In his Hillman Prize-winning book, Fear Itself, Ira Katznelson argues that the New Deal was a deal with various devils. In order to save America’s foundering democracy–and usher in the progressive reforms of the New Deal–Franklin Roosevelt had to ally himself with various anti-democratic factions including the racists of the Jim Crow South.

The South was adamant that the New Deal could not threaten segregation, and Roosevelt played along, allowing the South to effectively shut its black citizens out of the benefits of the New Deal. Fear Itself forces us to confront the hidden history of racism at the heart of one of the most beloved progressive initiatives in U.S. history. 

Writing in the New York Times, Kevin Boyle praised the book’s thesis as a “powerful argument, swept along by Katznelson’s robust prose and the imposing scholarship that lies behind it.”

Katznelson is Columbia University’s Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History and the author of When Affirmative Action Was White. 

We are very proud to honor Katznelson with this year’s Hillman Prize for Book Journalism. 

Tomorrow, we will announce the winners of the 2014 Hillman Prizes. Stay tuned to learn all about this year’s crop of outstanding journalists. 

The Bureau of Land Management backed down from an armed standoff with militiamen on a Nevada ranch Saturday and returned over 300 head of cattle seized for non-payment of grazing fees, thereby setting the precedent that if you’re white and well-armed, you can steal from the government with impunity. Just in time for Tax Day! 

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress explains how this fiasco came about:

This conflict arises out of rancher Cliven Bundy’s many years of illegally grazing his cattle on federal lands. In 1998, a federal court ordered [Cliven] Bundy to cease grazing his livestock on an area of federal land known as the Bunkerville Allotment, and required him to pay the federal government $200 per day per head of cattle remaining on federal lands. Around the time it issued this order, the court also commented that “[t]he government has shown commendable restraint in allowing this trespass to continue for so long without impounding Bundy’s livestock.” Fifteen years later, Bundy continued to defy this court order.

The rangers can’t be blamed for temporarily withdrawing, given that they were facing real guns with stun guns, but this prudent short-term decision sets a terrible long-term precedent.

As Steve Benen wrote on the Rachel Maddow Show website:

But you probably see the problem: it’s unsustainable to think a group of well-armed extremists can simply block the enforcement of American laws in the United States. It’s perfectly understandable that the Bureau of Land Management saw a crisis unfolding and pulled back to prevent bloodshed, but there’s an obvious problem with establishing a radical precedent: you, too, can ignore the law and disregard court rulings you don’t like, just so long as you have well-armed friends pointing guns at Americans.

To put it mildly, that’s not how the American system works. Indeed, that’s not how any system of government can ever work.

[Illustration: A Nevada ranch, Creative Commons.]

The Best of the Week’s News

• Labor foment at the Metropolitan.

• Some government uniforms are still being made in sweatshops.

• Brilliant women sweep the 2014 Anthony Lukas Prizes.

• We Will All Go Together When We Go: In Search of Tom Lehrer. 

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]