Where It All Began: The Dawn of “Fake News”
The two principals were Republican incumbent, Frank Merriman, and his Democratic challenger, Upton Sinclair. Merriman, a nondescript political lightweight with no national profile, was viewed more or less by the RNC as the Party’s West Coast performing flea. As Lieutenant Governor he was jettisoned into the incumbency when Governor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph died of a heart attack in June of 1934, just months before the election.
His chief opponent, Upton Sinclair, a prairie socialist and muckraker, was the celebrated author of “The Jungle,” the best-selling expose of the Chicago meat packing industry. Because the nation was still in the stranglehold of the most debilitating economic depression in its history, Sinclair reasonably chose to base his campaign on the EPIC (End Poverty in California) project.
Put simply, EPIC was an ambitious socialist program whose goal was universal employment. Among other things, EPIC promised massive public works programs, the reorganization of the agriculture industry into farm co-ops, and virtual state control of California’s factories.
Given the overall popularity of FDR’s New Deal, and the fact that the American Left was still feeding off table scraps of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the notion of “eliminating poverty” was properly considered not only necessary but feasible.
In addition to Merriman and Sinclair, there were two other notable players: Louis B. Mayer, the powerful overlord of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), whose dominion over the movie industry permitted him to comport himself like the Sun King (think of Harvey Weinstein magnified 100 times). and the advertising-public relations firm of Whitaker & Baker.
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