Opinion of William Jennings Bryan?

[All Along The Watchtower]

FF compared to most American politicians of the time (and maybe all time) and especially for his economic and anti-imperialist stances.

That being said, HP for hijacking the Populist movement for Democratic partisan purposes and then discrediting it via losing in three landslides, and for being a weird Fundamentalist.

Then again, FF for pushing the Democratic Party further to the Left on economics - and I know, I'm contradicting myself.

A complex figure, but overall a FF.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think it was crabcake or someone else who gave the best take: he started out as an FF and got progressively worse as he aged, ending up a creationist crank. Very sad.  

He was a day-age creationist, not a Young Earther, so it's no big deal. He was wrong to fight the teaching of evolution of course, but it's not really comparable to the anti-evolution crusaders of today.

Especially as Scopes specifically wanted to teach eugenics.

#Progressivism (literally at the time)

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah, the Populists who William Jennings Bryan co-opted paved the way for Teddy Roosevelt’s fifth cousin and Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy to put the New Deal in place.

Of course, the Republicans had to lose all credibility in the first couple years of the Great Depression...and the Socialists and Commies were newly resurgent, too, after the big crackdown on radicals during and after WWI. Confluence matters!