Nixon's Dream-and Black Reality

...A conviction that liberal politics has failed, together with (at times) a distaste for the whole ethic of liberalism...

...Indifference to the "idea" as well as the established institutions of the working class—something radically new among new radicals...

...third, the domestic aspect of this worldwide cultural transformation among the young...

...Won't they too exploit black workers and won't class conflict break out between the blacks too...

...It's the connections among them that are hard to grasp...

...What matters in the U.S...

...Since whites can batten off the welfare-state bureaucracy, why not blacks too...

...2) When significant enough, third parties in the U.S...

...For one thing, what the election indicated was that if Robert Kennedy had lived and won the Democratic nomination, he would surely have beaten Nixon hands down: a point that ought to weigh with those who felt the defeat of Nixon to be an overriding necessity...

...necessary it is...

...The re COMMENTS AND OPINIONS sponsibility for the split rests overwhelmingly with the Johnson-Humphrey wing of the Democratic party, which led this country into a disastrous war, morally and politically indefensible...

...On one hand: moralistic WASPS, righteous Lindsay-Republicans, selling Nixon's "black capitalism" eyewash, and aligning themselves with "black militants" and some "radical" intellectuals...

...Between 11' and 2 million Negroes belong to trade unions...

...4) Even to approach these goals, the Administration will have to try to end the Vietnam War—or what seems more immediately possible, to gain a tacit understanding with the Communists for a gradual de-escalation of the fighting...

...5) Most of the talk about "black capitalism" is simply rubbish, intended—consciously so—to evade the enormous social cost of abolishing the ghettos...

...It is beginning to perceive race rather than economic interest as its major concern...

...that this country should have given them so much bitter cause for such a feeling is a moral outrage...

...The result will be some changes in the welfare system, family allowances, etc., which can be justified on the ground of efficiency...

...How this is to be achieved—by blunt oppression, meliorist legislation, or both—the Nixon people don't yet know...

...7) Still, as the Republicans patch together a coalition on the Right, developing a harmonious relationship with the conservative Southern Democrats, it may be that a sufficient shift of votes (and what the votes indicate) has already occurred to create a serious redistribution of political power...

...Still, the fact remains that working and living in an industrial mass society, and gaining increased power and sophistication in local politics, is not really harmonious with the idea of separatism...

...Negotiations in Paris could then drag on, casualties be diminished, public attention diverted...

...have usually been absorbed into one or another of the major parties, thereby accelerating a realignment in political relationships...

...When will Negro parents discover that having black nationalist teachers in the schools does not necessarily solve the problems of their children as students or as future adults having to live in American society...

...The percentage of working-class support for Wallace went down from COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 21 to 15 in the month before the election, so that finally it wasn't much greater among blue-collar workers than any other segment of the population...

...It may be that we simply have to live through certain kinds of upheavals and enactments, while trying to minimize the extent to which they will prove to be self-defeating...

...For another, it must be granted that what the unions achieved, while not to be depreciated, was mainly to prevent a rout...

...But with this difference: within the deprived and distraught black communities, these new black bureaucrats may command a degree of power and influence their white equivalents never could...

...6) Petty-bourgeois tinkering will take the form of little businesses—dry-cleaning stores, a few small factories—run by blacks...

...it remains intensely disturbed by the Vietnam War...

...That such a development would hardly bring affluence to Harlem or Watts seems obvious...

...A feeling shared by many young people throughout the world that their generation comes to maturity at a point which signifies a major turning point in the history of Western culture...

...Some black behavior is certain to be self-defeating...

...4) The support of blue-collar workers for Democratic Presidential candidates has, in any case, been steadily declining—from 78 per cent for Truman in 1948 to between 50 and 65 per cent between 1952 and 1962...

...10) All the while, deeper and more lasting socio-economic trends continue: above all, the slow absorption of an increasing number of Negroes into the workforce and thereby, at least partially, the society...

...A revolt against the drive to success and against the ethic of work...

...It means heavier taxes on affluent whites: there is no other way...

...Any politics, no matter how well-intentioned or "radically" motivated, which pits poor black against plebeian white is a politics of disaster...

...I therefore do not entirely see the grounds for the joy expressed by those (e.g., Penn Kemble, National Secretary of the Socialist party, in a recent Commentary article) who believe "coalition politics" signifies little more than the present attachment of the unions to the Humphrey wing of the Democratic party...

...This is especially true among the youth...

...That means the constant possibility (danger) of new crisis, as in the Middle East, new interventions and local wars...

...To have persuaded some of the workers to come back to Hubert is not yet to cope with the basic problem raised by their earlier inclination to switch to Wallace...

