Rachel Jackson

Rachel Jackson, a doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma, is writing her dissertation about Oklahoma's agrarian socialist roots. She is focusing on rhetoric rather than political science, and as such, her work is concerned with what she calls "the power of political persecution."

"The study of socialism in Oklahoma is a study in the rhetorical power of the word versus the intellectual content of the message," Jackson said.
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According to Jackson, this resistance to the war would be used against Oklahoma socialists when their motives were challenged following the Green Corn Rebellion in 1917.

"Tenant farmers were discontent with the amount of rent they were charged by the landowners," she said.
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"The opponents of the march said that the farmers were marching to Washington to stop the war," Jackson said. "It gave the anti-leftists powerful rhetorical tools to undermine the socialist movement."

Combined with the first Red Scare in the 1910s and 1920s and the emigration of farmers during the Dust Bowl, socialism in Oklahoma suffered a series of setbacks from which it never recovered. Candidates remained on the ballot until the mid-1930s, but the power of the movement was destroyed in the early '20s, according to Jackson.

She said the resurrection of the term during the recent election convinced her that the term has become meaningless in political rhetoric. "It's laughable, the way it was used," she said. "There are valid, helpful ideas in socialist theory, but no one will hear them because the listening stops once the word is used. It's the power of rhetoric."

Jackson said that this year's election pointed to how far socialism had fallen in the public's estimation.

Rachel Jackson University of Oklahoma