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Bill Kauffman | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kauffman in 2014 | |
| Born | (1959-11-15)November 15, 1959 (age 65) Batavia, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Rochester |
| Occupation | Author |
| Children | 1 |
Bill Kauffman (born November 15, 1959) is an American political writer generally aligned with thelocalist movement.[citation needed] He was born inBatavia, New York, and currently resides inElba, New York, with his wife and daughter.
A devout Roman Catholic, Kauffman was also an intimate correspondent of the lateGore Vidal,[1] with whom he shares many ideological similarities.
After earning aBachelor of Arts degree from theUniversity of Rochester, he went to work as an aide to New York SenatorDaniel Patrick Moynihan (which he would later describe as an "anarchist-making experience")[2] in 1981. After leaving Moynihan's employ, Kauffman worked asWashington, D.C., editor forReason before quitting and returning to Batavia. He has written frequently forThe American Conservative,The American Enterprise,The Wall Street Journal, andCounterPunch. He wrote the screenplay to the independent filmCopperhead, which was directed byRon Maxwell, a friend of Kauffman's. The film came out in June 2013 to mixed reviews.
Kauffman's politics remain difficult to categorize. He holds stronglibertarian leanings withculturally conservative andisolationist inclinations. He is acritic of development, frequently writes approvingly ofdistributism andagrarianism, and is stronglyanti-corporate. Kauffman has described his politics as "a blend ofCatholic Worker,Old Right libertarian, Yorkertranscendentalist, and deliriouslocalist."[3] He has also described himself as an "Independent. AJeffersonian. Ananarchist. A (cheerful!)enemy of the state, areactionaryFriend of the Library, apeace-lovingfootball fan."[3][4] Although he remains a registeredDemocrat, he rarely supports their candidates or theirparty platform and has frequently votedGreen since the collapse of theReform Party as a significant force in 2000.
Other positions adopted by Kauffman that are considered controversial to both theLeft and theRight include his support for theSecond Vermont Republicsecessionist movement,[5] his admiration for1972Democratic presidential nomineeGeorge McGovern,[6] his argument thatCatholic Worker activistDorothy Day had much in common with elements of the Right,[7] and his contention thatPhilip Roth's bookThe Plot Against America is "the novel that aneoconservative would write, if a neoconservative could write a novel."[8] He made the argument in his bookAin't My America that a true conservative would object to aninterventionist foreign policy.[9]
He voted forReform Party candidatePat Buchanan in2000.[10] In2004 and2008, he voted forRalph Nader forPresident of the United States "because I never got the chance to vote forGene Debs orNorman Thomas."[10] On September 2, 2008, he addressed theRally for the Republic inSaint Paul,Minnesota put on byRon Paul (R-TX).[11][12]
His books includeEvery Man a King (1989), a novel about a young senatorial aide who, disgusted with politics, returns to his rural New York hometown to start a new life;Country Towns of New York (1993), a travel book;America First!: Its History, Politics, and Culture (1995), a history of Americanpopulist,isolationist, andanti-imperialist thought;With Good Intentions?: Reflections on the Myth of Progress in America (1998), a collection of (often approving) profiles of the opponents ofschool consolidation,child labor laws, astanding army,women's suffrage, and theInterstate Highway System, as well as the proponents ofhomesteading as a means of battling theGreat Depression;Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette: A Mostly Affectionate Account of a Small Town’s Fight to Survive (2003), the story of Batavia and its decline;Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists (2006), a meditation on American political, literary, and artistic figures whose values he admires; andAin't My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle American Anti-Imperialism (2008).Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life ofLuther Martin, was published in 2008 by theIntercollegiate Studies Institute. It was followed byBye Bye, Miss American Empire (2010), a study of secessionist movements; by a book reprinting his screenplay forCopperhead; and by the essay collectionPoetry Night at the Ballpark (2015). He also editedA Story of America First (2003), amemoir byAmerica First Committee congressional liaisonRuth Sarles Benedict, andThe Congressional Journal of Barber B. Conable, Jr. (2021), and he co-edited the 2010 anthologyComeHomeAmerica.us: Historic and Current Opposition to U.S. Wars and How a Coalition of Citizens from the Political Right and Left Can End American Empire.
