Since the Joads were poor whites from Oklahoma, doesn’t that render the book “right wing populist” propaganda, which all “true liberals” are against?
I read the book and saw the movie. Many of the poor Okies from the Great Depression are probably many of the few Republicans left in California. In the thirties Steinbeck most likely thought they’d always be radical leftists like himself. Steinbeck himself lost a lot of his leftist radicalism before he died.