Nearly all of the states in this country are dominated by two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. Minnesota, however, is a little different from those other states. Instead of a Republican Party and a Democratic Party, Minnesota has the Republican Party and the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL). What gives, Minnesota? Why can’t you be normal and have a Democratic Party like everyone else?
The answer to that question lies in the state’s history.
The Upper Midwest has a tradition of progressivism and radicalism that goes back to the 19th century. There were many third party movements in those days. In rural areas, farmers had little power against the institutions that they were forced to do business with; railroads, banks, grain elevators, and grain exchanges all called the shots. Small political movements sprang up to address the imbalance of power between the farmers and these large businesses.
The Nonpartisan League (NPL) was founded in North Dakota in 1915 by socialist Arthur C. Townley. Its members were farmers who wanted public ownership of grain elevators and flourmills. The League never ran its own candidates; it wasn’t a political party per se. Instead, it endorsed candidates from any party who suited their goals. NPL’s popularity grew across the Upper Midwest, particularly with farmers in western Minnesota.
The American people had a wide range of opinions about communism in the wake of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Fat cats were very nervous about it and obviously saw it as a threat. Most of the major newspapers were owned by said obese felines and toed the anti-communist line. Many ordinary people were afraid of communism, too. Maybe they were influenced by the anti-communist propaganda, maybe they were frightened by change, or maybe they just had their own opinions. Anti-communism wasn’t limited to rich guys.
On the other hand, there were people who thought this communism thing sounded like a pretty good idea. Indeed, there was a range of enthusiasm for it. Some people strongly championed communism and were happy to call Stalin their daddy. There were Trotskyites, who dug communism but not Stalin’s brand. There were progressives who didn’t identify as communists but supported the idea that the state should protect people from the worst consequences of capitalism. Quite a few of these people identified as socialist. There were also squishy liberals who didn’t approve of socialism per se, but they thought that maybe sometimes it was good for the state to intervene in industry when it made sense. For example, this contingent tended to support public ownership of utilities.
Then came the Great War, (that’s WWI to you and me.) Despite significant resistance from pacifists, a majority of people across political parties supported the war effort. A feeling of patriotism swept across the country.
An election was slated at the height of the war hysteria. In a patriotic fever, the Minnesota Democratic Party gave away the store and agreed to cancel the election. Holding regular elections was inappropriate during war, they said. All of the community’s efforts had to support the war effort. Republicans happened to be holding the majority of public offices at the time. Suspending elections gave them the perfect opportunity to consolidate their power. The Democrats’ unforced error would leave them in the political wilderness for a generation.
Meanwhile, the NPL had many immigrant German members who weren’t thrilled about the war, and didn’t think America should participate in it. This made the general public suspicious of the League. There was a bit of a witch-hunt where the NPL officers were arrested and their meetings shut down.
The NPL was down, but not out. They decided that they needed allies. They reached out to labor organizations. These labor groups wanted an eight-hour day, worker’s comp, and crazy things like that. The groups were receptive to the NPL’s overtures, and before you knew it, a new political party was born from the alliance: the Farmer-Labor Party (FLP).
The new party did well. For quite a while, the Republicans were the strongest party in Minnesota, followed by the FLP. The Democratic Party came in a distant third. The FLP continued to rise. In 1930, Floyd B. Olson won governorship as a FLP candidate. What with the Depression people were in the mood to eat the rich; installing a socialist governor made good sense. Olson was crazy popular. He is still a big hero of Minnesota progressives to this day.
When Olson died in 1936, there was a lot of intra-party fighting that weakened the FLP. There were factions among factions. Splinter groups had splinters. The Democratic Party suffered from factionalism but to a lesser extent, if only because they were a much smaller organization. The Republicans won all of the elections while everyone else was fighting with each other.
There was often talk about merging the Democratic Party with the FLP but neither side really trusted the other. The Dems were urban and Catholic. FLP membership was composed of Scandinavian farmers with protestant blue-collar workers thrown into the mix. The FLP didn’t trust the Dems’ national organization, and the Dems didn’t trust the FLP’s socialist tendencies.
Enter Hubert Horatio Humphrey. He was a phenomenal orator; everyone could tell right from the start that he had star power. He was going somewhere, that one. Humphrey was a Roosevelt supporter. He saw that the only way Roosevelt could win Minnesota was if he had support from both the Democratic Party and the FLP. Initially Humphrey was just as glad to work with the communists as with anyone else, but things were so factionalized the communists were bound to alienate him eventually. And alienate him they did. Once he saw that alliances with the communists were likely to be shallow and short-lived, he became firmly anti-communist. In fact, he became a veritable standard-bearer for anti-communist liberals.
The Hump worked tirelessly for a merger, meeting with the parties’ leaders repeatedly. The Democratic Party was cautiously in favor of the idea, but the FLP continued to be suspicious. They worried that too much power would flow up to higher levels of the merged organization at risk of disempowering the common members.
World War II turned Communist sentiment from isolationist to pro-war. Once Hitler threatened Russia, the Communists suddenly supported American action against Germany. They weren’t exactly alone. While there were still pockets of pacifism, nearly all liberals and progressives were lining up against Hitler. With a common enemy, it became easy for these formally antagonistic factions to come together. Nothing else mattered but the fight against fascism. In this context, combining forces made all the sense.
It was a long time coming, but both sides finally agreed to merge. On April 15, 1944, the FLP united with the Democratic Party to form the new DFL Party. Many communists left at that time. Socialists and progressives tended to stay and were absorbed into the new party.
Once the FLP combined with the smaller, more centrist Democratic Party, they had the numbers to win elections. Republicans would no longer dominate state politics. For many years, the soft liberalism of Hubert Humphrey and his boy Walter Mondale reigned in Minnesota. Radical factions were subsumed into the greater whole and generally neutralized. The progressive impulse was not wiped out of Minnesota politics, however. Socialist proclivities reemerged repeatedly over the years, both within the DFL and outside of it. Representative Ilhan Omar is the most recent- though certainly not the last- example of the radical thread that runs through Minnesota politics.
When you grow up in Minnesota, if you say the DFL is the same thing as the Democratic Party, your parents will tell you to hush your mouth. Technically, the DFL is an affiliate of the Democratic Party. Its unique status is a reflection of the progressive contributions of the past and the reminder of the role progressives will continue to play in the future.
TLDR?
Moderates and progressives have to play nice, or Republicans will get All the Things. Liberals should be more inclusive and not so judgey of progressives, except for maybe the Stalinists who likely deserved what they got.
This is a highly abridged version of a complicated story with scores of players and multiple twists and turns. There are conspiracies and betrayals, parliamentary maneuvering and factional battles. To do the topic justice you will have to, yes, read a book. There are some good ones on the subject, (though you should avoid the more strident anti-communist tomes. Some historians who are normally good at their craft can get awful knee-jerky when they see the word communism.) I recommend you check these out:
Gieske, Millard L. Minnesota Farmer-Laborism: the Third-Party Alternative. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1979.
Haynes, John Earl. Dubious Alliance: the Making of Minnesota’s DFL Party. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
Carz Nelson 