the Democrats should brand themselves.

🧠 Democrats Are the Party of the New Deal—and of All Economic and Social Progress for the Last 100 Years

Is that overblown? No. It’s understated. It’s more like 111 years.

• Wilson: progressive on economics, reactionary on race
• Bryan: feminist, racist
• FDR: built the New Deal, demurred on civil rights
• Truman: launched the Marshall Plan
• LBJ: signed the Voting Rights Act

Progress came when Democrats had the presidency and supermajority power. Yet many on the Left  focus on “independents” when the clear correlation of history is that the way to pass a progressive agenda is a Democratic party supermajority. In other words partisanship is a feature not a bug. In truth it’s THE feature of any kind of progressive future. 

🧠 The Third Party Spoiler Myth

Independents and third parties haven’t built anything. They’ve spoiled everything.

• Nader in 2000
• Jill Stein in 2016, 2020, 2024
• Her dinner with Mike Flynn and Putin in Moscow? Just a coinkydink.

Or Huey Long’s plan in 1935. Same logic. Same damage.

🔥 Final Punch

Huey Long understood power. Mamdani understands people. The Democrats need to understand history—and stop outsourcing strategy to consultants who think “weird” is too risky. The party of the New Deal must reclaim its legacy. Not with nostalgia. But with bold experimentation, moral antagonism, and a refusal to let the ecosystem of authoritarianism win by default.