...But there are clearly aspects of the drawing-together and drawing-apart of the blacks which—if carried through over the next decade and accepted by a growing number of Negroes—would signify the material, the COMMENTS AND OPINIONS potential of nationhood...

...There is much stress on the limits COMMENTS AND OPINIONS of U.S...

...Meanwhile all elements of the "Establishment" seem to agree that a less blatantly interventionist foreign policy is called for...

...he wants a "modem" government—a welfare state responsive to the welfare of business and the middle class, but also responsive enough to those at the bottom so as to prevent too costly a disruption of "normal" life in this country...

...Let enough workers break away from the Democrats in the North, let enough Negroes lapse into apathy, let enough support be picked up by Nixon from the South, and a new margin—thereby, a new relationship—is created...

...Such a confrontation, if it comes into being, could only be disastrous for both the plebeian whites and the poor blacks...

...The New Deal, it is assumed by the Nixon people, is here to stay...

...The professional middle class, though not large enough to be able to affect major political changes by itself, is nevertheless the fastest-growing segment of the population...

...One consequence of such a development might be, within a few years, a new internal struggle within the black communities, leading to the appearance of more serious political leaders than today occupy public attention...

...The significant long-range tendency is that a minority of the white working class seems prepared to drift away from its traditional attachment to Democratic-party liberalism...

...They are conservatives, not reactionaries...

...his views have captured the imagination of black youth...

...But economics is radically insufficient for understanding the new mood of many American Negroes...

...It need surprise no one if many of the most vociferous "black militants" turn out to be absorbed quite nicely by the society they denounce—and not because they consciously betray their ideals, but because they have failed to analyze the reality of their situation...

...Here are a few notes on the current political situation in the U.S., together with notes on some attendant but distinct problems...

...To be sure, both sides—the unionists and the "conscience" group—have aggravated the split...

...Nixon isn't Goldwater...

...second, because the social disorder in the Northern cities that alienated plebeian and lower-middleclass whites, even tempting some of them to vote for Wallace, is likely to continue for some time...

...Easy it's not...

...Articulate, prosperous, sometimes organized, they sometimes overestimate their own power—about to the same extent, I'd guess, that trade union leaders underestimate it...

...The temptation is to woo Wallace's supporters with "law-&-order" appeals and thereby widen the popular base of the Administration...

...More and more blacks are being employed in offices, and more and more as semiprofessionals...

...it signifies will, devotion, energy, intensity...

...1) Within the Negro world there was a deep conflict in substance and style between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. At least for now, Malcolm has won...

...Anyone observing black students in California can't help recognizing that there is a certain plunge into collective irrationality and violence, as if the establishment of black pride is seen as requiring the refusal of rational calculation and measured interest...

...Trivial racketeering will occur as the result of the appearance of a black entrepreneurialadventurist bureaucracy...

...How are we going to work out a politics that takes account of these three levels or elements of social reality—first, the fragmentation of American politics...

...So long as the Democratic party remains under its present leadership, there isn't much prospect for winning the support of these people...

...For Nixon, Wallace represents both temptation and threat...

...That Negroes should still feel the need to shake off the remains of the slave psychology is of course a tragedy...

...Their main political task will be to keep open channels of discussion, as well as to encourage at least partial cooperation between the elements of yesterday's left-liberal coalition...

...Bridges, pontoons, life-lines connecting the two ways of thinking and responding we do not yet have...

...they respond to perceived situations, not ideological notions...

...The relationship of the Wallace movement to Nixon Republicanism is somewhat like that of the New Left to Democratic liberalism—though Wallace has, of course, far more popular support than the New Left...

...The possibility that the Nixon Administration can succeed at least partly in this goal is much increased by the fragmentation of American politics...

...The only interruption in this downward trend occurred in 1964, when Goldwater managed to persuade the workers he was a direct threat to their security...

...9) There will be provocations on both sides...

...This hardly seems evidence of a large-scale revolutionary upsurge among the blacks...

...3) Political fragmentation is most visible on the liberal-left...

...On the other side: lower-middle-class and working-class whites, drawing upon ethnic minorities and large portions of the Jewish population...

...It is not radical, but it desires social reform...

...6) The one major addition to Democratic strength over the last few decades has been the Negro vote...

...Everyone has underestimated the importance of the Wallace vote—everyone, I'd guess, but the canny operators who direct the Nixon strategy...

...11) The ultimate question then becomes: Which will make itself sooner felt— the rise of a solid Negro working class and lower middle class, gaining in economic strength and political power, or the upsurge of declassed, chaotic, adventuristic elements...

