Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party

Based on Wikipedia: Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party

For twenty-six years, Minnesota ran an experiment that most American political scientists would tell you is impossible. A third party—not just surviving, but dominating—in a country whose electoral system ruthlessly punishes anyone who isn't a Democrat or Republican.

The Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party didn't just win a few seats here and there. At its peak in the 1930s, this left-wing coalition controlled three governorships, four United States Senate seats, eight House seats, and held a majority in the state legislature. No other third party in American history has come close to this level of sustained success at the state level.

How did they do it? And why did it eventually end?

The Unlikely Alliance

The party emerged in 1918 from two separate movements colliding in Minnesota. The first was the Non-Partisan League, a radical farmers' organization that had already taken over North Dakota's government and was expanding eastward. The second was the Union Labor Party, founded by workers in Duluth, the gritty port city on Lake Superior where iron ore from the Mesabi Range met the ships that would carry it east.

On paper, farmers and factory workers seem like natural allies—both groups of hardworking people struggling against wealthy interests. But the reality was far more complicated, and this tension would define the party's entire existence.

Think about what a farmer actually is, economically speaking. A farmer owns property: land, equipment, livestock. A farmer is essentially a small business owner who happens to work with their hands. When times get hard, what does a farmer want? Lower taxes on their property. Better prices for their crops. Easier access to credit so they can survive until the next harvest.

Now think about an unemployed factory worker in Minneapolis or Duluth during the Great Depression. This person often owns nothing. They have no property to tax. What they need is immediate relief: food, shelter, a job program, a check from the government to survive until the economy recovers.

Here's where it gets interesting—and contentious. When the government creates a jobs program, it needs money. Where does that money come from? Largely from property taxes. So the farmer sees it this way: I'm struggling to hold onto my land, and now you want to raise my taxes to pay people to dig ditches instead of learning to farm like I did?

And the worker sees it this way: You still have your land, your house, your livelihood. I have nothing. I'm standing in a bread line. How can you begrudge me basic survival?

The Glue That Held Them Together

What united these two groups, despite their conflicting material interests, was something more emotional than economic: a shared sense that they were being exploited by the same people.

Both farmers and workers in early twentieth-century Minnesota believed they were "producers"—people who actually made things, grew things, built things—being systematically cheated by a small class of bankers, railroad owners, grain elevator operators, and factory bosses who contributed nothing but somehow captured most of the wealth.

This is classic American populism, and it's a powerful political force. It's also inherently unstable, because once you start arguing about specific policies rather than shared enemies, the coalition starts to fracture.

The Farmer–Labor Party's platform reflected this uneasy compromise. They called for government ownership of certain industries—railroads, grain elevators, power companies—which appealed to both groups who felt exploited by these businesses. They supported social security laws that would help workers in old age. And they pushed for protections for labor unions, which organized both factory workers in the cities and, to some extent, agricultural workers in the countryside.

The Golden Age

The party hit its stride during the Great Depression, precisely when the tension between farmers and workers should have been at its worst. The reason was simple: everybody was suffering so badly that old divisions seemed petty.

Floyd B. Olson, who served as governor from 1931 until his death in 1936, became the face of the movement. Olson was a charismatic figure who managed to hold the coalition together through force of personality and genuine skill at retail politics. He understood that his base was fragile, so he worked constantly to remind both farmers and workers that their real enemies were the same: the Minneapolis business establishment, the conservative newspapers that attacked him relentlessly, and the national economic system that had failed everyone.

Something remarkable happened in 1936. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, was running for reelection and building what would become known as the New Deal coalition—a broad alliance of labor unions, urban ethnic voters, African Americans, and progressive farmers that would dominate American politics for a generation.

Roosevelt wanted Minnesota in that coalition. But here was his problem: the Democratic Party in Minnesota was pathetically weak. The state's liberals had all joined the Farmer–Labor Party instead, leaving the Democrats as a distant third place.

So Roosevelt cut a deal with Governor Olson. The Farmer–Labor Party would support Roosevelt's reelection and discourage any third-party presidential candidacy that might split the progressive vote nationally. In exchange, Roosevelt would direct federal patronage—government jobs and contracts—to the Farmer–Labor Party rather than to Minnesota's nominal Democrats.

This was an extraordinary arrangement. A sitting president was essentially treating a state-level third party as his local affiliate, bypassing the national party structure entirely.

The Enemies Within and Without

The party faced constant attacks from Minnesota's newspapers, most of which were owned by business interests deeply hostile to the Farmer–Labor agenda. This was the era before television news, when newspapers shaped public opinion almost completely. Day after day, editorial pages called the party's leaders dangerous radicals, un-American agitators, tools of sinister foreign influences.

Some of those accusations, unfortunately, were not entirely unfounded.

