Episode 40. Johnny Cash was a Dirty Moderate with Michael Stewart Foley

Michael Stewart Foley - celebrated historian of American political culture joins Adam in a conversation that you won’t want to miss.

Johnny Cash was an American icon, known for his level, bass-baritone voice and somber demeanor, and for huge hits like “Ring of Fire” and “I Walk the Line.” But he was also the most prominent political artist in the United States, even if he wasn’t recognized for it in his own lifetime, or since his death in 2003.Then and now, people have misread Johhny Cash’s politics, usually accepting the idea of him as a “walking contradiction.” Cash didn’t fit into easy political categories—liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, hawk or dove. Like most people, Cash’s politics were remarkably consistent in that they were based not on ideology or scripts but on empathy—emotion, instinct, and identification. Sound familiar?

Johnny Cash was a Dirty Moderate.

Foley’s own family history of labor activism and political campaigning, allowed for his All-American upbringing to inform a lifelong study of America and all of her flawed charms. His marvelous book, Citizen Cash: The political Life and Times of Johnny Cash, is a must read for Dirty Moderates, but truly should be required reading for the masses who have only read; or been fed, the cliff’s notes version of the true soul of America.

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