Conrad: Are you trying to say that Seeger et al. were TOO political and that's why folk music is less popular today than it might have been? That too many people who otherwise would have been folk music fans were turned off by his politics? And that's a bad thing?

Also, you refer to "others who did the same thing in the first half of the 20th century" who were on the opposite side from Seeger and presumably conservative—but I have no idea who those people are/were. Can you give some examples?

Burl Ives comes to mind, but he was far less political than Seeger, wasn't he?