By the late 1930s, the Communist Party had made significant inroads into the Farmer–Labor organization. This wasn't unusual—Communists were active in labor movements throughout the country during this period, and they were often effective organizers. But their presence created problems that would eventually prove fatal.

The Communist faction pushed for policies that aligned with Soviet interests, particularly after World War Two began. When the Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany in 1939 and 1940, the Communists argued against American intervention in the war. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, they suddenly became enthusiastic supporters of the war effort and pushed for "fusion" with other progressive parties to strengthen the alliance between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Meanwhile, the New Deal itself was undermining the party's appeal to farmers. Roosevelt's agricultural programs created a new power center in rural America: the American Farm Bureau Federation, which worked closely with the federal government to administer farm subsidies and crop controls. The Farm Bureau was deeply conservative and hostile to the Farmer–Labor Party. As it grew more powerful, the party found itself increasingly shut out of agricultural policy, even as it continued to claim to represent farmers' interests.

The Merger

By 1944, the Farmer–Labor Party was a diminished force. It had lost the governorship in 1939 and struggled to compete in subsequent elections. The coalition was fracturing, the Communist presence was toxic in an increasingly anti-Soviet political climate, and the New Deal had essentially absorbed much of the party's program into the Democratic mainstream.

Enter Hubert Humphrey.

Humphrey was a young Minneapolis politician who would later become a United States Senator, Lyndon Johnson's Vice President, and the 1968 Democratic presidential nominee. In 1944, he was already a rising star, and he saw an opportunity.

The Minnesota Democratic Party was still weak, but it had something the Farmer–Labor Party lacked: a connection to the national political infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Farmer–Labor Party had an activist base and a brand that still meant something to Minnesota voters, but it was being dragged down by internal dysfunction and the Communist issue.

On April 15, 1944, Humphrey engineered a merger, creating the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party—the DFL. This wasn't just a name change. It was a hostile takeover. Humphrey and his allies systematically expelled the Communist faction from the new organization, purging anyone they considered insufficiently loyal to the anti-Soviet consensus that was emerging in American liberalism.

The merged party kept the Farmer–Labor name and absorbed its voter base, but the old party's radical edge was gone. The DFL would go on to dominate Minnesota politics for decades—it remains the state's dominant liberal party today—but it did so as a conventional Democratic affiliate, not as an independent third-party force.

What Made Minnesota Different?

Why did the Farmer–Labor Party succeed in Minnesota when similar movements failed everywhere else? Several factors converged.

First, Minnesota had an unusually strong tradition of cooperative economics. Farmers had formed grain elevator cooperatives, dairy cooperatives, and credit unions at rates far exceeding most other states. This created a culture of collective action and a dense network of local organizations that the party could tap into.

Second, the state's Scandinavian heritage mattered. Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish immigrants brought with them traditions of social democracy and labor organizing from their home countries. The iron mines of the Mesabi Range, in particular, were filled with Finnish workers who had strong socialist inclinations and were experienced at union organizing.

Third, timing was everything. The party emerged just as the Progressive Era was ending and the post-World War One Red Scare was beginning. It survived long enough to catch the wave of desperation created by the Great Depression, when voters were willing to try almost anything different.

Finally, leadership mattered. Floyd Olson was an exceptional politician who could bridge the farmer-worker divide through sheer charisma. When he died of cancer in 1936, the party never found an adequate replacement.

Lessons for Third Parties

The Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party offers both hope and warnings for anyone dreaming of breaking America's two-party system.

The hope: it can be done, at least at the state level. For over two decades, a third party governed one of America's larger states, sent members to Congress, and shaped national policy. The structural barriers to third parties are real but not insurmountable.

The warnings are more numerous.

First, coalition politics is hard. Any successful third party needs to unite groups with genuinely different interests, and those differences will constantly threaten to tear the party apart. The farmer-worker alliance worked only as long as both sides felt threatened by the same enemies and as long as exceptional leaders could paper over the contradictions.

Second, success attracts parasites. The Communist infiltration of the Farmer–Labor Party was devastating precisely because the party's infrastructure was valuable enough to fight over. Any effective political organization will face attempts by disciplined factions to take it over.

Third, national parties adapt. The New Deal essentially stole the Farmer–Labor platform and implemented it through Democratic channels. Once the Democrats were offering social security, labor protections, and farm subsidies, what was the point of a separate party?

Finally, third parties in America don't usually die—they get absorbed. The Farmer–Labor Party's name still exists in the DFL, but the party itself was swallowed whole by the Democratic organization. The same thing happened to the Populists in the 1890s, to the Progressive Party in Wisconsin, and to various socialist organizations throughout American history. The two-party system bends to accommodate insurgent movements, and then it snaps back into shape.

Still, for a quarter century in the middle of the twentieth century, Minnesota proved that the impossible was possible. Farmers and factory workers could work together. A third party could win. The political system could be changed from outside.

Whether that lesson is inspiring or cautionary probably depends on what you're hoping to build.