And Now, God Help Us, Nixon

...If the kinds of social disorder continue which "turn off" large sections of COMMENTS AND OPINIONS the white working and middle classes, it is possible that many of the people who in 1963 switched back to Humphrey will be ready in 1972 for an explosion of resentment and a vote for Wallace...

...Consider the recent talk about "black power" —the fascination expressed in some intellectual circles with violence, separatism, guerrilla warfare...

...Were they unionists who, on economic matters, would still be ready to support progressive measures—despite their susceptibility to racist appeals...

...For two parallel reasons, I'd say...

...Or is it more likely they were still trapped in traditional kinds of apathy...

...On some issues, right now, that's impossible e.g...

...We must try to recognize the difference between a fundamental political commitment and a particular, often uncomfortable choice in the voting booth...

...Now even at that point, when things were bad enough, this wasn't true...

...But for your own sake, you will have to learn to cooperate with them, even if only in limited ways...

...Politics doesn't require total agreement: it's possible to work together on some issues and not on others...

...Dear Left-Liberal Friends: Don't think those 15 million unionists are going to disappear overnight...

...But despite their virtual monopoly of intellectual attention and the vast amounts of time TV has given them, Floyd McKissick, Dick Gregory, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and Roy Innes had very little political influence...

...The "black militants" can create "confrontations," but so far their political influence among American Negroes remains very small...

...they talk in relatively high-falutin ways and they show a regrettable indifference or ignorance about the economic issues on which you have concentrated...

...Probably, Wallace's showing will lead to a Southern Congressional bloc more aggressive than in the past and likely to exact stiff terms for cooperating with the conservative Republicans...

...What I wrote in our last issue was, therefore, wrong...

...Above all they're persistent: they can't retire on sabbaticals...

...The polls showed trade-union support for Wallace to be only a trifle greater than middle-class support...

...But for an over-all politics in this country, that's just not enough...

...Of the millions of Negroes who voted, 90 per cent supported the Democratic party...

...It was right to work for Eugene McCarthy, to fight Humphrey straight down to the nomination, and to keep criticizing Humphrey after he got the nomination...

...You can grumble all you want about their attitude toward unions— which partly, after all, is your own fault— but these people are real and for keeps...

...The Wallace Vote SOME COMMENTATORS have dismissed the Wallace campaign as a failure because he got the 13 per cent which was his original goal rather than the 20 per cent the mid-October polls registered for him...

...To these, something like the following might be said: Dear Trade Union Friends: The educated middle class keeps growing in size and importance...

...Because we ought to keep clear the difference between TV spectacle and social actuality, between Ramparts fantasy and what's happening in politics...

...And you might also recognize that some of your self-righteous moralism can be a swift pain...

...We don't yet have adequate statistics, but it would be important to know: the unionists drawn to Wallace, were they the same ones who have traditionally voted Republican...

...It is surely a delusion to suppose that the labor vote can be dismissed as a crumbling remnant of the past...

...But long, intensive, patient discussions must begin, and with the common understanding that until a new alliance is gradually cemented we will be in for some very hard times...

...I think these commentators are wrong...

...I had written in DISSENT that I wouldn't vote for Humphrey unless he changed his stand on Vietnam...

...Old Politics, New Politics MOST OF THE TALK about Old and New Politics seems an oversimplification, though it cannot be doubted that changes are in process...

...About a third of the labor vote has always gone Republican...

...And a good portion of those labor voters which had been drawn to Wallace were pulled back at the last minute by the exertions of an alarmed union leadership...

...I didn't like Humphrey any more than before, but given this choice I hadn't made in a world I hadn't made, I wanted Nixon defeated, period...

...The mere fact that Wallace was "contained" in the North is not yet decisive...

...In any case, the contempt one frequently encountered among intellectuals when unions were mentioned was (to be polite) unwarranted...

...They have energy, money, idealism...

...That could only mean, Humphrey elected...

...They differ from you in style and rhetoric...

...The Real World IT WOULD also be good for those of us on the Left to conclude from the election that there's a difference between what goes on in our heads and what goes on in the world...

...They are raising issues that affect the whole country, issues that the unions have lamentably failed to consider or confront, and you'll have to find ways of relating what they say to what you say...

...The Old Politics, if that's what you wish to call it, didn't do so badly—if you consider the handicaps it faced in defections from Right and Left, an unpopular war, a dubious candidate, a disastrous convention, etc...

...Above all, we must avoid like the plague the most terrible political danger of the years COMMENTS AND OPINIONS ahead: the danger of a new-style "confronta tion" between white working class and middle class, on the one hand, and an alignment of high-minded intellectuals, "black militants," and student leftists on the oher hand...

...Were they older or younger workers...

...Given the social immobilism Nixon represents, it could become a vicious circle...

...That would insure an all-but-permanent victory for the Right...

...Still, why did the Wallace support decline between mid-October and Election Day...

...There you will have to go your own way, as in the McCarthy campaign...

...You must become more responsive to the needs and feelings of American workers...

...Unavoidably we tend to forget that our self-generated excitements and valid sentiments can blind us to gross realities...

...Many of these people, active in the McCarthy campaign, are going to be important in American politics...

...Can we really suppose that those who didn't vote were heeding the "militant" call to boycott the election...

...your own children, whom you've worked so hard to get through college, are among them...

...But when it came to the actual vote, there was a difference significant enough to require a choice...

...The unions did a pretty effective— in Michigan, a quite remarkable—job of regathering their political strength...

...What's more, we all live in small enclaves: the university, the peace movement, the union staff, the intellectual group...

...And by Election Day this was significantly decreased...

...You must recognize that if you want to achieve maior gains, you must cooperate, even if in limited ways, with trade unions...

...Vietnam...

...The most urgent need in the coming months is for a series of unadvertised discussions meant to begin healing the split between the traditional bread-and-butter constituencies and the new "conscience" constituencies...

...Why does this matter...

...Quite certainly, the Wallace movement will be in a position seriously to threaten future campaigns by national Democratic tickets...

...They are a force, they have money, they have experience...

...And, in turn, if the Vietnam War drags out and the wretchedness of the ghettos is not sharply alleviated, the disorders of the past few years will continue...

...Millions of people will probably Iive somewhat worse under Nixon than they would have under Humphrey, and most of these millions are black...

...you must shake off the notion that they have all become affluent and complacent...

...Perhaps it shouldn't even be healed too quickly, in order to make possible a new internal relationship of forces and a new understanding of issues...

...A friend wrote me in October: "Stop deluding yourself—the American workers are for Wallace...

...but by mid-October, watching both men campaign, I wanted Nixon defeated, period...

...By and large, Negroes continued to support the liberal-labor coalition...

...They turn out lots of people to ring doorbells...

...The true significance of his movement is as a threat for 1972...

...Any candidate who can poll close to 10 million votes—far, far more than a socialist or left-wing candidate has ever received in this country—must be reckoned a political power...

...Just possibly, Nixon owes his victory to Wallace...

...It would be silly to suppose that the frac ture of the labor-liberal-Negro-intellectual al liance can be healed overnight...

...Far-Right voters in places like Orange County, California, who might ordinarily have been tempted to vote for Wallace apparently concluded that it would be more realistic, from their point of view, to elect Nixon...