...This means appropriations by the federal government: there is no other way...

...A strong revulsion against traditional ideas concerning education, which in extreme instances takes the form of antirationalism...

...5) In 1968 the appeal to class interest, so urgently directed to the workers by the union leadership during the last few weeks of the election, was reasonably successful...

...Neo-isolation is, in its more extreme forms, a fantasy...

...it is a second New Deal, a further expansion of welfare statism, that they wish to resist...

...Right now it seems almost impossible to make distinctions: for one thing, no one involved in the assertion of blackness wants them...

...Now, the absorption of Negroes into the work-force and thereby the socioeconomic life of the nation doesn't necessarily or quickly make for the kind of "integration" radicals and liberals have traditionally wanted...

...but some, despite its revolutionary dress, may serve to bring the blacks certain gains within the bargaining system of the welfare state...

...and a decline in turmoil, violence, and protest...

...If socialism can't be built in one country, poverty can't be eliminated in one neighborhood...

...Serious radicals and liberals will bend every effort to prevent such an alignment of forces...

...The impulse to assert identity, to assault white nerves, to declare black manhood—all this is simultaneously remarkable and pathetic, authentic and false...

...is utterly hopeless, and second because the effort even to define what it might signify or how it might be realized has not been seriously undertaken...

...Or more accurately: it is beginning to see itself as economically— and thereby socially—threatened by the blacks (sometimes, paradoxically, as socially and thereby economically threatened...

...What is more likely now is the creation of a black bureaucracy, attached to school boards, antipoverty programs, urban administrations, and universities, clinging to the rhetoric of "black revolution" while easing into middle-class comforts...

...notable gains are being made in some of these unions by Negro caucuses seeking a larger share of paid jobs, local posts, etc...

...5) There will be an effort to establish an "era of good feeling" based on a moderateconservative ideology...

...The two are by no means the same, though part of the present confusion is that they are often taken to be the same...

...Despite the apocalyptic noises of Cleaver, Gregory, Innes, etc., some 90 per cent of the black vote remained Democratic...

...To say that having control of Harlem wouldn't solve its basic socio-economic problems is true...

...4) A friend has suggested that it's as if the slave revolt that "should" have taken place 120 years ago were now being symbolically and belatedly enacted...

...the U.S...

...to remain a major, if not world-dominating, power...

...Close to 10 million votes, 13 per cent of the total, the largest any third party ever won in the U.S.—is that a mere flash in the pan...

...A major concern here is to minimize the domestic repercussions of the Vietnam War, thereby enabling either a slow disentanglement or a limited continuation...

...They want the good life to continue for the American middle class...

...The unions: by their reactionary stubbornness on Vietnam, by their insensitivity to new social problems, by their contempt for political "amateurs" and "eggheads...

...It should neither be brushed aside nor exalted into a cure-all...

...10) In some cities there seems to be a new political confrontation...

...is the margin of voting strength...

...Or: a policy of offering largescale government incentives to corporations so that they will be able to assume social responsibilities at an accustomed profit...

...And even that majority of Negroes which, continuing to vote Democratic, does not accept the black nationalist ideology, nevertheless seems willing to give the extremists a certain freedom of action within the ghettos...

...The vast bulk of Negro workers will work not in cleaning stores set up by "black capitalism" but in plants owned by GM and Republic Steel...

...The LaFollette insurgency of the twenties helped prepare the way for the New Deal of the thirties...

...Their hope for a new social equilibrium derives, in their view, from the following: 1) Old-fashioned faith in the capitalist system, which leads them to try enlarging the socio-economic space allowed to free enterprise as a way of coping with the social problems created by free enterprise...

...But it does raise important questions: • To what extent is this an inevitable development, part of the gradual absorption—with politics doing the work of economics—of managerial and quasi-intellectual blacks into the society...

...Nevertheless, the U.S...

...They like to see whitey harassed...

...remains a world power—as it would remain, no matter who became President...

...The turn-over of leadership within the Negro world has been fantastic these last 10 or 15 years, and there is no reason to suppose it's going to stop with Roy Innes...

...Politics, after all, signifies more than counting of noses...

...8) There is certain to be an increased exacerbation of conflict between blacks and whites, especially the poor on both sides who are pressed together in adjacent neighborhoods...

...A strong inclination toward absolutist morality, sometimes absolutist moralism, by means of which elements of belief and feeling usually attached in the past to religion are now directed toward politics...

...but any politics which claims to be concerned with radical change and doesn't in some way try to cope with this new development is bound to run into trouble...

