Dr. Seuss: Political Operative

Theodore Seuss Geisel is responsible for one of the most influential and substantial depositories of children’s literature in the English language. His work is deeply moral despite its absurdity; it seeks to influence the minds of its readers, while at the same time reducing social questions to entertainingly bizarre scenarios. The author’s personal liberal politics are well-known, and their influence on some works is obvious. However, the voting behaviour of new voters who had grown up consuming his work may suggest a more profound interaction between the author and his society — Dr Seuss was a supremely effective political operative, who conducted deep canvassing for the elections of the generations whom he addressed.

Methodology

First, methodology: we will take a selection of Seuss’ most political works and examine how voters who were aged 5–10 when they were released voted in elections when they were young adults. For the purposes of this study, we will consider Yertle the Turtle (1958), and The Lorax (1971), each of which has political overtones — rejection of hierarchy and the protection of the environment against profit respectively.

There are other political children’s books by Dr. Seuss, but as they were written before statistics regarding voter age were gathered, too closely to the time of one of the above works, they will not be referenced. Then, we will examine voting behaviour for the youngest demographic for a US presidential election 16 years after the publication of the book, and compare it to the behaviour of that demographic around the date of publication.

Yertle the Turtle

Yertle the Turtle is a story about a downtrodden turtle who takes the singular decision to reject the authority of a system which simultaneously oppressed him and relied upon him to exist. The moral is that such contradictory and harmful systems can easily be overthrown, if only those at the bottom realise the power they have. This has obvious socialist connotations.

In 1960, during a narrowly won election, voters ages 18-24 preferred Kennedy’s democrats by 4 points. However, in an election in which those who might have read Yertle the Turtle as a child were within the younger demographics, such as 1980, those aged between 18-29 slightly preferred the democrats despite the overwhelming 10 point advantage to the republicans overall. This shows that people who may have read Yertle the Turtle growing up were more likely to resist the shift towards the republican party exhibited by the rest of society.

Critics of Seuss’ gigantic social impact might argue that the effect of Yertle the Turtle on young people’s political views is necessarily negligible in the face of broader social trends or the specifics of the electoral race in question. This is because of the powerful anti-Seuss lobby and anyone spouting this view should be mistrusted on principle, as Yertle the Turtle is an undeniably gargantuan work in the public consciousness, and always will be.

The Lorax

Even more consequential was the pioneering manifesto of green anti-capitalism, The Lorax. The 1972 election was poor for the democrats, and under 30’s were won by Nixon by 4 points. In 1988, the youth voted for Dukakis even less than this.

However, to claim that The Lorax had failed in its goal would be to ignore that in 1985 the early form of the Green party, the Committees of Correspondence was founded, and it became the Greens in 1990. This has no explanation other than the influence of Seuss’ work.

Additionally, this election had the weakest turnout among youth of any election in which that statistic was recorded up to that point. This is evidence of the increasing apathy that young voters held towards the two major parties. In particular, the Seuss-consuming left wing majority of young people were far less politically active due to a sense of rebellion against the establishment brought about by Seussian anti-hierarchical ideology than illiterate young conservatives who dutifully tried their best to read the word “Republican” and put an “X” in the box next to it every election.

Conclusion

In conclusion, only the likes of Lenin or Garibaldi could be said to have had an effect on their respective nation’s government as significant as that which Theodore Geisel had on the American populace. Readers will note that Seuss’ work has seeped so far into their consciousness that even the suggestion of cats in the same sentence as hats brings about a righteous sense of anarchism.

Is it really a coincidence that Seuss selected an elephant, the symbol of the democratic party, as the defender of civil rights in Horton Hears a Who (1954), a few years before the ideological “party switch” of mid-century US politics, spurred by the decision to embrace the civil rights movement on the part of the democrats? Seuss was obviously behind it. Seuss was behind it all — and always has been; the current lack of clarity in American politics is obviously due to the after-effects of the death of this political mastermind in 1991.