Prohibition was a Progressive Cause

Ken Burns, the director of many famous documentaries in the past three plus decades (his The Civil War famously drew the ire of Harry Jaffa in 1990), just recently had his three-part Prohibition run on PBS.  While I did not get to to see most of it, the few parts that I did see were good.  I think if I would have heard Burns' recent explanation on the similarities between the Tea Party and Prohibition advocates before I saw the little I did see, it might have colored my viewing a little differently.  Here is Burns on Adam Carolla's podcast:

The real connection about Prohibition, to me the thing that there’s nothing new under the sun, is that this is the story about right-wing, single issue campaigns that metastasize. This is the story about the demonization of immigrants. This is the story about state and local governments complaining about unfunded mandates. This is the story about smear campaigns against Democrats… It’s like a Tea Party thing.

 But, as Christian Schnieder points out at National Review Online, the main advocates of national prohibition were Progressives.  Here is Christian giving some historical background:

Of course, it’s exactly nothing like a Tea Party thing. Following the turn of the century, it was Progressives that pushed for Prohibition, believing they were looking out for the working people of America. The Left also believed banning liquor would help the plight of immigrants — without actually checking with those very immigrants, many of whom enjoyed drinking heavily. Prohibition was also supported by the Klu Klux Klan, who backed former secretary of the treasury William Gibbs McAdoo for the 1924 Democratic presidential nomination against Prohibition opponent Al Smith, governor of New York.

It seems typical to link the enactment of prohibition to a bunch of over-zealous Christians who just want to force their wacky views on everyone else.  But that's not the whole story. 

Prohibition was a progressive cause after the turn of the century.  It is important to delve a little into the political theory behind Progressivism so that a larger connection can be seen.  A dominant strain in Progressivism features the growth of the state and bureaucracy at the loss of the consent of the governed.  The general will replaces enlightened consent as the engine of our politics.  It was the job of politicians to take that will and implement it in light of changing tides of History.  What seems like more democracy is actually just the reverse; that's why the Founders did not establish a democracy but a republic.  Cooler heads did prevail and the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed Prohibition in 1933.