This is the first project of my ranking ideologies tier list series. A disclaimer, nothing I say should be taken completely seriously and I am biased. My ideology is very libertarian, and I place value in rationalism and principle. I do not condone any violence or any sort of aggression too. Anyway, let’s get started. Who better to start with than the big Huey Long himself. I know a lot of my friends on here like him. I will try and make the case why he is a low C tier ideological figure in this project. Who was Huey Long? Well, he was a Louisiana politician and governor who met an unfortunate end before he could run for president in 1935. He was a controversial figure at the time, so controversial, that when he died headlines were either very personal and seemingly upset or called him a straight up dictator. Long was called the “Kingfish” for a reason, and he did have many authoritarian qualities and tendencies. He is almost similar to someone we have as president right now if you will. Except, he was a left wing populist instead of a right wing one. He gave fiery speeches and had a cult of personality surrounding himself among rural voters. Authoritarian Tendencies: Long was not a monarchist, which is the truth that is the opposite of the memes about his ideology you might find online. However, he certainly lacked a respect for democratic institutions. Long built a political machine, much like Pendergast in Kansas City and other New Deal era Democrats. The Democratic Party at the time was entirely dominant because of their promises to fix the New Deal (which might be for another episode), but regardless, Long fired all people who did not pledge loyalty to himself. While there is nothing undemocratic about this, it is an example of the tyranny of the majority and the disregarding of your other fellow statesman’s beliefs. It went so far, that towards the end of his term as governor, he stationed the state militia directly in the capital to intimidate the opposition. Long cut funding entirely to opposition controlled programs and beneficiaries (which I don’t necessarily not agree with, but his reasons for doing it were wrong), tried to ban the free press, and on multiple accounts did voter fraud to get his way. What did he actually believe? Long is hard to place on the political spectrum, and even admitted to being his own thing (which we will talk about later). I’d say he was authoritarian, left wing economically, and close to the center socially. We already talked about his authoritarianism so let’s get to the big part what set him apart from other populists of his time. While he was not a socialist, and denounced Marxism in general, he was a wealth redistributionist. I take an immediate problem with that, because it goes further than what any sort of classical liberal ideology could extort. It is the blatant extortion of dollars to do more than keep the state alive to protect the people, but to redistribute it to more unfortunate people. This may seem pretty logical from a consequentialist perspective, but as an NAP deontologist, I cannot accept this (If you want to know more about my ideology and how I justify my beliefs just check out my other projects). Even further than this, according to economists, it was said his progressive tax would not even cover the 5,000 dollars grant from the government. Who knows how they could get the money. Socially, Long was definetly an anti racist, but held some conservative views against the speakeasy Republican culture of the 20s held by many democrats of the time. Long was an isolationist and nationalist as well, but definetly was not on the right side of the spectrum. The biggest problem with Long’s ideology is that it is not even built on a coherent framework. He held no firm political philosophy, and he based his ideology mostly on pure pulling at heart strings. To me, he is a demagogue, who I disagree with. In the end though, the reason he isn’t higher isn’t because of his policies, but it’s because he mostly just went off his own feelings.