...Really to provide adequate housing, decent jobs, good education, and necessary social services to the American Negroes would cost an enormous amount of money— perhaps as much as that miserable Vietnam War...

...second, the new developments in the American Negro community...

...Before and during the election there was already a fissure between the established domestic-welfare coalition, resting mainly on the unions but drawing heavy support from Negro voters, and the "conscience constituency," middle-class in composition, campusoriented, concerned mainly with issues like the Vietnam War, foreign policy in general, and social (as distinct from merely economic) problems at home...

...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS III—Cultural Revolution, Cultural Counterrevolution A LARGE-SCALE TRANSFORMATION of values and life-styles is taking place among the young throughout the world...

...1) This fragmentation appears, first of all, on the right...

...A recurrent impulse toward utopian communitarianism, the effort to realize in the small those visions of the good society that have not been realized in the large...

...Whatever the cultural and spiritual benefits of learning Swahili, they aren't likely to help many Negroes who, rightly or wrongly, want to "make it" in American society...

...A traditional "coalition politics" which ignores the second and third of these seems to me inadequate...

...9) There is not much likelihood that this breach between the elements that once made up the New Deal-and-After Coalition will soon be healed...

...3) Still, the Nixon people recognize the need for some innovation, if only because that may be the one way of re-establishing a social equilibrium...

...Yet it also became clear that to achieve even this modest gain—that is, to prevent a major penetration into the working class by the reactionary Wallace movement—the unions had to make a considerable effort...

...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 7) The trend toward localism—with some reality and more appearance of black control of black communities—seems irreversible...

...For at least a time, you can have both old-fashioned segregation, especially in housing, and an increasing entry of Negroes into the work-force...

...Earlier predictions of the rise of a black bourgeoisie were premature, since for a genuine black bourgeoisie to have been created would have meant to allow at least some Negroes a significant entry into American corporate power...

...11— New Moods in the Black World IF I STRESSED before that most Negro voters continue to support the Democratic ticket, now I want to stress the extent to which significant groups of the Negroes have become "black...

...Which will make itself sooner felt—the underlying socio-economic processes or the surface political turmoil...

...power in the world today: having the ability to blow up the world doesn't mean you necessarily can tell every small country what to do...

...That it would also signify an unprecedented crisis for the U.S...

...2) Right-wing Keynesianism, that is, continuing a version of welfare-state economics and deficit financing, while cutting "marginal" social programs (antipoverty...

...the crush to find black teachers for "black studies" programs in the colleges is ferocious...

...The middle-class reformers: by their self-righteous moralism and by their shameful ignorance of the conditions and needs of the working class...

...At which point, however, will there be a revolt against this stratum of black bureaucrats within the ghetto...

...2) Economics may be at the heart of the Negro dilemma, and eventual solutions may be impossible without major economic measures leading to a redistribution of wealth...

...need hardly be added...

...In barest outline, let me specify a few items in this transformation: • A willed and self-conscious generational break, defined as a clash between young and old more insistently than any similar phenomenon of recent times...

...Black capitalism" will be indulged, partly to conciliate militants and partly to avoid the costs and fears of integration...

...And to what extent may the latter get in the way of—or speed up—the former...

...3) Some—who can say how much?—of what is happening among the blacks is rhetoric, a competition in boastfulness, a nerve-wracked release of frustration...

...The main goal of the Nixon Administration is the restoration of social order —social peace—in the United States...

...Whether a similar penetration four years from now might be more successful is an open question...

...But the movement for localism stems from authentic needs...

...And if that isn't done, then "black capitalism" can only signify petty-bourgeois tinkering and trivial racketeering...

...8) A major problem, then, for the Democrats is the suburban middle class, attracted to Eugene McCarthy (at the moment, a bit of a crumbling hero) but now politically adrift...

...Any Left politics which does not begin with this fact must be a politics of irrelevance or evasion...

...We do not yet have a serious formation of black nationhood, first because the prospect for such a nation within the U.S...

...The full contours and significance of this transformation it is too soon to describe...

...What we must do—at the risk of dizzying ourselves—is to keep within our field of vision all of these discordant matters...

...An articulate and visible segment of the Negroes, even if only a small minority, has turned to separatism...

...The threat is that a right-wing third party may siphon away the votes of millions of ideological Republicans who, adoring Goldwater, accepted Nixon as lesser evil...

...My guess is that the Wallace movement won't easily be absorbed in a similar way—first, because its mass base is regional, a Southern racism as persistent as it is irrational...

...A new-style politics which ignores the persistence and power of the traditional "coalition" seems to me doomed to futility...